The Bloody Truth About Texas | Bryan Burrough On The Wild West

0:00 You not only had the southern honor culture, Texas was every inch of southern state, but you had two different violent frontiers. We don't fully appreciate how violent Texas was and how violent Texans were in those days and their reputation around the country for that. Today's guest, Brian Burrow, I was so pumped to have Brian on. I think this was a great episode. We really nerded out this idea of honor culture, this process of civilization, the fight of law and order against chaos. Some really good stoic themes. Honor, I think, explains a lot of the Old West gunfights, but there's so many other things that were on the table as well. If respect is hard to earn or finding your place in the hierarchy is maybe it's too stratified, too difficult, too oified, making people afraid of you is at least one way to establish yourself. These feuds that broke out, especially in Texas, some of the bloodiest feuds in American history,

0:46 and people are still figuring those out now. You know, what really happened? This is a person who is by definition impulsive and perhaps doesn't think about the consequences of things before they do them. I wrestle with all this for so long. And [Music] so I was thinking about your books and um I thought of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quote which actually was in one of the first articles I I think I ever wrote but it strikes me as maybe a through line through all your works and I'd love to know. Okay. So he says, "Methsth and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide. The illusion of near infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality.

1:34 Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as a living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of the rat race is not yet final. Uh certainly the last line because why do we like murderers and terrorists and outlaws and bank robbers like there there is something about why we decide to make these people who are on some level objectively bad. Yeah. into these cult heroes. It's something like that. I think that there's another way that somebody made it out. Even if what they're doing is bad, they're sticking it to the man in some way. People who live by the rules of civilization have always been fascinated by those who aren't. Yes. Or who don't.

2:19 Yes. And that's why we're fascinated with criminals. people. There is something incredibly captivating and inspiring about someone who shows that the rules of civilization are optional. Well, and and I I would take it further. There are you are fascinated and rooting for somebody who can live that life without the rules that you can't because you're the you're the good girl. You're the good guy, right? Um, and so you're rooting for them and it feels so great because they're sticking it to the man because they're showing that you can live outside the lines. And then when they inevitably come down when Bonnie and Clyde get shot by a thousand bullets, you can say, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm doing the right thing after all." Right. You know, it works on so many levels. Yes. It it it they never You can

3:05 root for them, but at some level you understand they're not actually going to win. Because if they did win, then it would challenge the entire foundations of your life and you would live your reality. Yes. That's why someone like an Al Capone challenged the American reality because that that type of person just cannot be allowed to live that big a life. Yeah. I mean, they have they they must be brought down at some point. Yeah. Because that is interesting. Like the the outlaws that people celebrate and appreciate, they have next to no personal contact with. like the the they weren't robbing their bank. They weren't shooting up their, you know, uh, drive-thru movie theater, but like they weren't actually privy or experiencing

3:52 firsthand the violence or the mayhem. There's a distance to it, right? And it's but and it's I think the reason you root for them is the symbolism of we all feel oppressed. Yeah. Even if it's just by your workday, the fact that you have to be there at 9:00 and leave at 5. I hated that beyond I I can't even describe how much I hated it for. And and so anybody that can, you know, live beyond that, especially if the oppression or depression is is legitimate during the depression. That's why we had so many as they call social outlaws. Why people cheered for the likes of John Dillinger because, you know, he was sticking it to the man at a time. I live on, you know, um, a poor farm and can can't even, you know, pay

4:37 gas to get to town. Yeah. It seems exciting. It seems glamorous, but most of all, it's it's it's there's some hope that they're going to they're going to escape the tyranny of the life that you are afraid to challenge. Show me the way to a better life, and if you get caught and killed, well, good. That's reassuring, too. It's just it's a it's something to project your hopes and fantasies and insecurities at. And I would say, and you didn't ask, I think that goes double for the American man because so many American men are um raised by parents and imbued with the idea that they can do anything. That's the American dream, right? That that you can achieve anything. And I think it makes American men I I sense a lot more

5:26 depressed or prone to such feelings than Danish men. Yeah. Well, well, there is. But although I a lot of these I mean a lot of these myths and figures are global figures. I mean there's something about the American West that's uniquely obviously part of the American psyche, but these figures do cross over. And I'm sure there's I mean there's mobsters who are famous in other countries in their own press German men as well. In fact, then there are you know great wild west clubs in in Germany. But I I don't know that they're not as popular as America's. I Yeah. No, no, it's it's fun it's fundamentally I think a human thing. But you're right. it America being this sort of capitalistic winner take all culture, you know, the the the

6:12 the ceaseless competition of it, if you are not ranking well in said competition, you are going to be you're going to feel a kinship to someone who who opts out of the whole thing, blows apart the and and wins at their own game. Absolutely. Yeah. Even if winning is is actually like even though actually they're losers at some level. Mo most of them are losers, you know, like like they're robbing banks not because it's a great business decision, not because they couldn't finish up their PhD at Harvard. Yes. Yes. Yeah. They didn't choose between this and a bunch of other viable options. No. Yes. That's right. Very few um of the criminals that I'm aware of, you know, um you know, walked out of good paying jobs to go rob a

6:58 bank. And that's maybe why we like some of the ones that oh or or that's why we project things onto them, you know, whether it's a Johnny Ringo or Doc Holl where it's like, oh, they're extremely cultured and extremely smart. We project certain things onto them probably because we want to not it's like why we um the serial killers almost never go by their their three names. We put the third we put the middle name in there one for liel purposes, right? It's so uh other people aren't Oh, my name's also John Smith. Right? But that's like the journalistic convention of it. But the other I think is it just makes them seem like less like losers. Like having three names makes it seem more important. I I have never gone there. I thought the three-ame phenomena was limited to child actors. But okay. Well, but you like we

