Using Generic Incidents to Plot Your Western Novel (or Fiction of Any Other Genre)

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

As James Patterson points out in Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night, thrillers are fast-paced and full of action that evokes intense emotion, “particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness.” As a result, thrillers tend to require incident upon incident; in other words, as stories, they eat up a lot of material.

The same is true of Western novels: in the telling (or the writing), the consume a lot of material.

I've worked out a way, I think, of making easier the task of devising incidents, based on a critical study I'm reading, The Clint Eastwood Westerns by James L. Neibaur.

In discussing Eastwood's films, Neibaur also summarizes their plots. By stripping the incidents of the plots, as he describes them, to the bone—that is, by transforming the specific details of the Eastwood plots into generic expressions of action similar to the narrative motifs, or functions or dramatic personae, identified by Vladimir Propp in Morphology of the Folktale, we can develop a good size list of the types of incidents (and, indeed, their relationships to one another) that typically occur in Western movies (or novels). The same technique, of course, can be applied to any other genre as well, providing similar indices of motifs for any type of fiction from action-adventure thrillers to science fiction or young adult novels.

Concerning A Fistful of Dollars (1964), we can develop this list of generic incidents:

• The hero proves his worth.
• The hero is hired to join a gang.
• The hero plays two rival gangs against one another.
• While the gangs fight each other, the hero seeks to benefit himself at their expense.
• The hero commits an act that makes him somewhat sympathetic but does not make him less mysterious.
• To avenge and protect his injured friends or supporters, the hero tricks the villain and kills him.

To generate this list of generic incidents, I “reverse-engineered” them from the specific incidents that Neibaur identifies in his study of A Fistful of Dollars (the numbers in parentheses correspond with the page number in Neibaur's book on which he identifies the associated incident of the movie's plot):

• A stranger (Joe), confronted by four of John Baxter's gang, kills them all (9).
• Rival gang leader Ramon Rojo's brother Esteban hires Joe to the Rojo gang (9).
• Joe plays the Baxter gang and the Rojo gang against each other (9).
• During the fight between the rival gangs, Joe finds and steals the Rojo gang's stolen gold (12).
• Joe rescues a woman and her husband from the Rojo gang and gives them money to leave town; asked why he has helped them, he says he knew a woman like her, but no one was there to help her (13).
• After the Rojo gang beats one of Joe's friends because the gang believe that he is harboring Joe and another of Joe's friends is also beaten because the gang believe that he knows Joe's whereabouts, Joe conceals a steel plate beneath his shirt to shield him from the gang's gunfire and, to avenge his friends, kills the Rojo gang, their leader Ramon last, in a one-on-one duel (13).

Having extracted the generic incidents from the specific plot incidents of the particular movie A Fistful of Dollars, we now have the bases for building a plot of specific incidents unique to our own story, based on the generic ones we have listed.

For example, instead of the incidents of A Fistful of Dollars, we might use the generic incidents to develop these particular incidents for a plot of our own:

• When outlaw Clay Morrison demands that rival desperado Nate Billings choose who should live and who should die, Billings's mother or his wife, a bystander, Jake Sanders, risks the life of both women by shooting Morrison, who stands between the women, holding a gun to the head of each of them.
• Impressed by Sanders's skill with a gun, Billings invites Sanders to join his gang; Sanders accepts.
• Secretly also joining Morrison's gang, Sanders plays Morrison's gang and Billings's gang against one another.
• During the battle between the rival gangs, Sanders rigs the headquarters of each gang with explosives.
• Sanders rescues a girl abducted by the Billings gang and takes her to an abandoned stagecoach station to await his return.
• After the gang suspects that Billings has freed the girl, they threaten to kill his family if she is not returned, and Billings says he will “find” her and bring them to their hideout. Instead, he sets off the explosives in their hideout, killing them all. Then, he shoots the members of the Morrison gang as they arrive at the cave at which he'd arranged for them to meet him, ostensibly to recover gold the Billings gang had “liberated” from a train.

This may not be the best plot ever (it's just an example), it does show how the use of generic incidents can be fleshed out with detail to generate suitable action for a Western plot.

By extracting generic incidents from specific plot incidents of other movies, an extensive list of generic incidents can be developed for use in mix-and-match applications.

