AND THE BADDEST BULLS IN THE WEST
WELCOME TO THE OUTLAW-VERSE
Where The Only Rule Is That You Never Follow The Rules
OUTLAWS POP UP in all shapes and forms, and with all kinds of intent. Traditional, literal outlaws terrorized the settlers and law-abiding folks of the Wild West. Others among them broke laws and did what they had to do to survive or seek justice, even if society frowned upon their methods.
In later decades, less deadly outlaws built their names on stages and in arenas outside beaten paths — singing or riding for crowds who saw in them something di erent, something dangerous. Admirers emerged from those very crowds, inspired enough to step outside the boxes in their own lives and take the torches.
The more theatrical outlaws of the West channeled a kind of evil that exists in the heart of every man (if he digs deep enough) and laid it all out on the big screen for all who viewed.
Real life history, sport and music legend, and big-screen western glory — they’re all perfectly suited to showcasing the outlaws who’ve impacted us in so many ways.
This is our rst shot at capturing the vibe, the spirit of what we’re calling the “Outlaw-Verse.” It’s a big and expanding world of good guys and bad guys who have one thing in common — the refusal to walk the straight and narrow.
Let’s have a toast for the outlaws!
Jb Mauney
Jack Palance
Johnny Caﰄ
Butch Caﰊidy
Miranda Lambert
Wﰀd Bﰀl Hickok
ONE TOUGH BULL
J.B. Mauney’s legendary riding career has seen him evolve from singular badass to inspiring team-builder.
by Tyler Hicks
Clay Guiton was conscious enough to crawl, but he was crawling the wrong way, heading towards more danger.
The 1,500-pound animal that had just tossed him off its back was still bucking, still angry, and mere feet away.
Guiton’s coach says instinct took over at that moment.
J.B. Mauney, the legendary bull rider who now leads the Oklahoma Wildcatters, leapt into the arena and used his body to shield his 18-year-old star from grievous injury.
“It’s a game of inches,” says Mauney, whose own unparalleled career ended with a broken neck in 2023.
“I’m a proven fact: one day it’s here and the next day it’s gone. That bull steps on you the wrong way, you’re done.”
The team was fined for Mauney’s leap into the arena, though neither the coach nor his general manager
could care less. Mauney protected Guiton — a cornerstone of their upstart franchise — and that’s all that matters.
Founded in 2024, the Oklahoma Wildcatters are one of the two newest organizations in the team series launched by Professional Bull Riders (PBR) just two years prior. Bull riding has historically been an individual sport, and when the team series was announced, PBR had its fair share of skeptics. That includes Mauney, a toughas-nails cowboy from North Carolina.
“I never thought twice about coaching,” he says. “When someone used to ask me for advice, I’d keep my mouth shut.”
Now Mauney must embrace the role of mentor for 11 riders as the Wildcatter brass try to build a dynasty.
The team’s leaders know their rst year will include the growing pains that come with starting a new pro sports team, and of course, there are plenty of challenges unique to bull riding. Each competition pits ve riders from each team against one another, and coaches must pair each rider with the bull they think they have the best chance at riding for at least eight seconds. What’s more, everyone agrees the monstrous bulls at the center of this sport are only getting better. This means building a bull-riding team takes a unique mix of analysis, roster management, and savvy leadership. And the brass hope Mauney will be the perfect leader.
Brandon Bates, the Wildcatters’ GM, believes Mauney is up to that task as coach, even if he had his doubts at rst.
With piercing blue-green eyes, long black hair and the kind of smile and drawl you’d expect from a classic, con dent cowboy, Mauney is undeniably charismatic. Still, at a time when professional bull riders are just as likely to practice yoga as they are to shoot whisky, Mauney’s fondness for Marlboros feels out of sync.
“I had this vision of what a champion athlete should be, and J.B. was really the antithesis of that, at least on the outside,” Bates says. It was only when Talor Gooch — a pro
golfer and Oklahoma native — encouraged Bates to meet with Mauney that the GM realized he was wrong.
They met on a windy, wintry February day on Mauney’s property in Stephenville, Texas, when the rider was still recovering from his broken neck. The meeting was supposed to be brief, but Bates stayed six hours longer than planned, talking about Mauney’s career and what modern-day riders need to succeed.
“You know what a champion mindset is like; you could almost smell it on him,” Bates says. “You know when someone is willing to push those guys.”
On the ride back from Stephenville to his Dallas hotel, Bates called the team’s other coaching candidates and told them he was sorry, but he’d found his guy.
Next came the draft.
A little over a month after agreeing to the head coaching job, Mauney met Bates in Oklahoma City. His wish was simple.
“I want young, gritty tough guys,” he says. “You can teach someone how to ride bulls, but you can’t teach the try part. They’re either born with it or not.”
