Thunder over the Prairie: The True Story Of A Murder And A Manhunt By The Greatest Posse Of All Time

Thunder over the Prairie: The True Story Of A Murder And A Manhunt By The Greatest Posse Of All Time

by Howard Kazanjian, Chris Enss
Thunder over the Prairie: The True Story Of A Murder And A Manhunt By The Greatest Posse Of All Time

Thunder over the Prairie: The True Story Of A Murder And A Manhunt By The Greatest Posse Of All Time

by Howard Kazanjian, Chris Enss

Paperback(First Edition)

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Overview

Future legends of the Old West, Charlie Bassett, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Bill Tilghman were the lawmen who patrolled the unruly streets. When a cattle baron’s son fled town after the shooting of the popular saloon singer named Dora Hand, the four men--all experts with a gun who knew the harsh, desertlike surrounding terrain--hunted him down like "Thunder Over the Prairie." The posse's ride across the desolate landscape to seek justice influenced the men's friendship, their careers, and their feelings about the justice system. This account of that event is a fast-paced, cinematic glimpse into the Old West that was.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780762744930
Publisher: TwoDot
Publication date: 06/02/2009
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 168
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Howard Kazanjian is an award-winning producer and entertainment executive who has been producing feature films and television programs for more than twenty-five years. While vice president of production for Lucasfilm Ltd., he produced two of the highest grossing films of all time: Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. He also managed production of another top-ten box-office hit, The Empire Strikes Back. Some of his other notable credits include The Rookies, Demolition Man, and the two-hour pilot and first season of J.A.G.In addition to his production experience, Kazanjian has worked with some of the finest directors in the history of cinema. He has worked closely with such legends as Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Sam Peckinpah, Robert Wise, Joshua Logan, Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola. He is a longtime voting member in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, and the Directors Guild of America. The California native is also a trustee of Azusa Pacific University. Chris Enss is an award-winning screen writer who has written for television, short subject films, live performances, and for the movies, and is the co-author (with JoAnn Chartier) of Love Untamed: True Romances Stories of the Old West, Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon: Women Patriots and Soldiers of the Old West and The Cowboy and the Senorita and Happy Trails (with Howard Kazanjian). Her most recent books include Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and How the West was Worn. Enss has done everything from stand-up comedy to working as a stunt person at the Old Tucson Movie Studio. She learned the basics of writing for film and television at the University of Arizona, and she is currently working with Return of the Jedi producer Howard Kazanjian on the movie version of The Cowboy and the Senorita, their biography of western stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter One: Murder of a Nightingale "Some of the proprieties were carefully observed... for example, a woman, no matter whether she was a housewife, a dance hall girl or even a courtesn (and mind you, the last two were not necessarily the same), was treated with grave courtesy on the street. Any man who failed to observe this canon got into trouble." —Actor Eddie Foy concerning the ladies in Dodge City, Kansas,1913 Dora Hand was in a deep sleep. Her bare legs were exposed under her thick blankets, and a mass of long, auburn hair stretched over her pillow and flowed off the side of her flimsy mattress. A framed, charcoal portrait of an elderly couple hung above her bed on the faded wallpaper and kept company with her slumber. The air outside the window next to the picture was still adn cold. The distant sound of voices, back-slapping laughter, profanity, and a piano's tinny, repetitious melody wafted down the main thoroughfare in Dodge City, Kansas, and into the small room. Dodge was an all-night town. Walkers and loungers kept the streets and saloons busy. Residents learned to sleep throught the giggling, growling, and gunplay of the cowboy consumers and their paramours for hire. Dora was accustomed to the nightly frivolity and the clatter. Her dreams were seldom disturbed by the commotion. All at once, the smack of a pair of bullets cutting through the walls of the tiny room cut into the routine nightly noises of the cattle town with a gusty violence. The first bullet stuck in the dense plaster partition that formed the room's perimeter. The second struck Dora on the right side, just under her arm. There was no time for her to object to the injury; no moment for her to cry out or recoil in pain. The slug killed her instantly. In the near distance, a horse squealed and its galloping hooves echoed off the street and faded away.

Table of Contents

Foreword; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Murder of a Nightingale; Cold-Blooded Assassin; A Posse on the Move; Thunder over the Prairie; Caught in a Storm; Beyond the River; Waiting for a Killer; Captured; The Gunman's Trial; End of the Trail; Suggested Further Reading; Index; About the Authors
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