[dropcap]B[/dropcap]illy the Kid rode into Fort Sumner, New Mexico with five fellow fugitives on the night of Dec. 19, 1880, but sensing danger in the darkness, the most wanted outlaw in the Southwest pulled up leaving a young Texan in the lead.

If his parents had not perished in a smallpox epidemic soon after emigrating from Ireland, life might have been very different for Tom O’Folliard. Relatives in Uvalde, Texas took pity on the orphan and tried hard to mold him into a law-abiding adult...