7:45 we tend to refer to serial killers as by first, middle, and last name. John Wayne Casey. Yeah. Right. It's like I never made the connection and I've and I I've come close twice to running a serial killer book. I mean uh an overall narrative. There's a book for somebody and it it one guy an academic did it in Canada about the rise and fall of the serial killer era because it's practically over. Interesting. Yeah. Rose in the 60s and 70s. Yeah. I mean maybe with serial killers we want them to be Dexter and most of them are not Dexter. They're uniquely um uh unattractive lot. Um, but yeah, it was it was like, okay, you wrote about obviously that I'm exempting um uh the uh uh Barbarians of the Gate here. But but Days of Rage,

8:32 Public Enemies, and now the Gunfighters, they're all different forms of outlaws, and it's unique that we celebrate them. Even though like the sort of ' 60s outlaw is very different than the gunfighter outlaw, very different than the than the uh than the sort of gangster outlaw, but something about the person who breaks free of society, does something, goes on the run, will they catch them? Will won't they catch them? That is a just a throughine through all your books. It feels like every one of them and you could go back to to Barbarians, which was a Wall Street was about rule breakers and the cost you pay pirates, corporate raiders. Yeah, I'm doing pirates next. No, but I mean that and I'm saying Oh, yeah. Also, they were called pirates and corporate raiders. There was there is an outlaw mentality

9:18 to it. Yeah. Especially as you lived it moment to moment. It was so new 50 years later. We don't really think of it as new, right? No. No. They're the button-down suit guys now in retrospect. They Now we call them private equity. Well, so I drove through I've been to Tombstone a bunch of times, but I drove through Tombstone during the pandemic, like early in the pandemic. And so it was like totally abandoned. So it had an extra level of like, you know, the movie like the tumble weeds rolling through the streets being empty. And I remember I I walked we're walking up the one of the boardwalks or whatever. And um there's a sign on the door and it says like uh it was a very firm sign about how you can't carry a gun inside the saloon. The full circeness of it really

10:03 struck me that like in Tombstone in 2021 or late 2020, yeah, mid 2020, they were still arguing over whether you can openly carry a gun in the streets or in the establishments of Tombstone. Yeah. I just thought again, there's something about us and these issues that remains ever present. I mean, like, you could have picked up an editorial from the Tombstone epitap in 1880 and it would have been about the exact same issue. And I I I Googled it. I was like, what is And there was that people were mad about it. It was they'd repass the law about it and they're still fighting about it. It it it's fascinating because these days the zeitgeist is in the favor of the open carry. Yes. And back then, in fact, somebody told me Malcolm

10:49 Gladwell has a piece on this. Back then, the open carry laws were much stricter than they are now. Although I question how rapidly they were enforced. Sure. It it seems to be the default in Dodge City and Tombstone in any number of the other towns I wrote about that rarely would the sheriff or the marshall enforce that unless you were acting up. There's a pretext. Yeah. Yeah. Like we have lots of those now. We do. Yes. But it is interesting to go like, okay, they were desperately trying to get out of a world where people are carrying guns around and we seem for some reason to be trying to get back into into that world. Yeah. The the whole reason that you would carry a gun has the way we view it has

11:36 changed. I don't I don't write about in this book nor do I care about you know gun policy and gun issues these days but for you know these days it seems to there's a much more pervasive sense that you are at risk or somehow in danger. Yes. And um uh you know back then you were mostly carrying that gun in most cases to you know to kill varmints. Yeah. I mean, stray dogs and it was a vi it was a violent place. Not just because you might get in a gunfight, but there was other stuff there. Rattlesnakes and wolves. I'm convinced that one of the reasons Texans were the first ones drawn to revolvers was uh rattlesnakes. Yes. I mean, you you you and and I see this with my wife's family these days. You don't go out on the ranch. Yeah. Without some type of firearm because God knows what there are things out there who

12:22 sting that will sting and bite you. No, no. I carry one on my ranch and and I I I don't need the revolver because I have a snake shot in it, which means you don't have to be so good at shooting. But uh yeah, like the idea of it being a a tool of life in those days would have been very real. And then then you add in alcohol and these sort of I think that's one of the things I've really learned living out in the country and I'm sure it was true a thousand times across the West. the type of person that moves away from other people. We tend to glamorize that as, oh, they're a they're a searcher, they're um they're uh you know, they're a doer, they're we we we imbue it with a certain significance and

13:08 that's part of it. And then often times these people are having trouble functioning in society. There's a reason that that they decided to leave. like someone who's just looking for opportunity, you know, is not going to find it in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. You're going to move to New York City or any of the big cities that exist then, um, if you're deciding to move to a place with no people, it's cuz you're trying not to find people. And so then when you end up in a boom town and it's filled with lots of people and you're all carrying guns and you're uh not so great at socialization, I think conflict is naturally going to ensue that as an as an alternate explanation for gunfighter related violence. That strikes me as probably right. Honor

13:54 culture, poor socialization, all these things. It's uh it all it's all the perfect storm. It's weird to me too. I think, and you talk a lot about this in the book, like when did this era happen? I think if you had to ask someone, you know, like you ever see that thing where you ask like someone to like draw like what your state looks like or draw America and you fill it in, people are just so they have a picture of it that doesn't comport with reality at all. I bet if you ask most people like when was the gunfighter era, it would be all over it cover a a much broader uh bit of time than you would think. And some people assuming it's way earlier than it was. People thinking way later than it was. I just think it's crazy. It's like the gunfight at OK Corral is happening after the invention of the light bulb. Yeah.

