Metafilter points me to a Flickr set of paintings done by one Lea F McCarty. Once deputized to Wyatt Earp, McCarty is kind of a bad painter, but there’s something about the amateurish nature that lends it some authenticity. In 1959, he collected the paintings in a book called “The Gunfighters,” and you can click through all the text and painting here.
I kind of liked “Mysterious Dave Mather“:
Dave had become known as a killer lawman, when a preacher came to town and pitched his tent and was holding a sawdust revival. Dave drifted into the meeting one night, a little liquored up and sat down to listen. The skypilot directed his religion at Dave, saying he would gladly die to save this man who had sent seven men to Hell. Dave resented the remark, rose to his feet with a gun in either hand. The tent became vacant in a few seconds as people scattered, and one blast from Dave’s gun sent the parson under the canvas out into the night. The next morning the tent had been struck and a few kids were searching the sawdust circle looking for lost coins.
Apparently, says McCarty he then went up to Canada and joined the RCMP.
Wikipedia (where you can compare the painting to an actual photo) isn’t so sure. The article on Mather offers a few contradictory claims as to what ended up happening to him, and manages to tack down a nice collection of links, including a genealogy page.
Most likely, he died in Texas and was dumped on the railroad tracks. But The Weekly World News claims he was abducted by aliens. Damn, I miss that publication.
Grant Hamilton
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MPot