The team ultimately selected a trio of promising riders who have yet to reach legal drinking age: 18-year-old Hagen Braswell; 20-year-old Kase Hitt; and Guiton, also 18, who grew up just an hour outside of Mauney’s hometown and was in touch with his future coach long before draft night.
“I’ve known J.B. my whole life,” Guiton said before being selected with the secondoverall pick. “Always looked up to him.”
In addition to those youngsters, Bates also traded for Cort McFadden (20 years old) and Austin Richardson (who is, at 24, one of the team’s elder statesmen). It’s clear the GM took his coach’s “young” comment to heart, and there’s a clear strategy to these choices.
“If you look at some rosters, there’s a lot of turnover,” Bates says. “Our thought process is to try to get a core group of three to four guys and build something special with them.” He knew that the guys, like Guiton, would relish the chance to be led by
PHOTOGRAPHY: (PREVIOUS PAGE AND THIS PAGE) LEAH HENNEL
A multiple world championship winner himself, Mauney was forced to hang up his bull-riding hat in 2023 after a broken neck made competing again too much of a risk to his life and well-being.
Mauney, a two-time PBR world champion. After all, Mauney was nicknamed “the dragonslayer” for his propensity to best the baddest bulls.
Even still, the living legend has surpassed Bates’ expectations by merging his trademark grit with the thoughtful tutelage he once refused to give. When Braswell dislocated his shoulder, Mauney (who has dislocated both of his) coached him through the recovery process.
“When guys are sore or beat-up, they play it off, because they think I’m tough,” he says. “But I tell ‘em, ‘you can be tough, but tell me the truth.’”
A genuine, honest relationship is important, he explains, because at the end of the day, he has to know everything he can about his players their health, skills, talents and tendencies if he is going to match the right rider with the right bull on game day.
This is the hardest part of the job, Mauney says: going to an event with six or seven guys on his 11-man roster, yet only being able to play five of his riders. The matching itself isn’t overly difficult; he watches the tapes, then goes with his gut (“You can’t start doubting yourself in this game,” he says.)
But having to bench a couple of his players, even temporarily, is anathema to a guy who always wanted to ride the toughest bull he could find. It’s also contrary to the
culture he is trying to build, a culture where people “don’t know quit.” That’s a must, Bates adds, because today’s bulls “aren’t even on the same planet” as the bulls that competed in PBR 20 or even 10 years ago.
“The bulls are getting better, but how much better can the human body get?” he says. “This is going to sound dramatic, but success in this game comes down to who is willing to die for it. You need a team of guys who are willing to die for this.”
As of this writing, it appears their strategy is working. The team’s record is hovering around .500, and Mauney is optimistic about the home stretch of the season, which was scheduled to wrap last October. They’re laying the groundwork for future seasons.
They’re having fun, too, and so is their coach.
Mauney notes that most teams’ locker rooms will be pretty silent before a game. Meanwhile, the Wildcatters’ locker room will be brimming with rock music. He’ll bestow DJ duties upon one of his riders and tell them to turn it up loud.
“If you’re not having fun, it’s become a job,” he says. “And there ain’t no bull rider I ever met that ever wants a job.”
Find more on J.B. Mauney in an exclusive online interview offering insight into his life at home and his plans to bring bull riding to the masses. The Wildcatters are among the PBR teams who compete throughout a 12-event season in the chase for the championships in Las Vegas in October. Find out more about the PBR season at PBRteamschampionship.com.
THE BADDEST BULLS IN THE WEST
All of the executives, experts, and industry insiders you can nd will agree on at least one thing: today’s bucking bulls are leagues ahead of yesterday’s stock. Even so, the history of bull riding is riddled with rank specimens. Here are ve of the greatest.
Bushwacker
Michael Jordan. Seabiscuit. Secretariat. If it’s a GOAT, chances are good it’s been compared to Bushwacker. This 1,800-pound titan and three-time world champion bucked o nearly 97% of the riders it ever faced, and even the revered “dragonslayer” Mauney took ten tries to ride him
Bodacious
Known as “the yellow whale” due to his color and gargantuan size, Bodacious was also considered the most dangerous bull in the world for the better part of a decade. He injured some of the sport’s most talented riders, and while his hulking frame was certainly a factor, Bodacious’
Bushwacker
Little Yellow Jacket
This three-time champion owned the bull riding world in the early 2000s, when it was known as the full package: a bull with power who could also jump, kick, rotate and otherwise vex pretty much any cowboy who dared get on its back. Only 12 riders ever got the best of Little Yellow Jacket, and the average rider made it just over two seconds before being thrown to the dirt.
