Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico
The
legend of Billy the Kid is one that has been told over and over again, well
before the young boy ever breathed his last.
Before I wrote Bandita
Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid, I intended to simply write a historically
accurate, fictional account of Billy; a sort of modern-told biography. There is so much about the Kid
we don’t know, and my intention was to fill in those gaps by creating an
interesting version of the biographical accounts for the reader’s disposal.
My inspiration for the modern telling of this story had a couple of
checkpoints which were as follows: I wouldn't simply
pilfer the hard-won research uncovered by revered historians and pass it off as
my own work, and I had no intention of telling the same story yet again. Use
what I've been taught by those who worked hard to give us his story, yes, but
give it my own outlook. His story
has
been told many times over
from the many different perspectives of historians and authors (not to mention in
film and song), but it’s always the same story with slivers of new information
if the reader is lucky. I simply chose to give it my own spin.
I decided I wanted to give my audience
an interpretation of who I believed the Kid to be. I didn’t want to create
another retelling of the same old tale. Interesting though the biographies are,
of course (and without the
numerous accounts of which I wouldn’t have gained the amazing insight I have into
William H. Bonney, and for that I will always be grateful for and cherish them),
I wanted to breathe new
life into his story. I wanted to create an example for a new generation, and so
I wrote the events as true as I know them to be as historical fiction for a
modern audience. It was, however, very important to me to keep things as
accurate as possible; I had
a responsibility to Billy’s
legacy, as all historians do, if
I planned to articulate
his life.
With the advent of the main protagonist,
Lucy Howard (or the titular Bandita), I was able to bring the reader intimately
close to Billy in such a
way that a male protagonist could not, but I found she presented another
aspect of the Victorian time period: The oppression of the female individual.
Lucy represented the restrained yet
strong-willed, resolute
woman of the century, but she did something other than get close to Billy, and
that was to play the part of the foil to Billy’s “chilling” outlaw. She drives
him absolutely crazy and challenges him repeatedly, but he adores her
nevertheless.
Billy was impassioned, could be
ruthless if crossed, and possessed the grit to back up his words with a bullet
if he had to, but he was also fiercely loyal, had a gratuitous sense of humor,
and was a well-groomed (often
referred to as a “dandy” in his day), respectful gentleman to the
elderly, children, and especially the ladies. His relationship with Lucy grants
contention to this last point and allows the reader to explore the romantic
tension between male and female, but Lucy also allows humor to flow freely into the story and lets Billy
be human in the way he deserves rather than the cold-blooded killer he’s become
known as through legend.
I had only intended to write one book, but as time would prove, there
was so much to this story that an extension only seemed inevitable. In the first half of the first
book I had to communicate character development to the reader, and in addition
I had to relate the tension that led to the little-big, famous (but oft forgot)
war that made Billy who he was—Without that war, there would be no Billy the
Kid. And then there
was the fact that I had fallen absolutely in love with Lucy and realized
that she had much to say, and not just about Billy the Kid and his tribulations,
but about her own circumstances.
It became my understanding
that she would be an integral part of the story on so many levels, whether
we’re talking about the role of women during the 19th century, or
vividly relating Billy’s story. She’s wildly vocal and has a wonderfully
frank sense of sass. She was the perfect match-wit for Billy, and I wanted to
discover what this girl was about. I wanted to explore her relationship with
him, giving them both the chance to explain who they are to their audience. It
was fiction meeting fact, yes, but Lucy is very real in the mind. She is a
representation of what many of us women want out of life. The difference is the period of
time we live in.
Because this book is not only relative to Billy and the
events of his life, but also a portrait of his legend, and because Lucy gets a
say, it is an extensive tale, and one I plan to continue telling.
Please visit my website: Nicole Maddalo Dixon
