The outlaw known as Billy the Kid died young, almost certainly before his 22nd birthday. His real name, according to most historians, was Henry, and he was born about 1859 in New York City to an Irish immigrant named Catherine McCarty. When Catherine died of tuberculosis in New Mexico in 1874, Henry was still a mischievous schoolboy, says author Michael Wallis. The youngster soon fell into card-playing and petty larceny, though, then shot a bully during a bar fight. Eventually he became embroiled in a violent turf battle brewing among ranchers in the New Mexico Territory. Just by avenging the deaths of friends and more than once escaping jail, the
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