IF WE’VE LEARNED ANYTHING FROM WATCHING WESTERNS FOR MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS, IT IS this: If you ever find yourself in a western showdown, don’t draw first. Regardless of the setting and the combatants, the guy who does is always the guy who gets carried off the street.
Was it like that in the real Old West? Unlikely. In fact, sometimes there were confrontations where nobody won—or lost. “There was a showdown in Deadwood between gamblers Johnny Varnes and Charlie Storms that was pretty humorous,” says Bill Markley, author of several books on Western history. “They both shot and couldn’t hit