14:42 That's not when you think it's like after the invention of dynamite. Yeah. You think it's like two days after the Civil War or something or before like you think the cowboy era is so early and it's much much later than people think. Uh you remember Peck and Paw's movie The Wild Bunch, which is the bloodiest western ever made, was set 1912. Yeah. Uh I was I read that last night and and and was surprised. Now what I call the gunfight the you know revolvers were popularized in the 1840s. Yeah. They were in wide use and used a a human human first you know most notably in the California gold rush. But it was really only after um you know the the the US governor auctioned off like what was the number? $1.6 million uh $1.6 million guns in 1865 and 1866. that surplus from

15:29 the war. Yeah. That that what we call open carry u really became common and it it changed the whole nature of what you would call conflict resolution. You know before that you and I write a little bit about this you know people there were you know you people fought with knives and gouged out each other's eyes and pulled out your teeth and just awful things. And now as I remember one memoist from 1866 said now those those things are taken care of much more quickly. Yes. Well, you know, it's funny. I was just reading a um uh I think he's at the University of Chicago. Some professor was doing some look at like why is Chicago so dangerous and and it was partly that um like we tend to think of of shootings as as like we think of them as mass shootings or these

16:15 sort of deliberate things. He's like actually they're just conflicts that happen and people happen to have guns. That's where shootings happen and that's what the the West really was. Yes. Yeah. It's just that the conflicts in the West were so often silly. Yeah. I mean, there's just not a lot of the gunfights that I cite in this book that really, you know, feel socratic. I mean, that feel um I mean, there's a lot of drunks. Uh you know, alcohol is is a big deal. And a lot of people just get their feelings hurt. Yeah. Uh or, you know, I mean, as as I you know, one of the themes of the book is obviously this honor culture that I trace to the Annabellum South. And there's a lot of just you tricked me bad. I think, you know, we should go out and have a fight. Yeah. And in fact, it got so common in the west that the word for gunfight wasn't gunfight. It was just fight. You want to go have a fight? It's implied

17:02 that it was with guns. Right. Right. Yeah. There's a a fascinating little piece of Ulyses Srant's memoirs where he's in New Orleans on, you know, he's traveling through it's it's before the Civil War or something and um you know, he wakes up, he hears a gunshot, and someone tells him there'd been a duel. And he's like, "The thing I never understood about duels is wanting to fight someone and potentially kill them so badly that you could wait till tomorrow." And and and there there was something sort of delayed gratification about dueling culture. There was an element of discipline to it where it's like we're going to do this and then you know there's the dance of the seconds and then the pacing and there was this whole kind of ritual to it that was supposedly

17:47 about you know between men of honor that seems like it goes away by the time the gun fighter culture happens. And that's why dueling culture endured because those who otherwise would not engage with it and could say they didn't like it realized that there was a societal um reason for it. It was a release valve. It exactly it caused people to step back and and and instead of you know having a a fight in the middle of the street where maybe I don't know a kid could get shot you know they you would repair to a a designated pasture and do this in a structured way. you know, in a world where really, you know, the the the justice system wasn't quite as evolved as as it is 150 years later. Yeah. That was one of the things that that that got it started. Yeah. And there was there was offramps even within

18:33 the dueling culture that the immediiacy of like us at a card table uh and deciding to fight it out right now. We're not going to have. I wrestled with with all this for so long and and I tra I trace obviously most much much of the gunfighter behavior to the dueling culture of the Annabellum South. it descends into a kind of immediate gratification. Uh reckless well and then yeah again you think about the people that are engaged right the the the type of person who you know um writes you know GT GTT gone to Texas drops everything heads to Texas or the person that drops everything because they read a newspaper report that there's gold in the hills of Alaska or uh California. This is a person who is

19:20 by definition impulsive and perhaps doesn't think about the consequences of things before they do them. So you've selected for like there's not that many people but the people who are in these mining camps and towns and whatever they have they have pre-selected for a certain type of character that's going to make for a certain type of conflict. I think that's that's inarguable and I just I became fascinated with this whole notion of honor. Yeah. and you know how it became so prevalent, why it um it ebbed in the north uh after the Burr Hamilton uh uh duel in 1803. Ron Chernow was here two days ago and why it became such a big deal in the south and then spread to Texas in the west. I mean, I think it's a fascinating story. Why do you think it is? Well, there's a lot of

20:07 different reason there's a lot of different reasons I I sort. Let's be clear, academics haven't really decided, but the fact is in the South there was a lot less education. Yeah. there a lot less markers of obvious success other than the fact that you you either had a plantation home or or you didn't. There wasn't a booming middle class, right? And so it was very hard to to socially rank people. And the way you did it, the way they came up with the way they kept score was honor. Yeah. And you know, you can define it any number of ways, but it was a bit like pornography. You know it when you see it. Yeah. Yeah. And so if somebody if I insult you, Ryan, and you don't respond, um, you are less honorable. You you're going to knock down. You're no longer a seven, you're a five. Yeah. And so people would, you know, it was part of that code of the

20:52 Annabelum South and later of the West, that you would challenge the person who had challenged you to to deadly violence, typically a duel or gunfight or something. Um, so that you could instead of falling from a seven on the social ranking to five, you might go up to eight and a half. No, that's interesting because it's like if if respect is hard to earn or finding your place in the hierarchy is maybe it's too stratified, too difficult, too oified. Um, making people afraid of you is at least one way to establish yourself, right? You're like, "That guy, don't [ __ ] with that guy. He's got a hair trigger." especially if you have absolutely nothing else to say for yourself. And look at during the 1800s, it was hard for people to distinguish themselves. Education was not readily

21:40 available. A lot of people were just a a working man, you know, that type of thing. How do you distinguish yourself? Well, being scary as [ __ ] is one is one way to do it. And it's that became part of this honor system. I was just reading something about Lincoln where Lincoln was saying one of the things he understood about slavery was that in the southern world when life is just these series of disconnected villages and towns as big chunks of America was he was saying that you know when someone goes from here to here you don't know who they are you don't know anything about them it's hard to judge them he's like but if if they were you know trailed by a slave or two you knew they had money like you knew they were successful where they came from a prestigious family. He was like that's why sla he understood at some level that's why slavery was so not just

22:25 intractable but attractive. Yeah. It was part of that unwritten system of social marking. Yes. Of social you know how you where you stand. Yeah. And that's what's fascinating about the honor culture thing is like it was so selective. It's like you're uh a thief. You're a professional poker player. You know, like you honor is not that important to you, but in this one setting, it's life or death, right? Like there there's something about like you're you're not generally an honorable person. No. Just because you're a four doesn't mean you want to fall down any more than somebody who's an eight is. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But but the the honor of like I can't let you insult me. I can't let you do X, Y, or Z to me. Uh by

