Telling the Villain's Story

 By Kathleen Rice Adams

Bad boys of the Old West — they’re endlessly fascinating. Why is that? Maybe it’s because they lived such bold, flash-in-the-pan lives, as untamed as the land they roamed. Some have become such mythic figures, it’s difficult to tell fact from fiction. True or not, their legends live on ... and in some cases, so do the last or near-last words that — in strange, sad ways — defined their short, reckless lives.

Bits and pieces like the ones below bring real-life villains to life and sometimes provide insight into the men behind the myths. Still, I often find myself wondering “who were these guys?” Had I been a contemporary, would I have seen the same life historians recorded? Or would the real person have been astoundingly different from what we think we know 100 years later?

All of the bad guys below had parents, grandparents, siblings. Some had wives and children. One, “Deacon Jim” Miller (also known as “Killer Jim Miller”) was a pillar of the church and his community ... when he wasn’t eliminating someone for money. I’ve written about several of them, and I provided links to those posts for those who are interested in learning more.

As an author of historical fiction, part of my job is to entertain, but I believe there’s another, equally important part, as well: getting the facts straight — or as close to straight as I’m able. Of course, fiction isn’t fact, and no fiction author worth his or her salt lets facts get in the way of a good story. Nevertheless, studying the past and the kinds of people about whom we write is almost a sacred trust for many of us who write historical fiction. Only by familiarizing ourselves with the larger-than-life and the mundane can we give any authority or verisimilitude to the lives we create.

As the writerly saying goes, “Even the villain is the hero of his own life story.” Maybe that’s why I spend so much time researching bad boys ... and why the heroes in my stories so often are outlaws, even when they wear badges. After all, somebody has to tell the villains’ life stories, right?

I deserve this fate. It is a debt I owe for my wild, reckless life.
—Wild Bill Longley, age 27; hanged for the murder of a childhood friend in Giddings, Texas, Oct. 11, 1878

Aw, go to Hell you long-legged son-of-a-bitch.
—Tom O’Folliard (rustler and best friend of Billy the Kid), age 22, to Sheriff Pat Garrett shortly after Garrett mortally wounded him during a manhunt near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, Dec. 19, 1880

I'm not afraid to die like a man fighting, but I would not like to be killed like a dog unarmed.
—Billy the Kid, age 21, in a March 1879 letter to New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace (the Kid was shot to death by Sheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, July 14, 1881)

Can’t you hurry this up a bit? I hear they eat dinner in Hades at twelve sharp, and I don’t aim to be late.
—Black Jack Ketchum, age 37, decapitated during hanging for train robbery, Clayton, New Mexico, April 26, 1901

Killing men is my specialty. I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.
—Tom Horn (Pinkerton detective turned assassin), one day shy of 43; hanged for the murder of a 14-year-old boy in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Nov. 20, 1903

Let the record show I’ve killed 51 men. Let ’er rip.
—“Deacon Jim” Miller, age 42, professional assassin, lynched for the contract killing of a former U.S. marshal in Ada, Oklahoma, April 19, 1909

I love it [the bandit life]. It is wild with adventure.
—Henry Starr, age 53, shortly before he was shot during an attempted bank robbery in Harrison, Arkansas, on Feb. 18, 1921 (He died four days later.)









Image credits
Black Jack Ketchum: University of New Mexico
Tom Horn at the Cheyenne Jail, 1902: Wyoming State Archives
Henry Starr: University of Arkansas, Little Rock

Bad boys, good guys, and everything in between line the pages of Prairie Rose Publications' two anthologies, Hearts and Spurs and Wishing for a Cowboy. Both are available in print and ebook at your favorite online bookstore.