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Monday, January 27, 2014

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.











22 comments:

  1. Thanks for writing about my favorite subjects. The "bad boys" (and some girls) of the Old West make for fascinating reading. You touched on something briefly--the fact that so many of them wore badges at one time or another. But apparently, the financial benefit of being a lawman couldn't quite match the demands of leading a more extravagant lifestyle.

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    1. LOL! Yeah, Tom, it seems like a lot of these guys had champagne tastes, and lawdogging definitely provided only a beer budget -- if that. I've always wondered why some men took jobs upholding the law. Adrenaline junkies, maybe? That's about the only reason I can imagine for volunteering to stand in front of bullets in exchange for subsistence wages. Quite a few lawmen made their real income with a second job: ranching, operating a saloon or freight line, gambling, bounty hunting ... outlawry.... Hm. ;-)

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  2. In my humble opinion, historians and authors tend to sway like a wheat stock when it comes to the "bad boys" of the West. For so many years they were portrayed as Robin Hoods, albeit without the merry men. Then it became popular to give all black hearts and rotten teeth. As you show with this article, the truth lies in between (with a few swinging the pendulum wide one way or the other).

    I agree, Tex, our job as fiction writers is to entertain, but we should ride as close to the line of historic fact as possible.

    --Kirsten

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    1. Now why am I not surprised to hear you say "we should ride as close to the line of historic fact as possible," Ms. Museum Curator? :-D

      I completely agree, Rustler -- with everything you said. (Which is becoming a habit around here. How terrifying is that? ;-) ) People are complex. That's good news for writers. Gives us lots to play with. :-)

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  3. Kathleen, these folks are so fascinating. I confess when going through the books and papers from back when it is the crimes and the folks who commit them that draw my eye. I always want to know why, why, why. Why they did it. Why they turned out as they did and why they lived as they did. Great post and thanks. Doris

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    1. Doris, you're a woman after my own heart. It's those "why"s that trap me in research for hours on end. Who were these guys when they weren't stealing and killing? What were their families like? Was there one seminal event in their lives that "turned" them?

      I think STAR TREK got it wrong: Space isn't the final frontier. That honor goes to the human mind. :-)

      Thanks for dropping in to comment, lady! :-)

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  4. Kathleen, what a wonderful post. I agree with you! These men have individual stories that would be so wonderful to understand and KNOW. Some of them, I'm sure, were just sick, twisted people--the ones who killed for the fun of it or the "adrenaline rush" it brought. But others, I'm sure, found themselves in that situation in life because of things that happened to them--and maybe things that were not of their own making! Great post, as always, and thanks for pinch-hitting today.
    Cheryl

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    1. Thanks and you're welcome, Okie! You know me: I love to yammer. ;-)

      I've always been attracted to the kinds of stories where the heroes have dark sides and the villains have admirable traits -- much like people in real life, I guess. A couple of the most intriguing tales I've read lately are from the Western Fictioneers' WEST OF THE BIG RIVER series: The Avenging Angel and The Bandit. In both, the hero is someone history generally views as a bad sort, yet the authors present a whole different side of characters we'd normally consider villainous. I think that's the kind of stories I want to tell when I grow up. :-)

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  5. Another truly enlightening article, Tex. And here I've just been lumpin' all them bad boys into one black-hat piece o' nuisance. Quite eye-opening. Stellar research, as always. Why, you've even managed to ROCK the outlaws, darlin' ... ♥

    ~ Cindy

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    1. LOL! Thanks, Owl. You know me and the bad boys: If my heroes are too "clean," I get nervous. :-D

      Thanks for popping in. HUGS!!!!

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  6. Fascinating post, Kathleen. But Black Jack Ketchum, decapitated by hanging. I had to go and look into that and I see that they actually sold postcards of the scene. How grisly.

    Robert Louis Stevenson based Dr Jekylll and Mr Hyde on Deacon William Brodie, an upstanding guildsman and Edinburgh councillor, who led a double life. Stevenson used the idea to write his immortal story, but he didn't write about Brodie, he was merely the inspiration.

