The LawBreakers

Most of the people who settled in the West didn’t wake up in the morning and strap on a gun. Nor did they get involved in shootouts. As in any society, the Old West had its share of bad men and women. The rate of homicides on the frontier remains a source of contention. Some historians say most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, not all of them shooting. Others, however, say the risk of being murdered was high. In Tall Tales from the High Plains & Beyond, Book Three: The LawBreakers, novelist Tom Rizzo takes you behind the scenes to meet some of the gunmen and back shooters who roamed the frontier trying to take what wasn’t theirs.
Bob Rogers who slashed the throat of a deputy constable, left him to die, and then returned to the crime scene to attack the dead man’s corpse.James McIntire, a lawman turned killer who once claimed he talked with Christ.Cyrus Skinner whose reign of terror ended in a town appropriately named, Hell Gate.Deputy Sheriff Charley Allison who organized a gang to of outlaws to rob stagecoaches.Lame Johnny, a one-time college student who graduated to a criminal career of cattle and horse rustling and robbing stagecoaches.Belle Starr, wife, mistress, mother, and horse thief, who died from an assassin’s bullet.Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, a card cheat turned killer