Good Guys Sometimes Wear Black

Two events precipitated this blog. A few days ago, I wrote about three men who became legends during their own lifetimes. Last night, I watched the movie Sunset with James Garner as Wyatt Earp and Bruce Willis as Tom Mix, investigating murder in sunny California in Wyatt’s golden years. Black Hats is another fiction along those lines, reminiscent of that movie with its wry humor, succinct dialogue, and famous characters. In this case, however, the stars are Wyatt, his old friend Bat, and the memory of “Doc” Holliday, and of an incident that didn’t happen, but might have…

In 1921, Wyatt Earp is betting bored with his California life. It’s one thing to be a living legend, but it’s another to be a living legend married, settled down, and growing older. In the nick of time, he has a visitor from his good old, bad old life…Big Nose Kate, widow of his old friend, "Doc" Holliday, the Georgia dentist turned gunfighter. Seems Kate has a problem she hopes Wyatt can resolve for her—and it involves John Henry Holliday, Junior, her son and "Doc’s". After intending to become a dentist like his father, young Johnny wins a speakeasy in a card game as well as enough booze to fill it for a long, long time, and when he settles into being a nightclub owner, the whiskey-runners in New York aren’t too happy he isn’t buying theirs. Against his better judgment, and without telling his wife what he’s doing, Wyatt goes to New York City where he teams up with old crony Bat Masterson, who takes time off from his newspaper gig to help.

Johnny turns out to be a chip off the old block, the spitting image of his gambler father and equally fast with a gun or a knife. Soon the three are embroiled with nightclub personality Texas Guinan, and a ruthless up-and-coming young gangster named Al Capone. Johnny and Al have crossed on more than one occasion, the most recent leaving Capone with the knife slashes earning him the nickname “Scarface Al”, and now there’s revenge in the mix. Other well-knowns both famous and infamous stroll through the pages as Bat and Wyatt devise a daring plan to get Johnny out of his nightclub in one piece and into a safer life with his sweetheart, Daisy.

...and that's the way it happened, or, as it was said in Sunset..."give or take a lie or two."

This is a thoroughly enjoyable story, an audacious fiction with enough facts behind it to make it seem as if it could have happened. Bat and Wyatt, as well as the other real-life persons, are depicted the way we’ve been led to believe they would have talked and acted, and the many legends about them are woven into the story as well. It’s a fun romp through a time in American history when old legends were fading fast and new ones were rising, but this brief moment when the old and the new might have clashed is an adventure worth reading. If you like Westerns, if you like history in general—or tweaks on history--you’ll get a kick out of Black Hats. It might even make you want to see Sunset.