In future posts, I will list additional generic incidents to further facilitate the plotting of Western novels.

Commodore Perry Owens

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Commodore Perry Owens

Like many other figures of the Old West, Commodore Perry Owens worked at a variety of jobs. Life on the frontier was fluid, so a man had to be flexible and willing to try his hand at a number of ways to earn a living.

Born in Tennessee on July 29, 1852, Owens left his home on the family farm to travel and to live, first in Indiana and then in Texas, where, beginning in 1870, he worked as a cowboy, before traveling to New Mexico, settling at Navajo Springs in 1882.

Sahrps 45-60 Buffalo Rifle

Owens was an expert shot and carried a 45-60 Sharps buffalo rifle with which he was an accurate shot to a distance of one mile. He also carried a Winchester rifle and two handguns. He was in charge of a stagecoach station on the Navajo reservation, where, from time to time, he had brushes with Indians.

The abandonment of the station caused Owens to drift south to Cottonwood Seep, Arizona, where he drove cattle and raised horses and became a deputy sheriff of Apache County on November 4, 1886; ten months later, he was elected the county's sheriff on September 4, 1887.

Andy ("Cooper") Blevins

As sheriff, Owens shot it out with a houseful of outlaws when he rode out to the Blevins' house in Holbrook, Arizona. Not only was Owens's quarry, Andy (“Cooper”) Blevins home, but so were Sam Houston Blevins, John Blevins, Mose Roberts, and Mrs. John (Eva) Blevins. Other woman might also have been inside the house. Owens's target wasn't about to submit to arrest, and a shootout ensued between Owens and the desperadoes, during which Owens, firing five shots with his Winchester, “killed Cooper, Roberts and Sam Blevins and severely wounded John Blevins.”

After his term as Apache County's sheriff, Owens was employed by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and then by Wells Fargo. After a stint as a U. S. deputy marshal and, from March 25, 1895 to December 31, 1896, as the sheriff of Navajo County, Arizona, he became a businessman in Seligman, Arizona, possibly as a saloon operator. He died on may 10, 1919, and was buried in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Another Great (But Dated) Source for Fans, Readers, and Writers of Westerns

The Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters by Bill O'Neal provides a wealth of information concerning (among many others—the book includes 587 of them!) Robert A. Clay Allison, Deputy U. S. Marshal Samuel Bass, William Morton Breckenridge, William F. (“Billy the Kid”) Clairborne, Joseph Isaac (“Ike”) Clanton, Florentine Cruz, George (“Big Nose”) Curry, Bob Dalton, Emmett Dalton, Grattan (“Grat”) Dalton, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, Warren Earp, Wyatt Berry Strapp Earp, Robert Ford, Patrick Floyd Garrett, William (“Curly Bill”) Brocius, John Wesley Hardin, James Butler (“Wild Bill”) Hickok, John Henry (“Doc”) Holliday, Thomas (“Black Jack”) Ketchum, Nashville Franklin (“Buckskin Frank”) Leslie,” Harvey (“Kid Curry”) Logan, Frank McLaury, Thomas McLaury, Sherman McMasters, Edward J. Masterson, James P. Masterson, William Barclay (“Bat”) Masterson, Dave H. (“Mysterious Dave”) Mather, “Johnny Behind the Deuce” O'Rourke, Commodore Perry Owens, Robert LeRoy (“Butch” Cassidy”) Parker, William F. (“Little Bill”) Raidler, John Ringo, David Rudabaugh, Thomas J. (“Bear River Tom”) Smith, Henry (“The Bearcat) Starr, Frank C. Stilwell, Ben Thompson, James Younger, John Younger, Robert Younger, and Thomas Coleman Younger.

Although dated (it debuted in 1940), this volume, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, offers a treasure trove of information for readers and writers alike. Not the least of this information are the photographs of the gunfighters: there are nearly sixty of them.

In his “Introduction,” O'Neal discusses the difficulties of defining the term “gunfighter” and in determining which criteria should be used to identify them.

In the process, he disabuses his readers of some of the myths, or mistaken beliefs, that have collected about Western gunfighters, often as a result of their glamorization.