23:12 the way, I can do all those things to other people. So it's this kind of weird se it's it's not a culture of virtue. There there's a distinction between a culture of virtue I would say and a culture of honor. Honor is this kind of superficial thing and virtue is like how do we all behave and treat each other. It's it's funny because that virtue is the word that you come across most most often when you look to the Annabellum North that they replaced um the worship of honor with the with the worship of virtue. Oh. And the south didn't. The south kept it. Right. And it and it and it I think it you know and it persisted on the frontier. Yeah. We and we don't often think of the west as being up for grabs whether it's southern or northern because the split of north and south was so is so clear and obvious. I mean there's the Mason Dixon line and whatever. But but at the same

23:59 time the west is being uh uh settled and fought over. And so it it it's in this same period up for grabs whether it which way is it going to go. And so there's this conflict too between northerners and southerners just in these very distant locations. Yeah. I mean u um and you see that and that is you know honor I think is it explains a lot of the old west gunfights but there's so many other things that were on table as well and and north south antagonisms were still um the wounds were fresh and you know in in the the Kansas cow towns which I I term kind of the Madison Square Garden of of the the gunfighter era um that was part of of

24:46 the reason that so many Texans got got into got into shooting scrapes as they say was because you know they weren't going to go home to Bassrop or Victoria or Belton and let's be clear most of them were from you know the central part of Texas and say that some Yankee sheriff had thrown them in the in in the Huscow you know that would be well that would take you from being a six to a two. Yes. Yes. Even though no one would actually know your buddies would. Yeah. because you go when you drive and and I argue in the book of course that a lot of these hyperviolent behaviors of Texas spread through the cattle trails and who went up the cattle trails generally you went up with your buddies so everybody's going to know what happens to you in Abalene or which star city right I mean it was those cattle those cattle drives

25:32 and the cattle towns that was like you know a gap year for a lot of people I thought it was just funny you know that you you open the book with that epigraph from Eisenhower And because again people don't have a good sense of when this stuff happened but you you go okay president you know guy lands at Normandy you don't think oh yeah his childhood would have over overlapped not just with like the last gasp of the gunfighter era but like the peak of it. I mean when is Eisenhower born? 1880s. Uh if he was president in 1950s you figure 1880s 1890s. So, I mean, he's like a a kid or close to when they corral. That's what the old pe that's what the old people were were telling him. I mean, I'm amazed. My

26:18 grandparents just died 20 years ago and they knew they were born in 1911, 1914 and they knew of our uncle Joel who had gone from Arkansas to the California Gold Rush. That's like I can't even do the math on that. That's 120 years of memory or something right there. Yes. Yeah. That that's even if you didn't experience it yourself, you would have grown up hearing about it would have been real. Uh it was not just something in books. Yes. And so that that that culture is still there. I mean I mean MacArthur grows up like in Indian forts like on the frontier. I didn't know that. Yeah. I mean his dad is a Civil War veteran, right? like his dad wins the Medal of Honor and then is stays in in the army and is like in these

27:04 frontier forts like across Texas. That explains certain things about MacArthur, doesn't it? Totally. No, it totally that's what that's my point is that this this was the formative stuff. So it it's Yeah, it's crazy to go like okay this guy you might think oh what do these things matter? But it's like here you have the president or you have a a general like MacArthur who grows up with this honor culture monoemanu you know fighting each other thing and then and then they're heads of armies or they're staring down well substitute what you just said for MacArthur instead of saying MacArthur you just said a Texan you begin to understand the the nature and the strength of the Marshall culture that that rose in Texas in the 1860s.

27:50 you know, you know, it was it was not only you not only had the southern honor culture, Texas was every inch of southern state, but you had, you know, two different u violent frontiers, the Mexican frontier and the Native American frontier. And so Texans became, you know, it it it's so funny these days we walk around and we talk about the six six shooter Texan, and I'm sure that's just another overblown myth. It's like one one thrust of this book is that no, no, no, no, no, we don't fully appreciate how violent Texas was and how violent Texans were in those days and and their reputation around the country for that. Well, maybe this is a a much clearer example because actually Eisenhower is pretty measured and sort of self-aware.

28:35 Like when you go, why does Lyndon Johnson who's a little bit younger, why why does he get caught in this escalation trap in Vietnam? Why is he so afraid of thinking that if I back out, I'll be seen as cowardly? And it's like you think about the the myths that he would have grown up hearing like he he's seeing himself in this face off with with the with the Russians and he he can't see what an what an inferior model or an insufficient model that is for the reality of the situation he's in. I have at least four maybe five books on my shelves. that were written in the late 60s and early 70s to to explain exactly that why Johnson was the way he was. And they go back to this

29:22 incredible violence that broke out in Texas, especially the central parts of Texas in the 1860s and 1870s and and you know made Texas into that image and Johnson was you know Johnson City. This is heart and this is ground zero of the cattle trade and this you know that's a lot of what we're talking about. Yeah. There's a there's a quote from Johnson where someone's asking him why are you doing this in Vietnam and he's like you know what I learned as a kid is like if you let someone take this from you they're going to take this they're going to take this and the next thing that you know uh they're in your bed raping your wife you know and it's like class it's classic just sort of cowboy mentality and again not in the sort of George Bush stereo uh SNL stereotype of the cowboy the real cowboy logic of like if I don't

30:10 shoot this person I'm going to be run out of town or or worse to me. And that clearly is an echo of the type of 19th century honor culture that we're talking about. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And he would have grown up before the reaction against that. Before the reaction against that, it's just there in the core of it. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, Johnson was probably coming age in the 19s, 1920s. The other Texan thing I was thinking about there's that quote from Robert Caro which I think about in my writing where he's sort of he's talking about how we mythologize the cowboys and he says it doesn't it's not until he comes here and you know he's like you read a lot about these gunfights in the Old West and all the cowboys and then he says it's not until he and his wife came to the Hill Country and they interviewed these Texas women

