Short Western Story Review - O Henry - The Caballeros Way

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1904 – Spoiler alerts. A true landmark Western, itself written by a former convicted embezzler and associate to bank robbers, William Porter, under his O Henry pseudonym. This Western introduced an outlaw who was to be used in numerous movies, TV shows, and stories ever afterwards, The Cisco Kid. The Cisco Kid is a notorious outlaw, who on his first outing, murdered many men just for fun, with a particular relish for shooting Mexicans. He was a feared and notorious, unbeatable gun-slinger. Later stories by other writers and actors would turn him into a Robin Hood style anti-heroic outlaw, but initially, he was quite evil. A soldier, Lieutenant Sandridge, sets out to end the kid’s reign of terror but makes the mistake of falling in love with the killer’s girlfriend, Tonia. The Kid’s revenge is nasty. He fakes a letter from Tonia claiming that the Kid has planned to escape town disguised in her clothes. Sandridge sets out to intercept the Kid and shoots five times at the unarmed target only to find that there has been no clothes-swap at all, and he has just gunned down his newly beloved Tonia instead. The Kid rides off happy with the outcome. Brutally shocking in that the villain wins so casually. Arthur Chappell