Asteroid
True to his name, Asteroid’s calling card was its ery power. That’s why, in the nal 67 outs of his pro career, only two riders managed to stay on his back for eight seconds. At one point, he bucked o 16 riders in a row before meeting (you guessed) J.B. Mauney. To this day, Mauney keeps a photo of himself and Asteroid: two of the greatest to ever plie their respective trades, suspended in mid-air.
Dillinger
Even though this early 2000s bucking bull (named for the famed gangster) was bigger and stronger than the vast majority of his contemporaries, it was his speed that made him a champion in both 2000 and 2001. Dillinger weighed nearly 2,000 pounds, but those unlucky enough to face him marveled at how he was just as agile as bulls 700 or 800 pounds lighter.
T.H.
Cash as outlaw in a parody mugshot taken around the time of ”Folsom Prison Blues.”
Cash On Screen: AN OUTLAW DREAM
Johnny Cash’s interest in the black sheep of society extended beyond his outreach to the prisoners at Folsom — he channeled a variety of big bads on screens large and small.
by Joe Leydon
It was 20 minutes before showtime in Jackson, Mississippi, circa 1976, and Johnny Cash looked frightened.
His eyes darted about nervously, and the apple he was paring almost dropped from his hands. He needed to take a quick swig from the Styrofoam cup of coffee at least, it appeared to be coffee on his dressing-room table.
What had upset him so much? A personal tragedy? A sudden ailment? Stage fright?
No, it was none of those things. I’d simply asked Cash about why he’d chosen to give his debut film performance in a tawdry yet suspenseful 1961 B-movie titled Door to Door Maniac.
“Lord, I don’t have any idea,” Cash responded in a tone that could only be described as mournful. “I thought everybody had forgotten about that. Please don’t hold that against me.”
It took another two or three minutes for me to convince Cash that I didn’t intend to dredge up unhappy memories but rather to praise his chillingly persuasive performance. Indeed, in his very first film role, he acquitted himself quite convincingly as an effective character actor, playing a deranged robber who terrorizes a bank vice-president’s
captive wife in her own home while his partner forces the lady’s husband to raise a ransom.
Originally known as Five Minutes to Live the name of a song Cash sings while tormenting his prey the film received a title change before its extremely limited mid’60s theatrical re-release. For a long time afterward, the movie remained as obscure as Cash might have wished.
But a funny thing happened long after our 1976 conversation: Once it fell into the public domain after its copyright lapsed, the film started popping up on cheaply produced DVDs under both its titles. It gradually attracted a cult following, reached an even wider audience on YouTube and was released on Blu-Ray by Film Masters earlier this year in a newly restored 4K transfer from original 35mm archival elements. All the better to let more people appreciate what a total badass The Man in Black could be on screen.
In short, he was an outlaw way before outlaws were cool.
Prior to the rediscovery of Five Minutes/Maniac, however, Cash demonstrated his versatility as an actor in a variety of movie and TV roles. Among his notable credits:
A Gunfight
A GUNFIGHT (1971)
One of the better revisionist westerns of the 1970s, director Lamont Johnson’s allegorical drama focuses on Will Tenneray (Kirk Douglas) and Abe Cross (Cash), two notorious gunfighters who develop a wary friendship when their paths cross in a small town. Mindful of their advancing years and dwindling prowess, they collaborate on a retirement plan: They will sell tickets to their one-on-one shoot-out in a bullring, no less and the survivor will claim the box-office take. Cash and Douglas give compelling performances as surprisingly complex characters during the countdown to their showdown.
COLUMBO: SWAN SONG (1974)
Like most murderers prone to underestimating the rumpled but wily Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk), gospel music star Tommy Brown (Cash) initially isn’t afraid of capture for his crime in Brown’s case, the murder of his controlling wife (Ida Lupino) and former paramour (Bonnie Van Dyke), whom he drugs before donning a homemade parachute and leaping from a small plane he was piloting. But the homicide investigator’s suspicions are aroused almost immediately when he learns that Brown had sent his beloved guitar on ahead in a tour bus before boarding the plane. One thing leads to another, clues gradually accumulate, and Columbo ultimately gets his man even though he admits, while listening to one of Brown’s gospel tunes: “Any man who can sing like that can’t be all bad.” Cash and Falk are perfectly matched in the kind of cat-and-mouse game that was a Columbo series hallmark.
THE PRIDE OF JESSE HALLAM (1981)
Cash is credible and creditable in Gary Nelson’s inspiring drama about a Kentucky coal miner who has spent most of his life hiding his illiteracy. But when he moves to Cincinnati for his young daughter’s spinal surgery, Jesse Hallam (Cash) is forced to admit his limitations: He must learn to read and write in order to find work. Brenda Vaccaro shines as the high school vice-principal who becomes Jesse’s mentor.
