To some folks Claude Dallas was like a throwback to the days of old-time cowboys and mountain men, the ones who took care of their own business. Others just saw him as trouble looking for a place to happen. Regardless, he has become a part of the latter-day western legend.

One of my favorite friends from years past was Texas Ranger Lee Trimble. Lee was born LaFetra Elisha Trimble on September 29, 1892, in Globe, Arizona Territory. He never said much about his early life but, by 1917, he was a cowboy on the Brite Ranch, south of Valentine, in the Big Bend country of West Texas.

Wyatt Earp was a frontier lawman and Stuart N. Lake made him a legend. Some time in the early 1920s, Lake contacted Bat Masterson in New York City with the idea of writing Masterson’s life story. Probably just to get rid of the guy, Masterson told him that Wyatt Earp, living in California, was the more deserving subject. The result was that Lake published “Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal” shortly after Earp passed away in the late '20s.

The only travelers on the road were two horsemen. The older of the two, riding a big dun gelding, was Dave Allison, a man in his late forties with prematurely graying hair. His partner, younger by 20 years and sitting on a nice bay gelding, was Tom Allred. Both men wore white shirts and dark vests. Each had a revolver on his hip and a carbine in their saddle scabbard. One might mistaken them for father and son ranchers. They weren’t.

Bloody Christmas on the Mexican Border: The Brite Ranch Raid—The tale I’m about to share with y’all will sound a little like one of Jim Wilson’s fiction pieces, but it’s not. There are slight variations in accounts of the incident. What follows are some of the common reports gathered from multiple sources, along with information passed down to later generations from folks who were there.

Tom Threepersons was a lawman/gunfighter in the El Paso area during the 1920s. Whether you know it or not, just about everything else that you know or have read about him is untrue or undocumented. So, let’s start with the facts that can be proven.

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Pretty quick, Hayes hit a high trail that headed towards Chinati Peak. I figured he was planning to get lost in that broken canyon country north of the peak. He made quite a race of it but my old dun gelding was desert raised and we held our own. Just about the time we were going to catch up to him, Devil pulled his horse to a sliding stop and spun uphill, off the trail. As he did, I snapped a shot at him with my carbine and knocked him out of the saddle.

Make no mistake about it, good single actions deserve good gun leather. By the way, anyone who would carry a classic single action in a kydex holster clearly has loose morals, does strange things to innocent furry creatures, probably has outstanding warrants, and votes Democrat.

John Wesley Hardin was born in Bonham, Texas, in 1853. He grew up during the War of Northern Aggression and the subsequent Reconstruction era. For whatever reason, Texas was not hit very hard by the actual war; not a single major battle was fought in the state. However, Reconstruction hit Texas with both feet...with the boots and spurs still on.

I have been extremely fortunate to have met, and continue to meet, some extraordinary and interesting characters in my life. It will come as no surprise to many of you that a lot of these folks are lawmen. One such man was Sam McKone. That name will ring a bell to devoted readers of No Second Place Winner, authored by famed Border Patrolman Bill Jordan. Pages 105 and 106 of my copy of that compact book on gunfighting tell how Sam’s cool head and expert marksmanship took out a

The ranch was alive.  A symphony of coyotes yipping and howling greeted us.  Just prior to first light the trees across from a field we were near erupted in the gobbles of numerous turkeys descending from their roosts.  Things looked promising.  By sunrise, Melanie was calling and she was getting lots of responses.  Melanie says that her two absolute favorite things to hunt are turkey and elk because you have to “talk” and interact with both of them. It was incredibly excitin

He had ridden southwest out of Marfa, down through Pinto Canyon. Once he hit the river, he headed upstream, through the little village of Candelaria, to a river crossing called Capote. His horse was hobbled back in the brush, and now he sat in the early morning darkness, Winchester across his lap, waiting to kill a man who had once been his best friend.

On or before October 10, 1918, the Cameron County Sheriff William T. Vann got word that Delgado was going to cross a load of mescal at Los Tomates Bend not far from Brownsville. Vann put together an arrest team made up of a couple of his deputies, two customs officers, Texas Ranger Captain W. W. Taylor, Ranger Sergeant Delbert Timberlake, and Ranger Private Frank Hamer.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest and posts on “Fitz” revolvers on social media. I simply shake my head at the level of pontification and commentary by folks who have absolutely no concept of the reason they existed and what the intent was in their creation. There is a huge disconnect, so I thought I would do a post to explain the historical significance of these guns.

The area where this story took place is some of the most remote country in the American Southwest.  On a Texas map, find the border town of Presidio.  As you look upstream on the Rio Grande, from Presidio, you’ll notice that there’s just a whole of nothing for several hundred miles until you get almost to El Paso.

Even though I was a young city policeman, I liked to spend as much time as possible over at the sheriff’s office. The deputies, as a group, were a good bit older and had a lot more experience; I figured I just might learn something useful by hanging around them. One of my favorites was Buster Gibbs.

Why would you even think such a thing?  Don’t you know that plastic pistols and high-capacity magazines revolutionized the world?  Where have you been?  Are you some sort of Daniel Boone throwback?  Well, I can share my thinking on the subject with you although I have to tell you right up front that I’m not an operator...don’t have any tattoos...don’t even have any tactical underwear or other super-hero outfits.

So much has been written in the wild west magazines about the Kitchens Gang I figured you might be interested to hear the real story from one who had a minor hand in the whole thing.  You see, I was just out of high school and my folks put me to managing my uncle’s livery stable; the only one in our little town.

W.L. “Lee” Barler was born in Llano, Texas in 1874. The Terrell County history book says Barler’s father had worked as a lawman, fought outlaws and Indians and served as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War.