For example, O'Neal says, “The primary misconception . . . concerns the fast draw” (3). In fact, “the speed of the draw was insignificant” (4). The technique of fanning a gun's hammer was never used, because “a snap shot rarely hits anything but the ground or the sky” (4). 

Furthermore, O'Neal observes, “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” (3).

Another false belief among many fans of Westerns is that gunfighters were serial killers, most having many victims to their credit. In reality, O'Neal points out, “most gunfighters killed but few men during their careers” (4). According to O'Neal's estimates, Masterson killed only one man; Billy the Kid, perhaps four; and Clay Allison, no more than a dozen (4).

Gunfighters, O'Neal found, fought for and against the law, often earned their living in professions requiring skill with a gun, such as “a law officer, detective, buffalo hunter, or army scout, or a rustler, thief, or hired killer.” In addition, some “men became gunfighters by accident” (4).

As a result of his research, O'Neal decided, “with some exceptions” and “somewhat arbitrarily,” that, for his purposes, a gunfighter had to have “been involved in at least two verifiable shootouts—usually but not necessarily fatal ones” between 1861 to 1900 (4).

His “Introduction” also includes a list of the 33 deadliest, or “greatest,” gunfighters. Here, I include only the top ten. (The number in parentheses after the gunfighter's name represents the number of men he's known to have killed.) The list may surprise some readers:

Jim Miller

1. Jim Miller (12)
2. Wes Hardin (11)
3. Bill Longley (11)
4. Harvey Logan (9)
5. Wild Bill Hickok (7)
6. John Selman (6)
7. Dallas Stoudenmire (5)
8. Cullen Baker (5)
9. King Fisher (5)
10. Billy the Kid (4)

Wild Bill Hickok

In the case of a tie in regard to the number of gunfighters' victims, it's unclear how O'Neal ranked the killers. He includes the numbers of gunfights in which the gunfighters were involved, but he doesn't use this additional information to rank the men.

For example Wes Hardin (i. e., John Wesley Hardin) was involved in 19 gunfights, during which he killed 11 men, which equals a kill ratio of 57.8%: 11/19 = 57.8), but Bill Longley participated in 12 gunfights, killing 11 of his opponents, which equals a much higher kill ratio than that of Hardin: 11/12 = 91.6, or 91.6%. Why, then, is Hardin ranked above Longley?

Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp, who was a participant in five shootouts, occupies the next-to-lowest (32^nd) place on O'Neal's list of the “greatest gunfighters” (6), because he killed no one (although Earp took credit for killing Billy Clairborne, is said to have killed Curly Bill Brocious, and may have killed Frank Stilwell and others during his vendetta ride). 

Doc Holliday, killed two men in eight shootouts (a 25% kill ratio), but is ranked in 19^th place, just ahead of Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid's killer. The list is obviously controversial, but it does give fans, readers, and writers of Westerns some data upon which to reflect and about which to debate.

The Hanging of Black Jack Ketchum

O'Neal's research also allows him to draw a few more conclusions regarding gunfighters. Most were born and died in Western states. A third died peacefully, the others violently, by gunshot, lynching, or suicide. On the average, their lifespan was 47 years.

Gunfighters earned their living in a variety of ways, often devoting themselves to several careers at different times over the years: law enforcement (110 of O'Neal's 587 gunfighters were lawmen at one time or another), cowboys (75 of 587), ranchers (54 of 587), farmers (46 of 587), rustlers (45 of 587), hired gunmen (35 of 587), soldiers (34 of 587), bandits (26 of 587), gamblers (24 of 587), laborer (22 of 587), saloon owner (19 of 587), clerks (14 of 587), train robbers (14 of 587), miners (10 of 587), and/or prospectors (10 of 587) (8).

Other professions in which gunfighters earned a living at one time or another are in the single digits. Nine out of the 587 gunfighters were army scouts, stagecoach robbers, or teamsters (8).

Eight were bank robbers or buffalo hunters. Seven were range detectives or stagecoach drivers (8).

Six were actors, ranch foremen, or railroad employees (8).

Five were bartenders or bronco busters (8).

Four were butchers, freighters, livery-stable owners, or criminals (8).

Three were bounty hunters, cafe owners, carpenters, hotel owners, lawyers, politicians, private detectives, racketeers, sportsmen, or whiskey peddlers (8).