30:56 that they go oh like they were the tough ones. He's like He's like, "You hear a lot about gunfights, but you don't hear uh about a woman fetching water from the well like 2 days after she gives birth." Yeah. You know, that that like there's a there's different kind. It's interesting the toughness and the the characters that we mythologize and then the actual sort of toughness and grit that we just gloss over because it's not that interesting. Yeah. It also speaks to the work a day difficulties. the work of day barbarism, the work of day violence that was so prevalent on the frontier. And we forget, you know, that Texas was very much part of that frontier. We didn't, you know, if you know, you know, from Sam Gwyn's book and so many others, you

31:42 know, the the the Native American frontier was not cleared in Texas until the 1870s. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Wilbur Wilbarger, whatever, the the famous guy who gets scalped and lives like another 10 years, that's like right here. His house is in town. Well, one of the one of the great greatest fights ever between the Rangers and the Comanche was was what in Lockheart, which is what 20 miles from here? Yeah. Yeah. And and yeah, it's also I guess going to go to the point about the rant race. It's like we're celebrating the the sort of misfits who, you know, killed in one town and then went to the other town and killed and and never sort of they worked sporadically. We're not thinking about this the people that had to you know this this was a barber shop in the 1800s some barber's getting up and coming to work here every day like

32:30 amidst the same depravity and violence but trying to create some semblance of normaly and civilization I I don't write about a lot of barbers in here I'm sorry right because it's like you I I I find that there's a famous poem about this too I'm forgetting what it is but the poem is is just sort of about like you know we think of Julius Caesar, but we don't think of the quartermaster of his army or, you know, like there's all the people that were making the stuff possible that that created a society from which these sort of uh larger than-l life figures could exist as as rebels against, right? And uh but they don't Yeah, that's not an exciting story. No, but that has been the great um um movement in academic history over

33:17 the last 75 is towards social history is to looking at how normal people um in many cases the great masses were much more instrumental in in the flow of history than than a president or a general. Yeah. It's like the bank robber is fascinating and you nobody writes about the bank president. Yeah. Or the bank teller. Think about the bank teller. I started out as one and my dad was a bank president. We were boring. We we don't just I'd much rather be writing about and reading about Wild Bill Hickok and such. Yes. Even if even if we have to grossly exaggerate what that rebel or figure did because in Tombstone, Val Kilmer said um that playing Doc Holiday, it was like that the role was like putting clothes on a ghost. Wow. Because there's actually not that much there.

34:03 No. And so these are all these are all layers and layers of each retelling. Yeah. I mean, we used to there was a moment in the '9s uh you were probably too young to be doing this where guys would would I can remember debating at at a bar where we did you prefer Kilmer's holiday or Randy Quaid's Dennis Quaid's holiday and I came down I I give it to Kilmer on style points but Dennis Quaid was probably closer to accurate. Yes. Although I was very glad to hear in your book is you do a lot of myth busting in the book, but you were like, "Why's the real deal?" Yeah. You liked him. I think you have to. Yeah, of course. Um, not of course. There are people who No, I mean I I agree. There

34:50 are people I mean we lose sight given the fact that the the press the films about Herp have been so positive over the last 15 year 50 years that in his life and even to this day he he was a controversial figure. I mean the idea you know of going after the bad guys who shot and wounded his brothers you know it seems like this great obvious moral thing. Well it's also illegal. Yes. And there are people, you know, especially of conser politically conservative that will look at at what wider did and call that government overreach. Yeah. I mean, it's it's goes the same thing about myths and legends again, right? It's like one man's vigilante violence. Exactly. Is another the same guy is also government overreach to the other people. And it's uh I Yeah, it's cool to

35:38 read about. Probably not great if you're the town where the a shootout from the vendetta ride happens. We all liked those Charles Brozen movies, but but uh nobody really wants to see vigilantes loose in their streets. Right. Right. Going back to your original point, it just makes you feel good that there is moral justice to be had even if you know in the real world that is a recipe for chaos. Yeah. White's an interesting figure because he's both held up as an outlaw gunfighter and the man at the same time. So, it's you can sort of project onto him whether he's a good guy or a bad guy depending on how you feel in a given moment. Well, I think of all the gunfighters that I write about in here, he's the most important one. He is the only one who, you know, at a time where we are as a society, as a world

36:24 are forgetting, while Bill Hickok and so many other uh gunfighters that whose names you kind of maybe know, he's the one only one whose reputation has grown. Yeah. And I think it's part of it is is that sense that he was the rare old west figure and certainly old west gunfighter that was not only fighting for something but stood for something. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you look at his career, you know, at at during the what 8 10 years that he was actually a a law officer, he was a damn good one. Yeah. Yeah. He at a time so many weren't. At a time so many were lazy and corrupt and drunk. Yeah. He's We're not celebrating him so much as an example of the tyranny of the rat race not being final. But he is the sort of first

37:09 Yeah. western figure of law and order and civilization and normaly. He's fighting for the basic things that we people want now, which is like there's this scene in Tombstone that I think encapsulates it well where uh it's actually not wider, but um the cowboys are running through town. They're like stampeding horses and some little kid is playing with a ball or something and um and uh who is it? Um Sam Elliott's charact is it Sam Elliott's character gra pick picks up grabs the kid so he doesn't get run over and you're just like that's every parent who does who like I think about this when I'm in East Austin. What's that thing in East Austin every once in a while where all those cars race up and down the street? Oh yeah. It's right by Beverly's house. Yes. Uh uh it's a Latino car club. Yeah. And you're like this is cool, but also

37:55 if I live in that neighborhood. Yes. Exactly. What you're doing is incredibly dangerous. we as a civilization made this illegal not cuz we're we're uh busy bodies but because cars are weaving in and out of traffic someone can get hurt you know and that that Wyatt and his brothers the idea was like hey we want to live people want to live here we want a life here and and your rebelliousness is is at this point at odds with us living a life part of the gun for gunfighter era narrative that I'm telling is and and and most of this has to by its nature be anecdotal is there is a sense if the west opens in 1866 there is a sense of those first 10 or 15 years that um law enforcement law enforcement is almost entirely absent.