Cash re-teams with director Gary Nelson for a well-done docudrama about a notorious homicide case in 1948 Georgia. Andy Griffith, shrewdly cast against type, plays John Wallace, a powerful businessman who figures he can literally get away with murder. Cash is Sheriff Lamar Potts, who comes off like a smalltown Columbo as he methodically builds his case against Wallace.
THE LAST DAYS OF FRANK & JESSE JAMES (1986)
Cash plays an erudite and happily domesticated Frank to Kris Kristofferson’s rambunctiously womanizing Jesse in this underrated drama about the last years of the notorious Wild West outlaws. Despite the, ahem, maturity of the two leads, the movie earned points from critics for its historical accuracy and delighted western fans with its relatively fresh take on a familiar tale. Longtime buddies Cash and Kristofferson must have enjoyed their on-screen collaboration because, just a few months later, they were back in the saddle again.
STAGECOACH (1986)
Directed by Ted Post (Hang ’Em High), this mildly entertaining made-for-TV remake of John Ford’s 1939 classic western bears only a passing resemblance to its illustrious predecessor. Even so, Cash effortlessly conveys sure-shot authority as the lawman bent on keeping a vengeful Ringo Kid (Kris Kristofferson) from doin’ what a man’s got to do. Better still, he also develops an easy rapport with co-stars (and fellow Highwaymen) Willie Nelson –as Doc Holliday! – and Waylon Jennings as the gambler originally played in 1939 by John Carradine.
The Modern Musical Outlaws
Since the first generation of country music’s outlaws led by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, the sound and the style de ned by those artists have gone from sub-genre to cultural movement — one that’s trucking along a half-century later. To celebrate 50 years of going against the grain, we’ve gathered up a few of our favorite modern outlaws. Hear their tunes in a special playlist by searching “Modern Outlaws” at cowboysindians.com.
by Matt Wickstrom
before his musical dream finally began to take hold. The “Welcome To Hard Times” crooner has gone on to drop acclaimed studio albums sell out shows worldwide, most recently landing a nomination for Best Bluegrass Album at the 67th Grammys for the LP $10 Cowboy.
JASON ISBELL
Jason Isbell first made a name for himself with the iconic Southern rock band The Drive-By Truckers before charting his own path with backing band The 400 Unit. The “Cover Me Up” singer has gone on to earn six Grammys in addition to becoming a crossover star with appearances on the animated television show Squidbillies and the Martin Scorsese drama Killers Of The Flower Moon
CODY JINKS
Melding Texas country with Southern rock, Cody Jinks hit a hot streak in the 2010s with a string of four albums that hit high points on the country charts, beginning with 2016’s I’m Not The Devil. Songs such as “Hippies And Cowboys” and “Same Kind Of Crazy As Me” are odes to the ragtag creative class, while “Must Be The Whiskey” touches on the practice of using liquor to numb one’s pain.
JAMEY JOHNSON
A songwriter’s songwriter who has written tunes recorded by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Trace Adkins, George Strait, and others, Jamey Johnson has also wowed listeners with his deep baritone stylings. “The Dollar,” “In Color,” and “High Cost Of Living” all cracked the top 40 on the country charts. In late 2024, Johnson dropped Midnight Gasoline, his first record in a dozen years.
MIRANDA LAMBERT
With the deliciously defiant 2005 major label debut, Kerosene, Miranda Lambert let the world know she wasn’t a songwriter or a woman in general to mess with. Nearly 20 years later, that remains the case with the “Crazy ExGirlfriend” hitmaker now regarded as one of the biggest movers and shakers in country music. Her groundbreaking tour productions and commitment to artistic excellence have inspired several artists in her orbit, from Caylee Hammack to Tenille Townes, Elle King, Maren Morris, and Ashley McBryde, all of whom she brought on her “Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars Tour” in 2019.
NIKKI LANE
Nikki Lane is as outlaw as they come. The South Carolina native dropped out of high school and began working as a fashion designer between New York City and Los Angeles before a bad breakup with a country singer led her to begin writing her own lovelorn tunes. Now she lives the best of both worlds, residing in Nashville while operating a vintage clothing store, High Class Hillbilly, and continuing to write, record, and tour.
POST MALONE
The Texas-raised artist (real name Austin Post) has shrugged off all misconceptions about himself with a pivot from hiphop-tinged pop music to traditional radio country on the star-studded album F-1 Trillion. Featuring Hank Williams Jr., Dolly Parton, Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, and more, the project toes the line between present-day pop country and the 90s classics of Post’s childhood.
