A Cold Road to Hell

May 9, 2018
   Went home for lunch and grabbed a half-finished board.

   On a bitterly cold morning in February of 1918, four lawmen rode up the trail to Rattlesnake Canyon. Only one would return.

Daily Whip Out: "A Cold Road to Hell"

   So, after lunch, I came back to the office with the painting and found that Heidi had emailed me the coroner's inquest, held two days after the gunfight. In the testimony from the only surviving lawman, U.S. Marshal Frank Haynes, we get these wonderful bits of detail: "Kane was riding a big brown horse and the under-sheriff was riding a sorrel horse, I was riding a white horse and Frank McBride was riding a mule." Ha. Got some reworking to do on this painting!

"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."
—Benjamin Disraeli