38:42 Yeah. that the chaos uh the post-war chaos especially that emanating from Texas it just most people who were killed were killed without consequence and her coming in in the mid 1870s and especially the the reintroduction of the Texas Rangers in 1876 who were surprisingly effective as law enforcement um be you begin to see that change away from you know anarchy I mean there was still gunfights there were still feuds there was still a lot of bloody violence in Texas for years, but the the Rangers eliminated the worst of the anarchy much as her did in places like Dodge City and Tombstone. Yeah. And and obviously we would we would not tolerate their methods for doing so today. They did it with their own kind of lawlessness. Uh and uh and and that's

39:30 maybe the unfairness of what um people project at wide which is you know he's taking the law on his own like he they are fighting essentially organized crime mixed with sort of anarchy and so it's a bit heavy-handed in how they come down on it. But compared to what they were fighting against this is within within reason. You can certainly understand why people who lived near Wyatt would be rooting for him even though you know at that at those moments you at the worst of it in Tombstone. Keep in mind the quote bad guys who are you know look like slobbering yahoos in Tombstone. In fact they were not viewed as criminals. They were viewed as legitimate cattlemen. And it was only after their

40:16 passing that we came to realize oh my god they were really criminals. So when Wyatt was going after those guys there were two newspapers in Tombstone. One thought he was great, the other kept saying that he was, you know, the worst thing that has ever happened to Tombstone. He was trying to take over the town, yada yada yada. Right. Right. I mean, so much of the black and white that we ascribe to that story and others only it only became black and white afterwards. Yeah. Because in it's in in the middle of this sort of blood feud or war, no one's taken the time to really get all the facts that that that we have we've had a hundred years 100 plus years to sort out the facts. And can I tell you there are a couple of se I one of the things that I talk about as a prelude to all this gun gunfighter stuff is these feuds that that broke out especially in Texas some of the

41:01 bloodiest feuds um in American history and people are still figuring those out now what really happened. I mean they were only reclaimed beginning in the 1950s. I mean they're kind of lost and that stuff to me just is fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny too now we're like um you know when when at the height of again the pandemic when people were talking about sort of abolishing the police and it's like have you read anything about the west you don't want to live in that world you know you don't want to live in a in a in a world where on both side the people who like abolish the police and then the sort of libertarian view of like we don't need all this stuff it's like I don't know it gets pretty uh pretty lawless pretty fast. I am um you know I I don't I don't

41:47 take I don't view any of this through a political lens but that almost sounds apolitical and just factual. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Well, yeah. The the West is just so fascinating. Um because it's like civilization is like reconstituting itself. It it is being recreated out of nothing. Yeah. Because so I grew up in in central California and so all these little we would go to these different mining camps and mining towns and it's you see it now and they're all quaint little places like this wine shops. Yeah. It's like most of the buildings were not brick, they were wood and they burned down all the time and the streets were muddy and the Don't even get me started about old west hygiene. I mean there was just

42:34 nothing really. This is not an area you want to go back to. Yes. It really is not. No, definitely not. And and just the um it's difficult to comprehend the scale of the violence and the disorder and the criminality like these towns that have a murder a week or a shooting a day. like just just the when you think of the per capita basis that these things are happening on it's it's like and yet that is really only become apparent in the last 15 years with with with advanced 21st century data analysis. For the long time for a long time nobody knew anything because we just didn't have the numbers. But then in the 1960s academics came along who were just saying oh this this stuff is it's all overblown it's all myth. Yeah. And we now have gone back and that's

43:19 pretty much that idea has gone away. We can now say with real reasonable certainty that no while there wasn't a gunfight in Dodge City every Saturday at 4, the Wild West was spectacularly homicidal. Yes. and and what a and then so because it's protect spectacularly homicidal, everyone's carrying guns and then as we said they're drinking and bumping into each other and it becomes this cycle like like we don't sometimes give ourselves credit as a society for having solved you know downward spirals right just like we like I mean when I was a kid everyone's worried about the hole in the ozone layer we're not worried about that anymore and we don't think about it cuz we something was going bad very quickly and collect ively we solved it but it didn't just solve itself. It was a lot of hard work and

44:04 innovation and like this sort of civilization process and I don't mean that in the sense of like civilizing the the Native Americans which is a whole other atrocity. Just the process of taking these lawless places and making them inhabitable. You actually you you can almost see that Ryan almost year by year. I mean, one of the great u one of these Kansas town uh Kansas cow towns. I mean, some of the most incredible fights that Texas Cowboys brought about that the there was no um the the streets were still grass. Yeah. I mean, the the you know, the buildings were just going when the hers got to, you know, Tombstone there were, I don't know, eight or 12 buildings. It was mostly tents. Yeah. I mean, it's just fascinating. And then, you know, later if you look at some of the latestage gunfighters, Butch Casty and the Sundance Candy were kind of the

44:49 last ones. the professionalism, you know, actual federal marshals. Yes. Um, task forces, you know, in the n in the 1890s that this type of stuff just did not exist in the 1860s and 1870s. I mean, it's stunning the advance of the frontier. Well, the advant but also the advance of civilization. That strikes me as a throughine for your books, right? You read the first couple chapters of Public Enemies and you're looking at a world without basically any federal law enforcement. And then the federal law enforcement is invented to respond to a problem. And then that gets us to the world that we live in now. when I read Days of Rage, like I was just talking to someone uh at the bookstore who who loves that book, and I was like, what struck me about it was the naive of that

45:36 you could just walk into any skyscraper in America, that you could just visit anyone in jail. There weren't metal detectors. There weren't security guards in and check-in desks at the lobbies of buildings. Yeah. You go Yeah. You could just walk you could walk on any flight you wanted. Forget Forget Cutters. You could walk on with a 22. Yeah. Yeah. And and that like the sort of we invent technology and so like and societal interactions come about because of that and then there's problems. There's there's psychopaths and crazy people and problems that that come along with that the crimes and then civilization has to invent a way to to to deal with that. And that your books are kind of this lawlessness law and the the interplay between those things. Even even the

46:22 corporate rating in the 80s, right? It was this anything goes financial sphere and it worked really well for some people and really bad for other people and we had I love how consistent you make my career sound when I just was looking for good stories. Yeah. You know, but maybe that there's some at some level that's the story that lights you up. Well, it's certainly conflict certainly, you know, cops and robbers, you know, which I grew up I grew up on the untouchables and stuff like that. I grew up on a lot of I didn't wa watch a lot of westerns but I read a lot of a lot of western non-fiction. Um and so this was a book that I I mean I first proposed 20 years ago and kind of have been thinking about for 30. Yeah. I grew up on I I grew up on westerns too. Uh Louis Lamore and then uh Yikes. That's that's much more hardcore than I was.

