John Selman, Gunfighter

Leon Metz has pieced together, for the first time, all that is known of John Selman, a shadowy figure in Texas and New Mexico during the unsettled, often violent, period after the Civil War. Unlike many of his comrades—including the most notorious outlaws of his time—John Selman did not wish to become well known. Indeed, his penchant for assumed names indicates he did not wish to be known at all.

Selman was an enigmatic man of many parts: he was an oldest son, responsive to the needs of his mother and siblings; a soldier with a talent for leadership—until his unexplained desertion from the Confederate Army; a husband and father; a rancher who struggled with, and murdered, would-be grangers; and a devoted friend to an evil influence named John Larn, with whom he seemed to kill for sport.

As the Southwest became more settled, so did John Selman. At the end of his career, when he was a constable in El Paso, Selman lost his anonymity for all time: He was the man who killed John Wesley Hardin. Metz explores the stories surrounding Hardin's death—some said Selman shot Hardin in the back. Including rare photographs, Metz presents his conclusions about this legendary gunfighter.