Ace Hanlon

[Bmwhtly]

As some of you may have noticed, Dpat's changed his avatar again. It's now the cover to The Quick and the Dead.

And I was thinking about this film the other day. Specifically, I was wondering about the character of Ace (Lance Henrikson). He's a rather flamboyant gun-fighter who can impress ordinary people with his trick-shootery, but standing against an actual gunfighter gets him shot.

I was wondering, towards the end of the Wild West frontier towns must have been full of people like this. People who fancied themselves as gunhands but couldn't really cut the mustard.
That's the way it seems to me, was it the case? were there lots of Pretenders?

[Cav Guy]

This isn't necessarily restricted to the end of the Frontier era. I believe some of Mark Twain's stuff from his California days mentions such pretenders and "would-be bad men." Charlie Russell also mentions a few, and he was active in the later 1880s as a horse wrangler. I've also seen reprinted newspaper accounts from the Kansas cattle towns (circa 1870s) that mention a few of these types.

[Axler]

There were a number of fairly (in)famous people who had the reps as "pistoleers" as they were known back then, when they had very little on which to base their legend.

Johnny Ringo comes to mind as one of that type, who was all flash with little substance.

Then there were the guys like Chris Madsen, Bill Tilghman and Heck Thomas who actually were deadly with their guns but didn't care to boast about it so as to draw attention to themselves.

Bat Masterson was credited with killing at least a dozen men, but in reality he may have only killed two. He turned down a US Marshal's appointment because he feared kids who had been "spoon-fed on dime novels" would come to test themselves against him.

A lot of these guys went out of their way to develop the fearsome personas so nobody wanted to test them face-to-face... and they were gunned down from ambush, like Ben Thompson.

Luke Short earned reknown for being a gunman of considerable prowess because a lucky shot from him hit "Long Haired" Jim Courtright's thumb during a confrontation. Before Courtright could switch hands, Short shot him dead.

He coasted on that shot for the rest of his life...which wasn't that much longer, actually.

[Festus]

Sure there were, BM. In all ages and for most all things. :-)

[dpaterso]

I was wondering about the character of Ace (Lance Henrikson). He's a rather flamboyant gun-fighter who can impress ordinary people with his trick-shootery, but standing against an actual gunfighter gets him shot.
Well to be fair, that gunfighter was John Herod who was among the best of the best within the film's milieu. Scary guy. :)

I was wondering, towards the end of the Wild West frontier towns must have been full of people like this. People who fancied themselves as gunhands but couldn't really cut the mustard.
That's the way it seems to me, was it the case? were there lots of Pretenders?
Interesting answers so far. Might be worthwhile including a boaster in a story and see how readers take to the idea. Hint, hint. :D Or maybe that's material for a new challenge!

-Derek

[Anthony Ravenscroft]

Depends on the town, too. If there's been a rise of lawlessness, some jerk waving a gun around & spoiling for a fight could reasonably find himself on the wrong end of a Winchester, or strung up by a vigilance committee.

[Bmwhtly]

maybe that's material for a new challenge!

-DerekHmmmm... well, I am curious to see what the next challenge is.


Thanks for the answers folks, something to ponder on.