    It is reckoned that about one per cent of people are psychopaths, without emotion and without remorse. There is today a higher proportion in prisons and other institutions, so it a lawless time it would seem likely that many would drift into unlawful activities and be prepared to kill. As to what makes someone psychopathic is another matter - nature, nurture (or lack of it) , who really knows?

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    1. Keith! How lovely to see you all the way from Scotland. :-)

      Black Jack's story is rather gruesome, isn't it? Postcards of his decapitated body sold like hotcakes, from I've read. The other execution that created a cottage industry in grisly photographs was "Deacon Jim" Miller's. He was hanged with three of the ranchers who paid him to kill the marshal, and a photo of the four hanging bodies in the livery stable was considered a must-have souvenir around Ada for a long time. In fact, some stores up there probably STILL sell postcards bearing that image. Ugh.

      Thanks for that interesting statistic about psychopaths and for the background on Jekyll and Hyde. I didn't realize either of those things, and I adore tidbits like that! You're a darling. HUGS!!!!

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  7. Hi Kathleen, Oh I confess I like the bad boys...to write about, I mean, and fix 'em up and get them redeemed. I think the Civil War affected many young men at this time, the horrors. e.g. Jesse James. Great post.

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    1. Tanya, you like the bad boys? You? You're kidding! ;-)

      I'm teasing. OBVIOUSLY, you like the bad boys, and you create some great ones. I'm still drooling over Keith in "Open Hearts," and I thought I wouldn't like him at all at first. Now that's some stellar storytelling, lady! Of course, Keith is a sheriff, but he has that "bad boy" edge.... I think he probably was an outlaw in another life. ;-)

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  8. I loved the "life style" quotes; they were so revealing of the man beneath. Only one man seemed to have any remorse what-so-ever. The pictures were so captivating. Oh ugh, a guy who was decapitated during his hanging--how disgusting that must have been. Sometimes it was hard to tell a villain from a lawman. So many times, a villain would end up a lawman somewhere or vice-versa.
    A most interesting post, Kathleen. You never disappoint--not in posts or stories. Write-on, Tex.

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    1. Sarah, you're embarrassing me, sweetheart. I'm blushing over here. You're so kind and supportive...when you're not cutting someone off at the knees with a sly remark they probably won't "get" until later. :-D (Seriously, thank you for your kind comments. HUGS!!!!)

      A whole lot of outlaws and lawmen worked whatever side of the line was most advantageous at the time, it seems. Dallas Stoudenmire was a city marshal and then a deputy U.S. marshal while their was a price on his head for murder. He wasn't alone in that type of thing, either.

      Poor Black Jack. Not only was he the only man ever hanged in New Mexico for "felonious assault on a railway train," but he also was the first of only two people nationwide to literally lose their heads as the result of a court-ordered hanging. The second was a woman in Arizona in the early 1900s. And the newspapers ran pictures of the decapitated bodies both times! Can you imagine a newspaper getting away with that today?

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    2. Yes, I really do know how to spell "there." How embarrassing! **blush**

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  9. I have a tendency to be curious about the not-so-famous bad guys who lived where the population was thin and the newspapers thinner. So much of our history is dominated by a few well-known villains, but there were a whole lot of others, too. And those who straddled the fence make for a fascinating character study.

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    1. I completely agree, Trail Boss! It's the ones you can't quite pin down that really get my attention.

      Some of the lesser-known baddies had more interesting tales than the famous ones, IMO. Do you ever wonder how history decided which of these guys would get the ink?

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  10. Kathleen, I firmly believe there is some good (oftentimes very tiny) in all bad men. And the good men like Wild Bill Hickock and Wyatt Earp had some bad in them. Maybe everyone can have a bit of both. Circumstances and events can play a huge part. This is a deep, deep subject that requires lots of thought and maybe a psychology degree. LOL Love your blog!

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    1. Linda, you are a wise woman. Take my word for it, though: Psychology degrees don't help. ;-)

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