Two were con men, counterfeiters, customs collectors, dance-hall owners, dispatch riders, horse breeders, hunters, printers, school teachers, speculators, or surveyors (8).

One was an arsonist, an author, a baker, a blacksmith, a building contractor, a businessman, a cattle broker, a dentist, a doctor, an engineer, an express-company superintendent, a ferryman, a gunsmith, a harness maker, an Indian agent, an Indian fighter, an inspector, an insurance executive, an inventor, an irrigation manager, a jailer, a jeweler, a lecturer, a livery-stable employee, a movie producer, a movie scenarist, a newsboy, an oil wildcatter, a packmaster, a page, a postmaster, a prison warden, a racetrack employee, a railroad guard, a realtor, a sailor, a salesman, a school superintendent, a sheepherder, a shotgun guard, a showman, a slave trader, a spy, a stagecoach contractor, a stage-station employee, a telegraph runner, a tinsmith, a trail boss, a train brakeman, a trapper, a wheelwright, a whiskey smuggler, a Wild West show performer, and/or a woodcutter (8-9).

Bob and Grat Dalton

As O'Neal points out, a number of gunfighters were also brothers, brothers-in-law, cousins, nephews, parents and children, in-laws, or other relatives of shootists.

Brothers were often involved in gun play as a team: the Beckwiths, the Clantons, the Daltons, the Earps, the Horrrells, the Jameses, the Logans, the Mastersons, the McCluskies, the McLaurys, the Olingers, the Tewksburys, the Thompsons, and the Youngers, among them (9).

Most gunfights between 1861 and 1900 occurred in Texas (160), but Kansas and New Mexico (each with 70 gunfights to its credit) were not far behind, and all the Western states were prone to such violence, O'Neal observes (10).

O'Neal's “Chronology of the Gunfighters' West,” another intriguing table in his “Introduction,” offers brief (usually a sentence) accounts of the gunfights his encyclopedia treats in detail in the articles that follow (10-14). The first summary indicates the nature of the others:

1861    Shootout between the “McCanles Gang” and Wild Bill Hickok (July 12, Rock Creek Station, Nebraska).

Bear River Tom

Nicknames were plentiful among Western gunfighters, O'Neal says, many deriving from “physical characteristics and appearance” (Cockeyed Frank Loving); from “personality traits” (Mysterious Dave Mather); from “locations” (Bear River Tom); or from “occupational tendencies” (Doc Holliday) (14-16).

Following his “Introduction,” O'Neal begins his profusely illustrated accounts of the 587 gunfighters whose stories make up his encyclopedia.

All in all, it's a fascinating, rich treasury of facts and lore concerning one of the most intriguing groups of men to have inhabited America's nineteenth-century Wild West.

Robbing Trains in the Days of the Old West

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

In Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West (no, the book was not published by Wells Fargo), John Boessenecker describes several train robberies, a few in some detail. As a result, aficionados get a sense of how outlaws managed to rob trains—not an easy task, when you think about it.

Although this painting is dramatic, it's also probably unrealistic, as trains were not often, if ever, robbed in this manner.

(Click the image to enlarge it.)

For example, Andrew Johns (“Big Jack”) Davis and five of his gang “slipped aboard a Central Pacific train,” and, after capturing the crew, uncoupled the passenger cars from “the engine, coal tender, and express car,” thereby preventing “the many passengers, some of whom were armed, from” assisting the crew. The engine continued to a rendezvous point farther along the track, where an accomplice waited with horses and mules, and the robbers made off with $46,000 from the express car (108).

Another robbery was more complicated and protracted. After breaking into a section house, Frank Hawley, David Francis, and their gang of three captured, gagged, and bound five Chinese workers, locking them and four captured “white section bosses . . . in the water-tank building.” As the eastbound passenger train approached, at 1:00 AM, a gang member, using a red lantern, flagged down the engineer (221).

Section house

After the train stopped, the gang captured and bound the crew, leaving them inside the section house (a small building for storing tools and equipment needed to maintain a railroad section) with the gang's other captives. The gang next ordered Aaron Ross, the express messenger, to vacate the express car, but Ross refused, arming himself with a shotgun. Despite exchanges of gunfire between Ross and the gang, despite the gang's attempt to “batter” their way through the wall of the car using coal picks, and despite the gang's forcing the brakeman to uncouple the express car from the “mail and baggage coach” and repeatedly ram the express car in an effort to get to Ross or to force him out of the express car, Ross continued to resist the gang. Their hope of burning the express care was dashed when the gang realized that its engine burned coal, not wood (222-223).