MARGO PRICE
Born in rural Illinois, Price has gone from being a Midwest Farmer’s Daughter to becoming a power player in the modern outlaw movement with songs like “Hurtin’ (On The Bottle)” and “Twinkle Twinkle.” Her work has garnered the praise of others known for going against the grain, such as Billy Strings, the late Loretta Lynn, Orville Peck, and Willie Nelson.
STURGILL SIMPSON
Whether it’s the twangy and psychedelic sentiment of Metamodern Sounds In Country Music, the soulful sounds of A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, or the raw brilliance of Cuttin’ Grass, Simpson has shown that it’s useless trying to put him in a genre box. If you do, he’ll just blow the whole thing up.
JAIME WYATT
If you were unsure of Jaime Wyatt’s outlaw status, just take a look at the title of her 2017 debut Felony Blues. The autobiographical project centers around an eight-month stint she served in the LA County jail for robbing her heroin dealer. The heartache and redemption come through in songs such as “Stone Hotel.” The queer country singer eventually dove into the catalogs of Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe, and Johnny Cash, influences at the forefront of her two albums that followed 2020’s Neon Cross and 2023’s Feel Good
OPPOSITE PAGE: Charley Crockett
THIS PAGE: Jason Isbell
THE BAD GUYS WIN
Some of the greatest western performances belonged to the “big bads” or “black hats” of the genre — the villains who send a chill down the spine of any lily-livered viewer. Read about a few of our favorites.
by Joe Leydon
You really can’t have a great western without a great villain. From the earliest days of silent movie horse operas to the contemporary wild bunch of traditional and revisionist shoot-’em-ups, outlaws who never aim to please often are as much of a main attraction for audiences as the straight-shooting heroes bent on delivering rough justice. These are some of the best black-hearted bad guys who have earned their places in the Western Hall of Infamy.
BRUCE DERN AS ASA WATTS IN THE COWBOYS (1972)
Anyone who plays a varmint guilty of fatally shooting John Wayne— in the back! certainly quali es as not just a bad guy but one of the worst guys in the book. That’s why we have to rank Bruce Dern at the very top of this list. Indeed, Dern was so indelibly e ective as Asa Watts, the scoundrel who dispatches Wil Andersen, a rancher played by The Duke, that many folks have long confused the man with the role. Fortunately, Dern was prepared for such a strong reaction to that killer of a scene even before they lmed it. As the cameras started rolling, Dern revealed to C&I in 2015 that Wayne “told me: ‘Oh, I want to remind you of one thing. When this picture comes out, and audiences see you kill me they’re gonna hate you for this.’ I said, ‘Maybe. But at [UC] Berkeley, I’ll be a [bleeping] hero!’ He laughed at that. And then put his arm around my neck, turned me to the crew there’s about 90 people there where we shot the thing, getting ready to do the scene and he said, ‘That’s why this [bleep] is in my lm. Because he understands that bad guys can be funny. If they weren’t, why would we be talking about them 150 years later.’”
WALTER BRENNAN AS OLD MAN CLANTON IN MY DARLINGCLEMENTINE (1946)
If you’re of a certain age and rst saw John Ford’s classic My Darling Clementine only after growing up seeing Walter Brennan in a host of Disney comedies and as Grandpappy Amos in TV’s The Real McCoys (1957 – 63), you likely were shocked to see the multiple-Oscar-winning actor come across as so frightfully vicious as Old Man Clanton, the rustler who vacillates between folksy and ferocious while leading his easily intimidated sons in a crime wave in and around Tombstone. Just how ornery was this dude? Long before Colin Lawson (Robert Taylor) took a strap to his disappointing son (Michael Dorman) in Net ix’s Territory, Clanton applied a horsewhip to his o spring when they failed to hit their target. (“When you pull a gun,” he roared, “kill a man!”) Brennan was outstanding in several other westerns but, more often than not, remained on the side of the angels. On the other hand, he obviously enjoyed himself spoo ng the Old Man Clanton character as the cranky antagonist opposite James Garner in Support Your Local Sheri !
Bruce Dern in The Cowboys
GIAN
MARIA VOLONTE
AS
RAMON
ROJO IN
A
FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) AND EL INDIO IN FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965)
Near the start of his decades-long film career, Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté loomed large and behaved badly in the first two westerns of Sergio Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy,” A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Fistful (an unauthorized remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) had him perfectly cast as Ramon Rojo, the savage leader of an outlaw family vying with another smuggling clan for control of a border town. A mysterious gunfighter (Clint Eastwood) tries to turn the rivals against each other and is only temporarily impeded when Rojo sees through his tricks and subjects him to a bloodily brutal beatdown. Rojo ends up shot dead by our hero, of course, but Volonté returned as El Indio, an even nastier piece of work, in the sequel For a Few Dollars More. Two rival bounty hunters, Manco (Eastwood) and Col. Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), have their sights set on claiming the sizeable reward on El Indio’s head. But even Manco ultimately accepts that Mortimer has the better claim on El Indio since the bad guy is responsible for the death of the colonel’s sister who shot herself after El Indio killed her husband and attempted to rape her. The best scene: El Indio, who kept the woman’s pocket watch as a memento, learns the hard way that Mortimer has a very similar timepiece.
