Billy the Kid — Theodore Taylor

This YA Western adventure imagines an alternate fate for the famous outlaw: “Readers will hang on anxiously and eagerly as the plot gallops [forward]” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
 
William H. Bonney Jr., better known as Billy the Kid, isn't afraid to take risks. But when a train passenger recognizes him in the middle of a heist near his hometown, it seems like the odds have finally caught up with him.
 
Fed up with Billy's bad ways, The Law sends its best man to bring him in: Sheriff Willis Monroe, Billy's own cousin and former best friend. But Willis isn't the only one on Billy's tail. The Kid's back-stabbing partners are hunting him, too -- and a conniving posse wants Billy (and the sheriff!) dead. This fictional tale of real-life legend Billy the Kid imagines William Bonney's fate had his life of crime taken a very different turn.
 
This edition includes an author's note about the real Billy the Kid.