Bill Markley - Standoff at High Noon: Another Battle over the Truth in the Mythic Wild West

Bill Markley is a member of Western Writers of America (WWA) and a staff writer for WWAs Roundup magazine. He also writes for True West and Wild West magazines. This book, Standoff at High Noon: Another Battle over the Truth in the Mythic Wild West, is the sequel to the first book that Kellen Cutsforth and Bill wrote together, Old West Showdown: Two Authors Wrangle over the Truth about the Mythic Old West, in which Kellen and Bill explore an additional ten controversial stories from the Old West. Old West Showdown was a 2019 Will Rogers Medallion Award nonfiction finalist. Bill is writing a series of books called the Legendary West. The first in the series, Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson: Lawmen of the Legendary West, examines the lives of those two well-known Old West characters. His second book in the Legendary West series, Billy the Kid and Jesse James: Outlaws of the Legendary West, delves into the lives of the two famous desperados. Both books are 2020 Will Rogers Medallion Award finalists in nonfiction. The third in the series, scheduled for release in May 2021, is Geronimo and Sitting Bull: Leaders of the Legendary West, and Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill: Plainsmen of the Legendary West is scheduled for release in 2022. The Western Writers of America awarded Bill the 2020 Branding Iron Award for service to WWA.

Bill has written three additional nonfiction books: Dakota Epic,m Experiences of a Reenactor During the Filming of Dances with Wolves; Up the Missouri River with Lewis and Clark; and American Pilgrim: A Post-September 11th Bus Trip and Other Tales of the Road. His first historical novel, Deadwood Dead Men, was selected by Western Fictioneers as a finalist for its 2014 Peacemaker Award in the category Best First Western Novel. Bill wrote the Military Establishment chapter and thirty entries for the Encyclopedia of Western Expansion. He was a member of Toastmasters International for twenty years. He earned a bachelors degree in Biology and a masters degree in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Virginia Tech, worked on two Antarctic field teams, and worked forty years with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Raised on a farm near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Bill has always loved history. He has reenacted Civil War infantry and frontier cavalry and has participated in the films Dances with Wolves, Son of the Morning Star, Far and Away, Gettysburg, and Crazy Horse. Bill and his wife, Liz, live in Pierre, South Dakota, where they raised two children and currently have three grandchildren.

Kellen Cutsforth has published numerous books on the history of the American West, including Buffalo Bill, Boozers, Brothels, and Bare-Knuckle Brawlers; Buffalo Bills Wild West Coloring Book; the co-authored and award-winning volume Old West Showdown: Two Authors Wrangle over the Truth about the Mythic Old West; and the upcoming Buffalo Bill and the Birth of American Celebrity (2021). Kellen has also worked as a ghostwriter on numerous projects. He has published over forty articles in such magazines as Wild West and True West and is a featured columnist for Western Writers of Americas Roundup magazine. Kellen is a professional speaker and is an active member of the Western Writers of America and served as a Spur Award judge and panelist at numerous WWA conventions.

Kellen is currently the Western Writers Twitter account manager and a past president of the Western history group Denver Posse of Westerners. He was a finalist for the Will Rogers 2019 Medallion award, and he was honored in 2018 by the Denver Posse of Westerners with the groups prestigious Rosenstock Lifetime Achievement Award. Kellen was also the co-chairman for the Denver Posse of Westerners 75th Anniversary Brand Book committee. He can be found online at patreon.com/kellencutsforth, facebook.com/kellencutsforth, and on twitter @western_writers.

We want to thank everyone who has lent us a hand in the completion of this book. Special thanks to Erin Turner, Sarah Parke, Kristen Mellitt, Sally Jaskold, and all the other folks at TwoDot and Rowman & Littlefield for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to write this sequel. Thanks to Nancy Shoup for your great review of the manuscript. Barry Williams, thanks for your wordsmithing expertise. Thanks to both of you for going over the entire book searching for inconsistencies, weird sentence constructions, misspellings, and odd things that just dont make sense.

Specifically, we want to thank Bill Groneman for his assistance and review of the many deaths of Davy Crockett. Will Bagley and Terry Del Bene, thank you for your help with the Donner Party. Thank you, Dennis Hagen, for your commentary on Crook and Custer. Thanks to George Gilland, aka Tatanka Owichakuya, Brings Back Buffalo, for your review and support on Sitting Bulls two graves.

We would like to thank the various institutions, collections, and individuals that provided research materials that made this publication possible. Thank you to the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library for use of their images. We want to especially thank Chad Coppess for the use of his photographs and to the South Dakota Historical Society Press for permission to use the Wild Bill Hickok assassination image.

Thanks to the Western Writers of America and its members providing constant support and encouragement throughout our writing careers. We want to acknowledge and thank all those who have written books, magazine and newspaper articles, letters, journals, and memoirs, and all those who have preserved and maintained those documents to keep the memory of the Old West alive.

Thank you to my son Chris for the review of the Donner Party and Lost Dutchman chapters. Thanks to Doctor Tom Huber for his medical evaluation of the Donner Party bodies. Jim Swanson, thank you for providing your insight into the stories of the Lost Dutchman. Thanks Brennan Jordan for your evaluation of the possible Lost Dutchman ore sample. Stuart Rosebrook, thanks for putting me on the trail of good Butch Cassidy books. Chris Enss, thank you for your help on Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place. Mike Pellerzi, as always thanks for your cowboy point of view and moral support. A big thank you to my wife, Liz, for putting up with my long hours in the basement plunking away on the computer keyboard, helping with the occasional spelling of a word, and traveling with me to obscure places on my research trips. Thanks to my entire family for their continued support. Most of all, thanks to the Lord for giving me this opportunity and for the ability to think and write.

I would like to first thank my beautiful and wonderful wife, Meghan. I thank my amazing daughters, Cora and Vivian, who inspire me everyday and are the reason I write. Thank you to my parents, Allen and Patricia Cutsforth, for the continuous love and support you have shown me through the years. I want to thank Dennis Hagen, a brilliant historian and great friend, for reviewing this book and making much needed corrections. And thanks to all of those who have supported me through my career.

Books

Abrams, Mac H. Sioux War Dispatches: Reports from the Field, 18761877. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2012.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Bagley, Will. So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 18121848