July 10, 2012
Went home for lunch and finished a painting that I thought was finished, but of course, it wasn't. This is a painting of shotgun messenger Bob Paul just after he had jumped down on the wagon tongue of a careening stage being pulled by runaway horses in the middle of the night after robbers killed the driver and a passenger. Paul was able to retrieve one rein dragging in the dirt (think about that!) and managed to stop the stage with that one ribbon, probably saving the lives of all the other passengers, including himself. This event, known as the Benson stage robbery (even thought the robbers didn't get the loot) led indirectly to the O.K. Corral fight.
This illustration accompanies an excerpt we are running of John Boessenecker's new biography of the unsung lawman. I got the uncorrected proof of the book and dug into it yesterday. Going to be a classic.
"Bob Paul, as fearless a man and as fast a friend as I ever knew."
—Wyatt Earp
