About 10 years ago, I put out a list of my favorite nonfiction books about Texas. One of those was “The Big Rich” by Bryan Burrough. I still stand by that choice as one of my all-time favorites. Now, Burrough has a new book I’d like to recommend for those who might need an antidote for Hallmark holiday movies.
“The Gunfighters” is an interesting enough title, but it was the subtitle that seized my attention: “How Texas Made the West Wild.” There is a thesis contained in those few words that makes a Texas-sized claim about Texas having primary responsibility for making the Old West a particularly lawless and violent place – not just in Texas, mind you, but all across the west. Fascinating.
I pulled the trigger on that book and loaded it into my Barnes & Noble cart immediately. I couldn’t wait to see how Burrough made his case.
It doesn’t take him long to lay out his claim more fully. In chapter one, “The Thing About Texas,” he writes, “The Old West was a kaleidoscope of personal violence.”
Then he goes on to say: “If you study these marquee gunfights at any length, something jumps out at you about the participants. In Kansas, in Wyoming, in New Mexico, in Arizona, all across the frontier, a startling number of these deadly encounters involved a single kind of person: A Texan.”
» MORE: An interview with Bryan Burrough on ‘The Gunfighters’
I know maybe it shouldn’t affect me this way, but as a Texan, I was a little bit proud to read that. Still, I wasn’t going to let a wellspring of pride cloud my judgment. I needed much more proof than could be contained in a few complimentary paragraphs.
“It’s true,” Burrough writes. “Texas cowboys, cattlemen, and outlaws, took part in and often initiated the notable gunfights of Earp’s Tombstone and Dodge City, the manic shoot-outs of Billy the Kid’s New Mexico, the showdowns of Hickok’s Abilene, and the cattle wars of Wyoming. … Take away Texans – Texas cowboys, Texas outlaws, and Texas lawmen – and the American Gunfighter shrinks to insignificance.”
Burrough has a good point, but one has to wonder why. What was it about Texas that created a fertile cultural soil that nurtured this kind of man? Or was he already that kind of man before he arrived in Texas?
Burrough says that Texas was indeed different. It was the only one of 50 states to defeat a foreign army to win its independence. Texas settlers continued to fight on two frontiers thereafter, with Mexico on the southern border and Native Americans on the western frontier. What resulted, he says, was a “highly martial culture, its people deeply attuned to violence and expert at it.”
Larry McMurtry famously said that you couldn’t expect families that had experienced such lethality to have it sift out of them within a generation or two. Burrough concludes that “It’s no surprise it was Texans who first popularized the new revolvers that ushered in the gunfighter era.”
There is also the Southern connection. Texas was populated largely by immigrants from southern states, and they brought with them the dueling culture. The tradition of stepping off 20 paces was eventually replaced by the quick draw.
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Burrough points out that we still have vestiges of the gunfighter era in Texas today. Texas Tech still has its “guns up” symbol of school spirit. It’s also not uncommon for Texans to say “you wanta take this outside?” when things get heated. Mostly it’s said in jest, but not always.
Burrough’s book is a wonderful read. If, like me, you’re a lover of the Western canon of literature and history, you’ll certainly enjoy it. All the usual suspects are here: Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy and Bat Masterson.
While others are watching sweet movies with hot chocolate this holiday season, you can be off in a quiet room reading, enjoying shots of whiskey and dodging bullets.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.texasstandard.org ’