Baggage coach

During the gang's unsuccessful two-hour-long siege, Ross held out, wounding two of the robbers, one seriously. When the gang learned that the next passenger train would arrive at the station within half an hour, they finally gave up and left (224).

Other train robberies are described as well, including an unsuccessful “trestle robbery” (291-297), which is similar in some ways to an incident in my novel-in-progress, tentatively called Bound for Glory.

Wild West Hangings and Lynchings

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Hanging of " Black Jack" Ketchum

The website Legends of America lists almost 200 outlaws who were hanged during the days of the Wild West*; of this number, over 90 were lynched. The website provides details for the hanged (or lynched) men. For example, concerning Joseph Allen and his accomplices, Legends of America states that Joseph Allen (18??-1909) was—

A gunfighter who was involved in a bitter feud in Ada, Oklahoma, was later arrested for the murder of Gus Bobbitt. On April 19, 1909, a vigilante mob of 150-200 men stormed the jail, and dragged out Allen, along with Jim Miller, Jesse West, and D. B. Burrell. The four were hanged in an abandoned barn behind the jail.

In regard to Patricio Maes, a lynching victim, the website states that Eugenio Alarid,

a crooked lawman and outlaw, Alarid was a member of the Las Vegas, New Mexico police force and a member of Vicente Silva’s White Caps Gang. At the request of Silva, Alarid, along with to more crooked lawmen, Jose Chavez y Chavez, and Julian Trujillo lynched Patricio Maes on October 22, 1892. All three men were eventually arrested for the murder of Maes and sentenced to life in prison.

Legends of America also features “full articles” concerning several hanged or lynched men, including “James Averell—Unjustly Hanged,” “Henry Newton Brown—Robbing the Ameican West,” “Cattle Kate—Mystery of a Lynching,” “Outlaw William Coe & His Missing Loot,” “John Heath and the Bisbee Massacre,” “Thomas 'Black Jack' Ketchum—Unjustly Hanged” and “The Lynching of 'Big Steve' Long,” among others.

Black Jack Ketchum's hanging results in his decapitation

Although Washington and New Hampshire still use hanging as their means of execution, no hanging has occurred in the United States since 1996. Lynching continued in the United States until as late as 1968, with African Americans the victims, rather than outlaws, the victims.

Note: For the purpose of this article, the map below delineates the American Wild West:

Tombstone Entertainment: The Birdcage Theater

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the challenges faced by Billy Hutchinson and his wife Lottie, the owners of The Birdcage Theater in nineteenth-century Tombstone, Arizona, was how to make their business appealing to their customers, the region's miners, cowboys, and ranchers.
 

In 1881, before wedding Lottie, Billy had spent considerable money—$600—to build the theater. Now, he had to offer incentives to customers to keep them coming back for more. Fortunately, Billy had worked in show business, and he had the answer: “entertaining shows, refreshing drinks, games of chance, dancing, private conversation[,] and adult comfort.”

The eclectic “entertainment” offered by the theater wasn't exclusively theatrical. Prostitutes, who worked behind the drawn curtains of the “elevated boxes” suspended from the ceiling, also kept the establishment's patrons entertained at $25 per night. (Private rooms in the basement went for $40 per night.) 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was performed at The Birdcage in June 1882. Not all of the action went as written in the script:

Chaos occurred when little Eliza was being pursued by Simon Legree and his bloodhound while crossing the icy river. An inebriated cowboy, caught up in the drama, pulled his sixgun and plugged the dog. The audience was outraged and pounced on the clueless cowboy who was finally rescued by a peace officer and hauled off to jail. The next day the cowboy, now sober and repentant, offered his horse to the troupe as recompense for the dog.

In addition, The Birdcage Theater featured wrestling matches, one of which, between Peter Schumacher and Professor Dan Milo, occurred on February 6, 1886, each party receiving $100. Admission to the floor was 50 cents; for reserved seats, a dollar. The match was advertised in the town's famous newspaper, The Tombstone Epitaph, two days before the event took place.

