Gawk Larkin and Lute Fowler
On dusty Front Street in Dodge City, Kansas; across the street from the Long Branch Saloon, I took my first steps toward manhood. Times were hard, as were the men. The women? They were even harder. Gunfights were as common as consumption and yielded the same results. Dodge was a brutal town with few soft spots. I was 16 years old and I loved it.
New in town, I drifted in like the tumbleweed from Lone Pine, California, where life was as slow as a Texas river in July and music was heard much more than gunfire.
Lone Pine had seemed fine to me and I would have been content living there - until the first time I heard the roaring sound of the South Wind rushing down Second Avenue rushing past Hoover’s Cigar Store, where the smell of gunsmoke lingered in the air after Lute Fowler and Gawk Larkin used their Colts to settle a dispute that started inside Charlie Rath’s General Store.
Front Street in 1875
Larkin didn't even clear leather before Lute blazed off a heart shot. Rocketed backwards, Gawk fell and was blowing bloody bubbles with his last breath by the time Sheriff Charlie Bassett rushed out of the Long Branch, beer suds still on his chin; his gun in his hand. Wading into the crowd that had gathered, he scattered those cowpokes as easily as a rodeo bull running through a chicken coop.
"So you finally got Gawk Larkin to draw on you," spat Mr. Bassett as he smashed the back of his hand across Fowler's face. Fowler reeled from the meaty paw of the Dodge sheriff; a crimson wave coming from an angry red welt on his cheek.
"You can't do nothing to me Sheriff. It was a fair fight. Charley Rath saw it. So did everybody else in his store", whined Fowler who seemed near tears as he pressed his palm to his face to staunch the flow of blood.
"You're a rotten liar Lute. You have been trying to goad Gawk into throwing down on you for months and everybody in town knows it. You got him liquored up and forced his hand. Larkin was no gunfighter. He was a bookish man. I ought to make you draw on me right now. Go on DRAW! DRAW I SAID!!! I SAID DRAW ON ME FOWLER!!!!"
The Sheriff suddenly stopped shouting and whispered, "Either that or I'm going to beat you to death right now with my fists."
Sheriff Bassett in 1885