INTRODUCTION

People need heroes, and if they don’t have them they make them up. The Old West didn’t have that problem; it had an abundance of the real deal, and in that land of giants, the ones who stood head and shoulders above the rest were the gunfighters. They were America’s rendition of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. Some were knights-errant on horseback, and some weren’t.

Why do these hard-riding heroes who lived and died by the gun continue to hold our fascination? Maybe it’s because they take us outside of ourselves and enable us to escape the drudgery of our daily lives. We’re drawn to them because we see them as rebels who weren’t afraid to take on the establishment. We admire those who live on the edge, those who defy authority. In an odd way, they were the manifestation of the traits that made America great: self-reliance, independence, resourcefulness, toughness and courageousness. They were huge myths with a whole lot of reality thrown in.

We have a normal hunger for a heroic past, and the West provides that. The West was a land of superlatives and open spaces and a place where men and women could reinvent themselves.

Arizona was the last refuge of the restive lawmen and desperadoes of the Old West. Its wild, untamed country, lack of good roads and proximity to the Mexican border made it ideally suited to men riding the “Owl Hoot Trail.” The rich boomtowns, stagecoaches and railroads carrying express boxes loaded with gold coins, along with large herds of cattle, were easy pickings in the remote regions by bands of outlaws and cow thieves.

In order to bring law and order to the last frontier, it took a brave, hardy breed to pin on a badge and challenge the bands of outlaws, many of whom were psychopaths and sociopaths who preyed on the weak and often killed without remorse. Sworn to keep the peace, they endured hardships and hunger, and sometimes they died in the line of duty.