Brief Synopsis Of My Upcoming Book: Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid (Soon To Be In Print)

Brief Synopsis:

 

Lucy, a New York societal heiress, is sent to New Mexico to marry John H. Tunstall, a wealthy Englishman and proprietor. Miserable at the prospect of leaving the comforts of her home to live in the uncivilized west and to marry a man nine years her senior whom she does not love, she finds solace in her newfound friendship with Billy, an outlaw who is hired by Tunstall to work his fields and eventually becomes part of Tunstall’s hired guns, a group of men felt necessary by Tunstall in order to protect himself from the volatile circumstances of Lincoln County as his proprietary competition attempts to push him out by whatever means necessary, including murder.

The Santa Fe Ring is a notoriously crooked band of men who run Lincoln County and plot out the murder of John Tunstall in order to remove him from his role as their competitor in business and to relieve him of the audacity he exhibits in setting up industry within their territory despite their threats on his life. When The Ring finally eliminates John, they set their sights on the murder of Lucy to make a further example of their power after she threatens the town Sheriff due to his errant ways.

The Regulators, a gang of deputized men including Billy the Kid,  are created to serve justice to those involved in the murder of Tunstall, Hearing of the plot on Lucy’s life through the capture of Santa Fe Ring prisoners responsible for John’s death, they bring Lucy into their protective custody, as to do otherwise would mean the near certainty of sealing her fate by The Ring’s nefarious plan to do away with her.

Now riding with The Regulators, Lucy is recognized and becomes considered an outlaw with the gang after the prisoners in which The Regulators had been responsible for are killed while in their custody. With her new status, she is forced to continue on with The Regulators until her safety to return home can be assured. A problem arises with this plan, however, as Lucy herself wishes to not only stay with Billy, the boy whom she loves, but refuses to go back to a life that is confining and where her marriages are arranged as she is traded like chattel at her family’s convenience in order to contract business propositions. Lucy’s life in New York harbors no regard for her own happiness, a virtue she has discovered while experiencing the freedom of New Mexico and the love of Billy.

Further hindering her safe return is the bounty of a large sum of money Lucy’s father has placed on his daughter in the interest of having her caught and safely returned home which threatens to bring droves of bounty hunters and regular men alike to track her down. This not only potentially jeopardizes her life in the event she is found and a fight breaks out in order to capture her, but jeopardizes the lives of the men meant to protect her as they now must consider additionally contending with those outside the pack of their familiar enemies.

The Regulators, now stripped of their lawful position, are resigned to fight The Santa Fe Ring and demolish this band of corrupt law and businessmen who cause the oppression of the territory’s people, and employs the use of crooked law in order to attain wealth and justice for their own evil ends. Lucy fights with her own conscience over the war that breaks out between the two factions, but ultimately decides to keep running with her friends, The Regulators, as she is willing to die in order to preserve her own freedom, a desire which runs parallel to the ideals of The Regulators in eradicating The Ring and ridding the territory of them.

Lucy experiences a whole new side of life in the west and feels as though a newborn babe experiencing for the first time the autonomy she had been denied all of her life. It is during all of this when she meets James Moffey, another young boy to whom she becomes attached and who, in return, falls in love with Lucy much to Billy’s chagrin as the latter is both in love with Lucy, sharing a special, unbreakable bond with her, and feels responsible for her protection from any harm which could befall her in such a vicious climate as the west. Further causing Billy agitation is the fact that he makes every effort to talk Lucy into going back to New York despite his wanting her with him as he is willing to sacrifice being with her in the interest of her safety, while Moffey encourages her to stay as he wants to be with her. Billy finds Moffey’s behavior to be irritatingly selfish and counter-productive to his own desire to keep her safe from injury, convincing him that Moffey could not possibly truly love her if he is willing to subject Lucy to a life of poverty and struggle should she survive the war and stay with someone so beneath her in station.

In addition, Lucy must face the torment of dealing with the girls Billy carries on relationships with in the towns that sympathize with and hide The Regulators, protecting them from their enemies. She is forced the humiliation of these girls who taunt her out of jealousy over Billy. Each trial and tribulation that Lucy must face contributes to the alteration of her lady-like refinement into something hard-bitten as she is obligated to survive the harsh climate she is caught in the middle of as it wears down her polish and roughens her edges. The influences of both The Regulators and the circumstances of what results in the Five Days War of Lincoln County shifts Lucy’s once distinguished character into something resembling a radical who is willing to do what needs to be done to defend herself and guard her friends in the midst of an ugly battle devised from greed.

Among other things, this novel touches on the concept of the levels in which we as people, sophisticated or otherwise, are willing to sink to in the interest of self-preservation.