47:08 Oh, really? What were you into? I mean I was into like actual biographies of western guys. I've never been able to read fiction. Really? No, not really. Interesting. It was funny. I I really like Lulmore. I would just buy all of them and then I I got very scarred because I I bought this other one at like the grocery store, the library. I forget where I get it. And it turns out it was like it was a women's western. So, it's like just a very it was an erotic fiction novel that I thought I just recognized the cowboy on the the c the covers look the same. And then that's not a pistol. I I crack it open at like 11 or 12. I go, "Oh, this is very different. I don't think mom and dad would like me to read this." And then of course I read all of them. But uh yeah, it it's yeah it's conflict resolution or civiliza un anarchy

47:54 civilization. That's kind of the the timeless like arc of your books I feel like. Yeah. I mean look in the in the end what I'm looking for is approachable history. Something that's not from you know 500 years ago. Something that's from the last 100 or 200 years where I think I can change the way it's viewed. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we did that in the Forget the Alamo, the last book that I contributed to. And this is very much this I mean, it this took me just a hell of a long time to come up with. I know I want to write this, but how do I come up with something new to say? You know, this is this is a field that really has not been reimagined for about 60 years. And that's no knock on the many talented writers who work in it, but just in terms of the way we view what happened out west, it took me a long time to get my mind around it. Yeah. It's um it's

48:41 like uh wild west civilization. Maybe that's like like the the wild west of the 80s sort of private equity boom. The wild west of well that's what we call that's what we call any type of unregulated chaotic thing like psychedelics right now or or Bitcoin we call it it's always referred to as the wild west. There's a reason we we go back to that metaphor. And there's got to be a type of personality that goes, I want to be in the wild. There's a type of personality that says, I want to be as far from the Wild West as possible. And there's a type of personality that goes, that's where the action is. I want to be there. There's one quote in the history of the West that that lays that out better than any bit any

49:27 knew. And that was when Herp later in his years, he lived very long. wider was asked why he left Dodge Dodd City to go to Tombstone at a time that uh uh Dodge City was um becoming a little bit more civilized. Settlers were moving into the fields where the cattle had been. And Herp said uh there was a sense that Dodge was losing some of the the snap that men of restless blood need and Tombstone had it. I think as much as we miss the timing of it, we also miss the geography of it, like we get it wrong. Um, like you think you think of it as this western migration only, right? People are coming from the cities in the east and heading west. And I believe the family gets to

50:16 California and then makes its way east. Yeah. They went the the father who I call a jack of few trades uh moved him out to San Bernardino in the 1860s and then apparently didn't go well so they went back to Missouri which is the first place the wider ever became a law man. Right. Yeah. We don't think of him having we don't think of him moving east in search of opportunity. People were a lot more sophisticated. There was a lot more movement of people then than we we readily remember. I mean, but the things about I mean, what makes Herp for me fascinating and they get at this a little bit in the biography movie, that terribly leen and slow Kevin Coer movie, but I mean there were people the people who hate Wyatt Herp will tell you, you know, call him, you know, they call him the thes fighting pimps because they

51:03 started off as pimps. Yeah. And we now know because of research just in the 21st century that for the entire length of his career, he was an escape federal prison prisoner. He had been arrested for stealing horses and escaped from u holding pen in Van Beerren, Arkansas. Wow. Uh and you what three years later he was a deputy in Abalene. Yeah. The ability to uh uh um Witchaw the ability to reinvent yourself by going to the next place. Oh my god. I love that in the You see that time and time again as late as the the 30s, as late as your public enemies book. And then there's even a little bit of that in the in the days of Ragebook where these underground sort of uh figures can just be like, "Oh, then I moved to Vermont and I spent 30 years." Like the the idea of you are

51:48 who you are and your data follows you is much more recent than Oh my god, you could just move across a state line and be a new person back in those days. It's much harder today. The geography thing is interesting to me because I took my son to Sutter's Fort um a couple like maybe last year because I grew up in Sacramento. So we would go to Sers Ford all the time and like Sers Ford is is where they test the gold from the gold rush for people who don't know and um uh I'm reading a sign which I I this is the important thing of like you know people think it's woke the important thing of understanding these un untold parts of history. I didn't realize that a good chunk of Sutter's fort was built by Hawaiian labor. That that Sutter had been had come from what was then the

52:35 Sandwich Islands as a missionary and come east to California. No, you think of you think of these people crossing the country in a wagon train, but the the that was a traveling across the US was a later and actually kind of a small period of that settling experience. So many of the people went all the way down around South America, then later they went through the ismas, but but a good chunk of them went like all the way around the earth. Like you think about the exploration of the British Empire. The British don't land in the east coast and then slowly make their way across the United States expand. Like they the United States comes from both sides, just the edges. My favorite of the of those like people

53:22 forget uh factoids is people forget that there were Europeans Spaniards living in Santa Fe, New Mexico 10 years before uh the British slushed ashore at Jamestown. And those might as well have been different planets how far they were. Like certainly different continents, but they were basically different planets. Yeah. They didn't know the they existed. No. And that's where you get the, you know, the six flags thing from Texas. Like Texas is Texas's history of the different people that have been here and ruled it. It's fascinating. Yeah. And I Texans never get tired of talking about it. No, they don't. They really don't. I mean, it's, you know, I lived I lived and worked in New York for for years, and people are like, "Really? You're going to move back to Texas and write about Texas?" F I remember the first time I ever proposed a book on Texas, my