JACK PALANCE AS JACK WILSON IN SHANE (1953)
Director George Stevens wasted little time in establishing Jack Palace’s hired gun, Jack Wilson, as the epitome of badassery in Shane. The first time we see Wilson in the frontier town where he’s been employed by land-grabbing siblings eager to scare off settlers and their reluctant protector (Alan Ladd in the title role), he’s a malevolent figure whose effortless ability to radiate bad vibes dogs whimper and turn tail as he approaches pushes the movie perilously close to self-parody. But the laughter catches in your throat when Wilson mercilessly goads a hopelessly outmatched homesteader (the perpetually put-upon Elisha Cook Jr.) into a showdown. Wilson draws first, then pauses tauntingly, sadistically while his opponent stands, abashed and afraid, in the middle of a muddy street. Then Wilson pulls the trigger, reveling in his own evil as he relishes the gratuitous slaughter.
HENRY FONDA AS FRANK IN ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969)
Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West
After decades of mostly playing heroic figures on screen including Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine Henr y Fonda proved scarily and unforgettably effective after strolling over to the dark side in Sergio Leone’s masterwork Once Upon a Time in the West. As Frank, a coldblooded gunslinger hired by a railroad tycoon to drive a beautiful widow (Claudia Cardinale) off her land, Fonda makes an impactful entrance as he and his men slaughter almost every member of a family impeding the tycoon’s plans. Almost, that is, until one of his men accidentally refers to Frank by name, leading to the killing of a boy who, until that point, had been the massacre’s only survivor. Years later, while recalling the scene, Fonda told an interviewer: “Sergio had cast me because he could imagine the audience at that moment saying, ‘Jesus Christ! It’s Henry Fonda!’”
LEE MARVIN AS LIBERTY
VALANCE IN THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962)
Although John Wayne and James Stewart are the nominal stars of John Ford’s last great Western, cast respectively as a straight-shooting hero and a tenderfoot lawyer, Marvin steals every scene in which he appears (and even a few where he doesn’t) as Liberty Valance, a sociopathic outlaw who, with a little help from minions played by Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef, rules a frontier town with a whim of iron. In his book Lee Marvin: Point Blank, biographer Dwayne Epstein aptly wrote: “In just a handful of riveting scenes [Marvin] conveyed the anger, maliciousness, and sadism of a man who symbolized all the lawlessness of the old west, and who refused to step gently aside to encroaching civilization.” At least, not until he was pushed.
ELI WALLACH AS CALVERA IN
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)
Gunfighters played by Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, and five co-stars must be fully armed and lethally dangerous as they come to the aid of Mexican villagers repeatedly plagued by an outlaw gang in director John Sturges’ authorized remake of another Akira Kurosawa classic, Seven Samurai. But the unlikely heroes face long odds as they face off against the army of bad guys led by Calvera (Eli Wallach), a preening bandit who makes no apologies for exploiting the helpless. “If God did not want them sheared,” he snarls, “he would not have made them sheep.” At the time The Magnificent Seven was made, Wallach was known primarily as a New York stage actor. He was initially concerned about the relative scarcity of his screen time and accepted the role of Calvera only after he realized he could make every minute count. “After rereading the script,” Wallach wrote in his autobiography, “I realized that even though I only appeared in the first few minutes of the film, the natives spoke about my return for the next 45 minutes ‘Calvera’s coming.’ ‘When is he coming back?’ so, I decided to do the part.”
RICHARD BOONE AS FRANK USHER IN THE TALL T.
While working with veteran producer Harry Joe Brown and leathery screen icon Randolph Scott on the brawnily austere westerns that eventually were known collectively as “The Renown Cycle,” director Budd Boetticher took great pains to provide substantial foes for his hero. Always, there is an antagonist who glimpses in Scott’s character a kindred spirit and genuinely regrets what he sees as a necessity to defeat, or even kill, such a worthy opponent. “In every one of the Scott pictures,” Boetticher admitted, “I felt I could have traded Randy’s part with the villain’s.” This was especially evident when he cast Richard Boone then best known for playing a grim-faced surgeon in the TV drama Medic as Frank Usher, a sly stagecoach bandit who, along with two thick-headed cohorts, holds captive ramrod-turned-rancher Pat Brennan (Scott) and copper mine heiress Doretta Mims (Maureen O’Sullivan) while Doretta’s cowardly husband seeks a ransom from his wife’s wealthy father. A nice touch: Usher, often displaying a sardonic sense of humor, refrains from killing Brennan primarily because he’s desperate for intelligent conversation. But their budding friendship is soured by the outlaw’s determination to start a new, more respectable life with the ransom money. H
If you can think of others we should add to our list of best big bads, give us a shout at letters@cowboysindians.com, and we’ll consider producing a sequel.
