“When you make a deal with the devil, you've got to expect the devil to show up.”
- Django Unchained
Recently I was doing a favorite thing, perusing one of our local used bookstores. I came away with three books: A Charles Bukowski novel, Ham on Rye, a travel account, Breakfast With Polygamists: Dispatches From the Margins of the Americas by David Seminara, and best of all, The Encyclopedia of Western Gun-Fighters, published in 1979. Do you think Amazon's all-knowing algorithms could have pointed me toward those random titles? We don't wander around like we once did. There's an app to prevent it. Too bad.
The gun-fighter book is fascinating. Those of us who grew up on a steady diet of westerns on TV and in the movies have seen the quick-draw, show down in the middle of a dusty street, depicted countless times. At the height of their popularity in the 1960s, there were 25 westerns on during prime time alone. Not one episode, I feel certain, was without some kind of shoot-out.
I'd been seeing some revisionist history the last few years poo-pooing the idea of rampant gun-play in the old West - the charge being that it's been overblown and sensationalized. I'd started to believe it myself. Maybe it was all Hollywood myth-making. Then I read a book called Ride the Devil's Herd: Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang. It dispelled right quick the idea that the discharging of hand-guns and rifles in the direction of other humans was rare on the western frontier. No siree, there was all kinds of well-documented shootings going on.
The Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters has further cemented that idea for me. Author, Bill O'Neal, through exhaustive research, documents 587 “gun-fights." But, only a handful he says, “satisfy the choreography of countless shootouts depicted in motion pictures, television series, and novels.”
He further explains:
In real gunfights, the primary consideration was not speed but accuracy. Gunfighters frequently did not even carry their weapons in holsters. Pistols were shoved into hip pockets, waistbands or coat pockets and a rifle or shotgun was almost always preferred over a handgun. The primary concern in a shootout was not hitting the other man first or in the right spot but just hitting him. In gunfight after gunfight, men emptied their weapons at their adversaries without wounding them, or inflicting only minor wounds.
Gunfighters made their living in numerous different ways: law officers, train, bank and stagecoach robbers; saloonkeepers, soldiers, army scouts and buffalo hunters who were accustomed to handling and using guns in their daily vocations and therefore were inclined toward violent solutions to their quarrels. Occasionally prospectors, con men, stage drivers and bounty hunters engaged in shootouts. A surprising number of farmers and one-time farmers participated in gunfights, as did school teachers, store clerks, butchers and actors. Gunmen often sold their services to both sides of the law, on the run one year and wearing a badge the next.
The people who settled the west were a breed of tough that we can't fathom today. In addition to tough, the gunfighters presented in the book were, almost to a man, ruthless SOB'S. It's also remarkable, given the difficulties of travel, the wide range of territory most of them covered. Many were born in the east but moved all over Kansas, the Indian territory of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
Of the 255 gun-fighters cited in the book, here's one of the shorter entries just to give you a flavor:
Frank Loving (Cockeyed Frank): Gambler
Loving was the victorious participant in one of the most celebrated gunfights in Western lore. A professional gambler, he was attracted to Dodge City during the 1870's and ultimately became involved in a fatal encounter with a local rowdy named Levi Richardson. Loving moved his operations to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and in 1882 he transferred to Trinidad, Colorado. A few days later Loving was killed by Jack Allen in a shootout in Trinidad, leaving a widow and two young children.
Gunfights:
April 5, 1879, Dodge City, Kansas: A quarrel over a woman had grown between Loving and Levi Richardson, a twenty-eight-year-old freighter who had come to Kansas from his native Wisconsin. Between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. on a Saturday night Richardson was in the Long Branch standing by the stove. He started to leave, but Loving entered and took a seat at a gambling table. Richardson followed him and sat down on the table, whereupon Cockeyed Frank stood up, and the two rivals began exchanging words.
“You damn son-of-a-bitch,” said Loving, “if you have anything to say about me why don't you come and say it to
my face like a gentleman?"
“You wouldn't fight,” sneered Richardson
“You try me and see!” retorted Loving.
Richardson went for his pistol, and Loving clawed for his. Richardson fired first, and when Loving tried to shoot back, his gun misfired. Loving ran behind a stove, with Richardson in pursuit. Richardson fired twice more , and the crowd scampered for cover. Loving then began to empty his gun methodically at his opponent. Richardson was hit, but continued to trigger his .44 as he staggered back and fell against a table.
Suddenly bystander William Duffy rushed forward and seized Richardson's weapon as the wounded man slumped to the floor. Struck in the chest, side and right arm, Richardson died within minutes; Loving suffered only a scratch on his hand.
April, 1882, Trinidad, Colorado: Loving had drifted into the mining territory of Colorado, where he continued to ply his trade. In Trinidad he encountered and began to quarrel with a former Dodge citizen, Jack Allen, who later became an evangelist. One night in Allen's saloon the two men exchanged sixteen shots, but none took effect. The next day Loving was emptying his revolver cylinder in George Hammond's hardware store when Allen suddenly appeared and shot the gambler to death.
That's all I've got. DRAW!