The variety of entertainment that The Birdcage featured virtually guaranteed there was something for everyone, “including leg shows, bawdy humorists, and fast-paced variety acts.” The variety acts featured such performers as The Happy Hottentots and their “Grotesque Dancing, Leg Mania, and Contortion Feats”; Mademoiselle De Granville, “The Female Hercules,” who claimed to have “an iron jaw” and picked “up heavy objects with her teeth”; comedians, including “the Irish comic duo of John H. Burns and Matthew Trayers, the comic singer Irene Baker,” and comedienne Nola Forest; “a serious opera singer” Carrie Delmar; acrobats and trapeze artists; Ella Richter, aka Mademoiselle Zazel, “the Human Cannonball”; masquerade balls attended by transvestite entertainers David Walters and Will Curlew; and “The Flying Nymph,” who “flew” across the theater “on a rope.” 

The Human Fly was certainly “one of the most unusual” performances:

. . . women (dressed in the usual theatrical tights and abbreviated costumes) walked upside-down on the ceiling over the stage. It was not an illusion—they actually were suspended above the stage . . . . The trick was that their shoes had special clamps on them that fitted into holes bored into the ceiling to support them . . . . In another version “the human fly” women wore suction cups on their feet as they walked up and down on a platform high above the stage.

As one might suppose, such acts were dangerous. In both versions, one or more of “the human fly” performers died when equipment failed.

Among the other unusual entertainments the theater boasted was a 24-hour poker game that continued non-stop for eight years, five months, and three days, during which $10 million were bet. To be admitted to the game, a player had to be willing to spend at least $1,000. Those who tried their hands at the game include Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Diamond Jim Brady, and George Hearst. The house took 10 percent of the winnings, so, over the years that the game lasted, The Birdcage received a whopping $1 million! 

Eddie Foy, Sr.

Lotta Crabtree

Among other entertainers who performed at The Birdcage were Eddie Foy, Sr., Lotta Crabtree, Lily Langtree, and Lola Montez. However, despite the entertainment the theater offered, the frequent shootings and low company prevented many women from patronizing the establishment, and, despite the weekly Ladies' Nights on which women were admitted free of charge, “respectable ladies in Tombstone never went near the Bird Cage.”

Lillie Langtree

 

Lola Montez

The Birdcage Theater is something of a time capsule. Located at the corner of Allen Street and Sixth Street, it survived the devastating fire that swept through Tombstone in the early 1880s because it was built entirely of concrete, and, “when it closed its doors in 1889, everything inside was left in place”; in 1934, when the doors were opened again, “Tombstone found itself with a perfect window into its past.”

 

AUTHENTICATED: New Tintype of Morgan Earp, Louisa Earp, Doc Holliday, and Mary Katherine Horony

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Seated, second row, second to left, Morgan Earp; beside him, to his left, Louisa Earp; to Louisa's left, "Big Nose Kate"; to her left, Doc Holliday. Souce: Bidsquare.

Click the image to enlarge it.

The recent authentication of an April 24, 1881, tintype showing Morgan Seth Earp (1851-1882), Morgan's wife Louisa Alice Houston (1855-1894), Doc Holliday (1851-1887), and Doc's common-law wife Mary Katherine (“Big Nose Kate”) Horony (1850-1940) has excited Western historian, novelists, and fans. The tintype may have been taken on Morgan's thirtieth birthday.

The rare tintype, measuring 4.875 inches long by 3.375 inches wide, was authenticated by forensic expert Kent Gibson of Los Angeles, California, using facial-recognition software.

Gibson has also authenticated images of other figures of the Old West, including those of Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Pat Garrett, Jesse James, Frank James, Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, John Wilkes Booth, Fred Waite, Fred Noonan, Bat Masterson.

Morgan Earp. Source: Find-a-Grave.

Click the image to enlarge it.

Six months after the tintype was taken, the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred, on October 26, 1881, at 2:30 PM. Morgan and Doc fought alongside Morgan's brothers, Wyatt and Tombstone marshal Virgil, against Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton. The next year, on March 18, Morgan was assassinated in Campbell & Hatch's saloon and billiard parlor, an incident that precipitated Wyatt Earp's and Doc Holliday's vendetta ride.