LEFT: Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven
THIS PAGE: Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
BANDIT HEAVEN
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Bat Masterson, Curly Bill Brocius, Robert Clay Allison, Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid
WE LOVE OUR WHITE-HAT HEROES, BUT SOME OF THE BEST OLD WEST OUTLAW STORIES REVOLVE AROUND THE BAD GUYS THEY WERE PITTED AGAINST.
by Tom Clavin
Bat Masterson
STORIES ABOUT THE WILD WEST,
like those passed down by the ancient Greeks, often focus on heroes. We are warmed by the tales of the men
and some
women in white hats. Thankfully, for those of us who make a living writing such stories featuring Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, Buffalo Bill Cody, Heck Thomas, Charlie Siringo, and others, there is an endless fascination with their legendary exploits.
But let us give credit to the outlaws. We might not want to have encountered them in real life, but today, safely in our stories, they add spice and excitement and danger. In Greek mythology, Odysseus was a great hero, but his adventures would not be as thrilling without that tussle with Cyclops.
In the books that I have researched and written, I’ve had the chilling pleasure of presenting charming rogues, ruthless robbers, stone-cold killers, thieving varmints, and others cut from
comes to mind is John Wesley Hardin, who claims to have gotten the drop on Hickok when he was the marshal of Abilene, Kansas, in 1871. The gunslinger was only 18, yet his violent reign of terror had begun four years earlier when the Texas teenager knifed a classmate. His six-shooters enabled him to kill his way to Kansas. Hardin is “credited” with the saying “I never killed a man who didn’t need killing.”
When Hardin got to Abilene, Marshal Hickok did not care about any Texas arrest warrants, but the town
did have a no-gun ordinance and he confronted the young outlaw. The young outlaw ultimately did surrender his pistols, after what was called a “road agent’s spin.” Hardin took his guns out of their holsters, but while he was reaching for them, he claimed in his autobiography, “I reversed them and whirled them over on him with the muzzles in his face.” An amused Hickok invited Hardin to the nearest saloon without his pistols.
Less well-known but equally fearsome was Clay Allison. In his book
John Wesley Hardin in a fight with Mexican Vaqueros at the end of a cattle drive up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas. Hardin started an argument with a group of Mexican Cowboys for crowding his herd, which escalated into a gunfight that left six of the Mexican dead, five of them shot by Hardin. 1871.
Wild West Characters, Dale Pierce describes the Tennessean as “a strange, unpredictable psychopath who drank heavily and enjoyed the company of ladies of the evening, when he wasn’t shooting people for illogical reasons.”
One of the highlights of Allison’s life of infamy occurred in the summer of 1878, when he rode into Dodge City intending to shoot Wyatt Earp. He blamed the assistant marshal for the death of a friend, George Hoy. To be on the safe side, Allison secretly brought along a few cowboys who were to kill Earp if he did not.
The plan went awry. The killer confronted the lawman all right, but after experiencing Earp’s cold, steely gaze, Allison backed down. And there would be no killing by the cowboys. As Earp walked down the street and they prepared to ambush him, the Ford County sheriff quietly approached from behind. This was not just any sheriff but Bat Masterson, and he held a shotgun. Allison’s would-be allies climbed on their horses and left Dodge City.
While we’re still in that southwest Kansas town, let us recall when bandit queen Belle Starr visited. She and her husband, Sam, were between bank jobs and looking to relax. But Sam snuck off to the Long Branch Saloon to gamble. When, red-faced, he returned to their boardinghouse, he revealed he had lost $2,000 of their ill-gotten gains.
That had to be rectified. Belle marched down the street and into the saloon with guns drawn. The gobsmacked patrons watched as she stepped from table to table, collecting the cash on them and on the players themselves. Belle then backed out, and she and Sam galloped off. With a $7,000 take, the two had made a $5,000 profit that afternoon.
One can even feel sorry for an outlaw. Take Johnny Ringo, the conflicted cowboy of Tombstone’s heyday. He
had battled depression since he was a boy and saw his father blow his own head off while cleaning a shotgun. He committed the first of many murders during the Mason County War in Texas in 1875. Several years later, Ringo and his friend Curly Bill Brocius and their cowboy entourage were aligned with shady ranchers like the Clantons and McLaurys in Tombstone.