54:10 the publishing executive says, "Well, I've never been there. The one thing I know is Texans buy a hell of a lot of books about Texans." That's true. And it really is. Yes. Uh it it's And it's weird what Texas signifies to other people, right? like um San Antonio is a huge international city that people all over the world know because it's had a collection of international basketball players, right? Like it's a place that people from China and Brazil and you know Fran like they that's the city they know in Texas, right? And and just as different generations like Dallas was popular because of a TV show, you know, that that that why people know about a place can be for seemingly superolous or

54:56 silly reasons, but San Antonio kills me. The the lack of respect. San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the country. Yeah. And you can still read associated press uh uh date lines that say San Antonio, Texas. As in San Antonio, what? Wisconsin, right? Like like Yeah. You don't go New Orleans, Louisiana. Well, no. Philly and Detroit. They all get firstname bases and and I'm still Austin is 11th largest now and and you know it's it's still Austin, Texas in most state lines. Drives me nuts. Yeah. Right. Right. There's a provincialism to people's people don't people don't understand the enormity of Texas. Yeah. Or even I mean you know you go to the the that that museum in Austin the the the French Legation Museum and you're just like oh this was like a capital to

55:42 people for 10 years. Yeah. to to other countries this was the capital of a different country and then now it's like this thing you drive by and you're like what's that? It's over there by the cemetery. Yeah. It's it's a little underwhelming. Uh but uh but yeah. Yeah. Why people know about a place San Antonio also just how old it is. It does it it it like we celebrate New Orleans and St. Augustine as these old continuously occupied American cities and then San Antonio is kind of like oh that's where the Spurs play, right? Yeah. San Antonio does not get a lot of a lot of love except you're right now probably just for mostly for basketball and places that people go for conventions. Yes. Although I've never

56:27 been to a convention in San Antonio. Um I mean I've done a couple talks there. Yeah. the but Texas does punch above its I don't know if you would say it's even condescending to say it punches above its weight. It's it's it's one of the biggest economies in the world. Yeah. But it it it has you could argue that the culture is uh more noted. Yeah. Um than a lot of other many other places in the world that are the same size and certainly almost any combination of US states. I mean, Texas just, you know, because of the history, because of the pride, if that's that's a word, because of Texas exceptionalism, um, it's as, you know, it's as known as

57:13 any state other than California. Yes. Yes. and and for for so many different sort of eras and contributions culturally. Yeah. You know, um yeah, the the the herbs being in San Bernardino, that was weird to me. Like it was weird to me, too. Yeah. I didn't want them to be there, right? I wanted them to stay back in Missouri like they should. Yeah. It it's it's it's it just doesn't make sense geographic. You're like, you went this way and you you did it. The idea that somebody could go all the way to the West Coast in like a freaking wagon and then decide, "Oh, no. I think I'll go back." Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That that that that went that had me too. But but that is part of the mythology that we It's like it didn't work for

58:01 like 95% of the people. What they were looking for and hoping for because so often it was based on a lie. like what they what they what made them want to go to that different place that oh you know they're they're you know you're gonna become this baron or this uh silver magnate that it's going to work out and it it never did because so often it was based on you know this newspaper report of a newspaper report of a newspaper report they get there and it turns out it's nothing like I thought I just read a book about the Donner party uh which obviously I heard about a lot growing up and you're just like so you just like upturned your whole life and risked everything based on this like pamphlet that this guy published who had

58:47 never actually done the thing that he Yeah, but that was the level of information back then. And and I would counter to you that mostly these weren't lies. There was a grain of truth in all that. Yes, there was gold at in California. Yes, there was copper in in in Montana. the American dream. I think my my statement of it is it could be me. Yes, that's what the American dream is. And so I think, you know, if if 98% of the people didn't quite find it, it doesn't mean it was a lie. It just means, you know, they had shitty odds. Yes. It was a bet they should have made. The Yes. But but I mean the like the truth of the gold rush, the truth of the real estate boom, whatever is is different from the specific swindler or grifter who you're hiring as the guide

59:34 or whose story you you know like so so there they got sold some there there was some somebody who said go to San Bernardino that's where it is. That's your just like you know you get sold a bad mining claim by by someone who knows it's worthless that it's those operators in between. So the these people I I just thought it was fascinating that all these people put so much of their you know fate in the hands of you know seemingly like I would have quadruple I wouldn't have done it right but but also just the idea of like if I was like Brian you got to take every penny you've ever saved and the lives of your spouse and your children in your hands for a one in aundred chance of of hitting it rich. You'd be like I don't think so.

1:00:21 There are so many stories like that though in this book. I mean remember Sam Bass who you know was a nobody in Texas but he made a bunch of money riding a horse and then suddenly decides to sell it all with this crooked cattleman buy a bunch of cattleman. They go all the way to Deadwood sell it and then you know gamble it all away. We don't really know why they lost it. And so they end up you know trying to trying to rob stage coaches. They can't make like $10 doing that. And you know, the guy ends up one of the great train robbers. Yeah. And I never really thought of a lot of what you were saying. That's just that was nuts. Who sells your horse and everything to say, "Yeah, let's get some cattle, which I've never driven, and let's go across the Great Plains, which I've never been on, to go to some place

1:01:07 called Deadwood that I've never heard of, and we'll all be rich." Yeah. And by the way, it's thousands of miles. You're traveling by foot. You would have step after step after step to ru this decision. And then they keep going. I wonder if there is something to be said there for the accepted information or the available information. We're so used to being able to look at every single thing from every conceivable angle. For Sam Bass, he's like, "Jim says it's Jim says it's a done thing." Yeah. Who else am I going to ask? It must be a done thing. Yeah. And and your life is easier. So maybe you're not thinking about it. You're just Where's I need water. you know, you're just you're just like one step in one foot in front of the other. You're not just meditating on

1:01:52 this decision. But yeah, like then, you know, today you hear about it's like, oh, I put all my money in this meme coin and it didn't work out. And you go, is

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