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.

It seems that time can be a tricky thing to master. I very specifically remember that when I was a kid, time was stubborn and had little to no interest in passing. It didn't seem to matter if I was waiting for the morning to arrive, or waiting for the summer school break. Time could not be rushed, and no amount of begging could convince it.

The older we get, the more valuable family heirlooms and keepsakes we’ve accumulated over the years become. To most folks these things mean very little. However, many of these items are priceless to the current caretaker. A glance around the house reveals an assortment of things that once belonged to relatives that are now gone. It will come as little surprise to y’all that many of these cherished possessions are guns.

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.

My guess is that when most of us imagine the old-time gun toters of the frontier we unconsciously assume that they were packing Colt single actions. And, while that might have been true for a slim majority, the Smith & Wesson Model 3 single action was always running a close second to the venerable Colt.

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.

His name was Henry McCarty. His favorite alias was William Bonney. We knew him as Billy the Kid. Beyond that, just about everything you knew, or thought you knew, about him is not true or are claims made without supporting facts. Here are a few things to consider about one of the West’s most famous outlaws.

His name was Arvo Ojala, pronounced O-Ja-La, with a J. He was known as the fast gun coach of the stars needing help handling sixguns to realistically portray themselves as authentic gunslingers. Believe me, they all needed help. Arvo was considered an excellent teacher, stating he could teach anyone how to fast-draw and handle guns professionally within a two-week span.

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.

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.

In the late 1800s, John M. Browning was on a roll. He designed the robust 1886 Winchester that was chambered for big-bore cartridges. Then, in 1892, he brought out a scaled down version that would handle various popular handgun cartridges. Later, we got the Model 1895 Winchester which was a whole new design for high-velocity ammo. But I think his crowning glory, where lever actions are concerned, was his Model 1894 rifle and carbine.

I love guns with stories. Tales of firearms that belonged to folks of note, guns used in interesting events, or those that came from fascinating places are intriguing to this writer. They bring a particular firearm to life, even though we all know quite well that they are just mechanical devices, right?

The story goes that author Ned Buntline (real name Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.) wanted to express his thanks to some of the Kansas lawmen who had been the inspiration for some of the books that he wrote.

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.

This Colt 1851 Navy, serial number 1388131E, is one of a pair carried by James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (1837-1876).  During his lifetime, Hickok was a Union Army scout, a deputy U.S. Marshal, the sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, and the city marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

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.