It was in July 1882 that Ringo’s depression got the best of him. Brocius had been killed during the Earp Vendetta Ride, and his other cowboy pals had scattered. Ringo “had seen the fading future of the cowboy in Cochise County, and with no prospect of being welcomed elsewhere, he had sunk very low,” I wrote in the book Tombstone. “Drunk and despondent, Ringo raised a Colt .45 to his head and pulled the trigger. He was found lying against the trunk of a tree.”
If indeed “cleanliness is next to godliness” coincidentally, a phrase found in a 1791 sermon by a preacher named John Wesley then that might explain the depravities of “Dirty Dave” Rudabaugh. The hygiene-challenged hombre was a relentless robber of banks, and if some people had to die during these raids, so be it.
In November 1880, Rudabaugh joined with Billy the Kid’s gang, and in White Oaks, New Mexico, they killed a deputy sheriff. Sheriff Pat Garrett and his posse cornered them in a cabin in, appropriately, Stinking Springs, and the outlaws were arrested. Both Billy and Dirty Dave would escape jail. But it would soon be the end of the road for Rudabaugh. While hiding out in Mexico, he killed a poker player who had accused the gringo of cheating. His avenging friends not only knifed him to death, they severed Dirty Dave’s grimy head and paraded it through town.
And as bold a bandit as Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum was, his punishment was a tad extreme. He was cap-
tured and sentenced to death in New Mexico for the murder of a deputy. The food must have been pretty good while he was in jail during the appeals process because Black Jack gained a lot of weight. That, plus the ad hoc executioner using too long a rope, resulted in Ketchum’s head being torn off moments after the trapdoor opened.
Some outlaws got second chances. Emmett Dalton got two of them. The first came in October 1892, when, despite being shot 23 times, he was the only one of five gang members to survive a bullet-riddled battle in Coffeyville, Kansas, that killed his bothers Bob and Grat. The second second chance was after 14 years in prison, when Emmett found success as a real estate speculator and film producer. In the latter capacity, he made movies about the Dalton Gang and the lawmen who caught up to them.
In my latest book, Bandit Heaven, my second-favorite outlaw is Wild Bunch gang member Harvey Logan, better known as Kid Curry. A kid from Iowa, he worked as a cowboy on a ranch in Texas before deciding that bank robberies were far more lucrative way to fund his vices of women and liquor. Embracing a life of crime, he became a malevolent man-killer who was as much a sidekick to Butch Cassidy as the Sundance Kid was, until finally meeting his maker in a 1904 shootout in Colorado in 1904.
My favorite outlaw, though, has to be George “Big Beak” Parrott, more so for his afterlife than his life of crime.
The big-nosed bandit had been a busy bad guy, mostly in Wyoming, until the spring of 1881, when he was arrested for killing a deputy sheriff and a Union Pacific detective. During an attempt to escape from jail, Parrott was nabbed by an angry mob and lynched.
But Parrott’s story was far from over. Two physicians, Thomas Maghee
and John Osborne, carted Parrott’s body off with the intention of studying his brain to see if there was any indication of why he was a criminal. After the top of the outlaw’s skull was sawn off, it was gifted to Lillian Heath, who, though only 16 years old, was Dr. Maghee’s assistant. (Apparently unscarred by the experience, Heath went on to become Wyoming’s first female physician and reportedly used the skullcap as an ashtray.) A death mask of Parrott’s face was created, and skin from his thighs and chest was removed. The skin, including the dead man’s nipples, was sent to a tannery in
Denver, where it was made into a medical bag and a pair of shoes.
Parrott’s dismembered body was stored in a whiskey barrel filled with a salt solution for about a year, while the experiments continued; then he was buried in the yard behind Dr. Maghee’s office. The shoes must have been an attractive and durable enough pair because Dr. Osborne wore them to his inaugural ball when he was sworn in as Wyoming’s first Democratic governor, in 1893.
The executed outlaw’s bones proved to be durable too. On May 11, 1950, while working on the Rawlins
National Bank, construction workers unearthed the whiskey barrel. Still inside were the skull with the top sawed off and other remains. Heath, then in her mid-80s, was contacted, and she sent her skullcap to the scene. It was found to fit the skull in the barrel perfectly. DNA testing later confirmed the remains were those of George Parrott.
Today, Governor Osborne’s shoes are on display at the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins as well as the bottom part of Parrott’s skull and his earless death mask. Alas, the medicine bag has never been found.
Leaders of the Wild Bunch (from left to right): Harry Longabaugh (the “Sundance Kid”), Will Carver, Ben (the “Tall Texan”) Kilpatrick, Kid Curry (Harvey Logan), and Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker).