Film / The Harder They Fall (2021)

"Now let it be known that I don't particularly enjoy violence. That being said, you are currently in the company of extremely violent individuals."

— Cherokee Bill

The Harder They Fall is a 2021 American Western film directed by Jeymes Samuel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Boaz Yakin.

After the Civil War, gunslinger outlaw Nat Love reassembles his former gang to seek revenge against the man who murdered his parents.

The film stars Jonathan Majors as Nat Love, Idris Elba as Rufus Buck, Zazie Beetz as Stagecoach Mary, Lakeith Stanfield as Cherokee Bill, Delroy Lindo as Bass Reeves, Regina King as Trudy Smith, Danielle Deadwyler as Cuffee, Edi Gathegi as Bill Pickett, and RJ Cyler as Jim Beckwourth.

The film was released in select theaters on October 22, 2021 and on Netflix on November 3, 2021. The trailer can be watched here.

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The Harder They Fall provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Both Trudy and Mary. Their fight at Redwood is by far the most physical as they fight with knives, fists, and anything they can get their hands on to bash each other with.
• Affably Evil: Cherokee Bill, in a unique twist on the Southern Gentleman. Although he has multiple Smug Snake moments and has no problem shooting people In the Back, he's usually very polite and dislikes unneeded violence. In the final battle at Redwood he dishonorably kills two of the heroes but makes several attempts to deter Jim from fighting him and tries to calm a dying Pickett.
• Always Someone Better: Beckwourth has gotten real sick of hearing Cherokee Bill's name every time he shows off his Quick Draw skills. He plans to seek him out to put the matter to bed for good.
• Apologetic Attacker: Cherokee Bill seems to lament the violence he partakes in and tries to talk people out of dying by his hand. It doesn't stop him from killing them, though, often by employing dirty tricks.
• Artistic License – Military: Lt. General Abbott's rank. When Ulysses Grant was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general during the Civil War, no previous officer had held the rank since George Washington, and he had command of all Union armies at that rank before being raised even higher to Commanding General of the US Army. It's utterly implausible for an officer of that rank to be put in command of ten men for a prison transfer without raising huge questions throughout the military and civilian government.
• Author Appeal: The film is a Revisionist Western starring an entirely black cast, featuring an anachronistic soundtrack by black artists. The co-writer and director, Jeymes Samuel, is a black recording artist.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Nat and Mary do this during the Redwood battle.
• Badass Boast:
  • Cuffee says that she's seen a faster draw than Jim "in the mirror." Cuffee later shoots down Cherokee Bill.
  • Bass Reeves gets a few early in the film.
    Reeves: Y'know, a lot are fixin' to kill me. They just all seem to die before it happens.
    Reeves: [When several guns are pointed at him] You shoot, he dead. You miss... all ya'll die.
    Reeves: Everybody in here know who I am... Anybody try to follow me, ya'll know what I do.
• Bank Robbery: The Crimson Hood Gang pulls one of these in the beginning. Nat's gang happily takes the loot off their hands. Later, Nat's gang is forced to pull another bank robbery to pay off the "interest" on the stolen loot to Buck.
• Based on a True Story: Played with. Right off the bat the movie tells you the story is fictional, but makes a point of emphasizing that all the characters are based on real people.
• Battle Couple: Despite Mary's objection that they are going their separate ways after this, she and Nat obviously have something between them and they are remarkably in synch when they fight together.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: With the exception of maybe Reeves (he's still pretty ruthless for a U.S. Marshal and not opposed to bending the rules to get his man) everyone in both gangs is an outlaw for one reason or another. Nat has a reputation of only robbing other outlaws, but he makes no hesitations in killing.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Jim Beckwourth twirls his gun then shoots a Crimson Hood gang member's gun out of his hand.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Rufus is shown to be wielding gold plated pistols.
• But Not Too Black: The actress playing Stagecoach Mary is significantly lighter-skinned than the actual woman◊.
• Cain and Abel: Invoked by Rufus Buck when he kills his half-brother Nat Love's family. He did so in the hopes of turning Nat into a He Who Fights Monsters. To obtain revenge against their father, Buck even plans for his own death.
  Rufus: You gon' surpass even me. Because...I couldn't kill my brother. Yet here you are about to kill yours.
• Carved Mark: After slaughtering his parents, Buck carves a cross into the young Nate's forehead. Nate spends his life assuming it was so he would never forget Buck and what he did to him. It turns out Buck did it for himself, so he would recognize Nate when he came for his revenge.
• Casting Gag: Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, a veteran mixed martial artist who is famous for accepting fights with anyone at any time, has a cameo as a cowboy who chickens out from a fight.
• Casual Danger Dialog: Pickett and Beckwourth chit-chat and argue casually before they've actually dispatched all of the Crimson Hood Gang. They only interrupt their banter for Beckwourth to shoot a gun out of a survivor's hand and scold him for making the attempt to get the jump on them while they seemed distracted.
• Cold Sniper: Bill Pickett is the marksman of the Love gang and is more snarky and stoic compared to the charming Nat, Hot-Blooded Mary, and loud-mouthed Jim.
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite Cherokee Bill's reputation as a Quick Draw, he has no problem taking an easier route. He shoots Beckwourth while the latter is counting down to their Quick Draw showdown, and shoots Pickett in the back.
• Cowboy Cop: Bass Reeves is asked what the Marshals might think about him teaming up with an outlaw gang. His response is that catching Buck is the more important goal.
• Criminal Craves Legitimacy: After escaping prison and being pardoned, Buck seems ready to retire from crime, before discovering that Escoe had taken all the funds they'd stored away.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Wiley Escoe gets in a good first hit on Buck, but that's all he gets. Buck demolishes him with mostly direct hits to the face. He knocks out more than a few teeth and leaves Escoe writhing in pain in the dirt.
• Cute Bruiser: Cuffee's success as a bouncer relies in a combination of people underestimating her by her small stature (which usually gives her the element of surprise) and her amazingly fast fighting and gunslinging skills.
• Curse Cut Short: Trudy shoots a train engineer in the face as he starts to call her the N-word. All he gets out is the 'N'.
  Cherokee Bill: You know, he might coulda said nincompoop.
  Trudy: We ain't no nincompoop.
• Cycle of Revenge: Rufus killed Nat's father for killing his biological mother and his wife from a previous marriage. Now Nat wants revenge on him for killing said father and his own mother.
• Damsel in Distress: Lampshaded. When Nat arrives to free Mary, Trudy taunts him, asking if he's here for his damsel.
• Dastardly Dapper Derby: Trudy rocks one.
• Deliberately Jumping the Gun: It turns out Cherokee Bill's reputation as a quick draw is in part due to his tendency not to wait for the count to finish.
  Cherokee Bill: Why do they always count so slow?
• Designated Bullet: Beckwourth has a round with Cherokee Bill's name on it, which he loads in anticipation of their quickdraw showdown.
• Designated Girl Fight: Mary and Trudy get into a brawl in the finale of the film. Though this is a grudge match as Trudy had tortured Mary while waiting on Nat's gang and Mary's itching to return the favor once she's freed from captivity.
• Disappeared Dad: Why Buck hunted down Nat's father. He was his father as well. He had disappeared after killing Buck's mother in an alcoholic rage.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Killing his father for the abuse of himself and the death of his mother? Makes sense. Killing said father's new wife and scarring his half-brother, who had nothing to do with his shitty childhood? A step too far.
• The Dragon: Trudy to Buck. If you're going to pick a fight with anyone in his gang, don't pick her. She'll shoot anyone dead for looking at her sideways.
• Enemy Mine: Bass Reeves teams up with Nat Love's gang and Wiley Escoe to take down the far more dangerous Rufus Buck.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Rufus Buck is an evil bastard with a reputation for being Satan in the flesh. However, even he expresses disgust that Wiley would put personal profit over the goal of creating a safe haven in Redwood for other black people.
  • He later reveals to Nat that he couldn't bring himself to kill his younger brother.
• Everybody Knew Already: Cuffee’s biological sex. Well, everybody but Jim.
• Faking the Dead: In the end Pickett and Beckwourth of Love's gang are buried with three graves: an empty one for Nat. When asked if the law will really believe that they are dead, Reeves responds that he is the law, and he says they are dead.
• Fastest Gun in the West:
  • Beckwourth believes himself to be this and wants to try himself against Cherokee Bill, who has this reputation.
  • When Beckwourth asks Cuffee if Cuffee has seen anyone faster than him, Cuffee replies "In the mirror." Cuffee later does outdraw Cherokee Bill, and tells him that Beckwourth was faster.
• Faux Affably Evil: Buck presents himself as a distinguished gentlemanly sort, but not-so-deep-down is a Soft-Spoken Sadist who will brutally kill anyone, even civilians, for the slightest reason. He often keeps people on edge with the knowledge that there's no way of knowing how he'll respond in a given situation (since he's equally detached in normal conversations as when gunning people down in cold-blood).
• Femininity Failure: When Cuffee dons a dress to make them appear non-threatening for the bank heist. She stumbles upstairs, struggles to find her gun in her skirt folds, and has trouble riding.
• First Kiss and Last Kiss: Cuffee to Mary at the end of the movie.
• Foreshadowing: When Buck first arrives at Nat's house in the flashback, Nat's father recognises him on sight and tries to deflect any violence Buck plans onto himself alone, claiming Buck's issues are with him alone. He recognises his own son and accepts that he deserves to die at his hands for what he did to Buck's mother. Relatedly, the lyrics during the film's opening sequence actually foreshadow the later twist as well as Buck's ultimate plan for Revenge against his father.
  Sins of the father darken the doorstep, I became you.
• Friendship Moment: Nat Love stages his arrest by Bass Reeves so that his gang won't involve themselves in his revenge mission. They aren't fooled and tag along anyway.
• Gender Reveal: Cuffee is a woman.
• Good Luck Charm: Pickett's lucky coin, which eventually blocks a bullet for him. Only once though.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Cuffee shoots out a balcony's floor with two pistols, to get an enemy hiding on it.
  • Bass Reeves holds a gun on Nat and another one on Mary when he arrests Nat in Mary's saloon.
  • Nat fights with two guns in the final battle in Redwood.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: During the scene where Buck's gang kills the soldiers on the train, we are treated to slow-motion view of the cartridges hitting the floor. This is unrealistic as all the shooters are using revolvers which retain spent shells until they are manually ejected (usually when reloading).
• Guns in Church: In the scene after the Cold Open, Nat Love shoots a former Rufus Buck gang member dead before he can even get a shot off. They're both inside a church.
• The Gunslinger: Obviously examples are all over, with Jim, Cuffee, and Bill being the Quick Draw; Nat, Reeves, and Pickett being the Trick Shot; and Mary and Trudy being something of the Woo.
• Gun Twirling: Jim Beckwourth is very fond of twirling his guns.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: Cuffee is in slacks for every scene except when she dons a Harmless Lady Disguise for the bank heist. She is clearly very displeased about it.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: Most of the characters, while having gained recognition or notoriety for their exploits in the Wild West, were not nearly so accomplished or badass as they're depicted.
• Historical Beauty Update: The real-life Stagecoach Mary did not exactly look like a showgirl. She actually beared more of a resemblance to Trudy.
• Historical Domain Character: A significant portion of the cast, although they never interacted in real life in the way the movie shows:
  • Nat Love (b. 1854), a famous rodeo performer, author, and cowboy.
  • Rufus Buck and his Gang, a Creek Indian outlaw gang active in Oklahoma and Arkansas in the year 1895.
  • Stagecoach Mary (b. 1832), the first Black woman to work as a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service, who was well known for her reliability, beginning her job at age 60, and using a rifle to defend her Stagecoach from mail thieves.
  • Jim Beckwourth (b. 1798) an American mountain man, fur trader, army scout, and explorer who discovered the lowest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada (Beckwourth Pass).
  • Bill Pickett (b. 1870) a cowboy, rodeo star, Wild West show performer, and actor known for inventing steer wrestling, also known as bulldogging.
  • Cherokee Bill (b. 1876) a Native American outlaw with mixed ancestry who went on a two-year crime spree as part of the Cook Gang before being executed at age 20.
  • Bass Reeves (b. 1838) the first black deputy U.S. marshall in the West, who was famed for his marksmanship and detective skills, had over 3,000 arrests over 32 years, and was the inspiration for The Lone Ranger.
  • Cathay Williams (b. 1844) the first Black woman to enlist in the United States Army under the pseudonym William Cathay ( Cuffee).
  • Averted for Gertrude Smith (a murderer and pickpocket in real life) and Wiley Escoe (a deputy U.S. Marshall), about whom there are next-to-no other historical information or pop culture depictions.
• Hotter and Sexier: Most of these historical figures, but it's taken way up to eleven with Stagecoach Mary being portrayed by Zazie Beetz. In real life, Mary was very dark-skinned and mannish, resembling Harriet Tubman. In the film? Ha. Not even close.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Buck's final plan for revenge hinges on this. If he can goad his half brother, his father's better son from his new, virtuous life, into killing him it will make Nat so much worse than Buck ever was. As he says, he couldn't bring himself to kill his own brother. While Nat does kill him it isn't as he wanted and ultimately Nat moves on with his life away from outlawing regardless. Symbloized by having his makeshift gravestone bearing his name.
• In Name Only: In some cases. While, as the movie makes clear, all the principal characters are named after people who really existed, with occasional name drops of their historical titles, how accurate its depiction of those people is... varies. Few of the main characters were outlaws in life, some rather far from it, and most of the heroes were wildly re-imagined to fit more standard western character types ^note Mary Fields, for instance, was famous for being the complete opposite of an outlaw, fighting bandits as a courier and mail driver, rather than the Miss Kitty bordello madame archetype she's depicted as here. This applies a healthy dose of Adaptational Villainy to much of the cast, extremely in cases like Jim Beckwourth, and results in many of them barely resembling their historical counterparts.
• Karmic Thief: The Nat Love gang exclusively robs other outlaws and maintains that they would Never Hurt an Innocent.
• Kiss-Kiss-Slap: Stagecoach Mary literally goes from a deep kiss with Nat to knocking him on his ass in seconds.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Trudy recounts her childhood and her relationship with her kind, but sickly, elder sister. She always did anything necessary to protect her, Culminating in the murder of her bully.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen:
  • Subverted between Cherokee Bill and Beckwourth. The latter who expected an honorable duel only to be gunned down by Bill during the count.
  • Played straight between Mary and Trudy in the climax. While both have their guns, they decide to put them aside and settle it in a one-on-one brawl, using anything they can get their hands on in the surrounding area.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Rufus eventually reveals in his backstory that his father was Nat's father, making them brothers. Naturally, Nat is happy to hear this.
• Living Legend: Bass Reeves is treated with respect and/or reverence by almost every outlaw he meets. With good reason considering he was the man who first captured Rufus Buck; and he did it alone.
• Long-Lost Relative: Rufus and Nat.
• Make an Example of Them: When Rufus takes over Redwood from Wily, he demands the townspeople pay him tax. One speaks out against him and refuses, to which Rufus instantly guns him down on the spot (despite the man claiming to have a family) to show he's not kidding around.
• Manly Facial Hair: While almost all the principal male cast has facial hair, Bass Reeves is the only one sporting a pretty glorious mustache and may well be the most badass character in the film.
• Meaningful Echo: On the worst day of his life, Nat Love screamed out for mercy as Scorpion held him down for Buck to carve a cross into his head. Needless to say, when Scorpion begged an older and colder Nat to be spared, the latter can't resist mocking the attempt.
• The Napoleon: Cuffee is the shortest member of the cast and very slender as well, but serves as Stagecoach Mary's bouncer and is fast with a gun. Faster than Cherokee Bill.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Buck gives one to Wiley via pistol whip, knocking out his gold teeth as revenge for Escoe's attempts to take control of Redwood for a quick profit.
• No-Holds-Barred Contest: Trudy and Mary's fight, involving everything from knives to biting to throwing fabric at each other. Mary wins.
• Oh, Crap!: The bank teller goes from laughing at them to shocked silence when Cuffee pulls out her gun and points it at her face.
• Older Than They Look: Cuffee is short, slender, and has extremely big and childlike eyes for a club's bouncer. She's often called a "boy" because of this, but she is perfectly able to kick out unruly patrons and serve as Mary's Number Two when they go on Nat's quest for revenge. Not too much older, though: she's still younger than Nat, and presumably Mary.
• Open Secret: Cuffee's biological sex as a woman. Beckwourth makes a huge deal when they strip to change into the dress provided for the heist. He's quickly told he was the only one who hadn't figured it out.
• The Pardon: The Buck gang somehow swings this at the film's start, despite their infamously cruel reputation.
• Pistol-Whipping: Rufus Buck bashes his old gang member Wily Escoe in a street of Redwood with his revolver.
• Pocket Protector: Pickett's lucky coin manages to shield him from a bullet to his amazement. Unfortunately it doesn't protect him from Cherokee Bill who shoots him in the back not long after he makes this discovery.
• Practically Different Generations: Nat and Rufus are probably twenty or twenty-five years apart, being half-siblings through their father.
• Price on Their Head: Nat tells the priest to turn in the body of the bandit that had been extorting his church to claim the $5,000 bounty on his head. When the incredulous priest asks why Nat doesn't take the bounty for himself he smiles and wryly informs him that he is worth ten.
• Quick Draw:
  • Nat shoots first in such a situation inside a church in the opening.
  • Cherokee Bill is notorious for his gunslinging, but it's partly because he doesn't wait for people to finish talking. He's out-shot by Cuffee.
  • Beckwourth is very fast, and Cuffee may be faster.
• Race Lift: The real Rufus Buck was a Native American, and his gang was composed of fellow Creek Indians. In the film, he and his comrades are portrayed as black Americans.
• Retired Outlaw: Nat discovers that his father was a cruel outlaw that turned his life around and found God after killing his first wife. Nat later follows his father's lead, Faking the Dead and beginning anew with Mary.
• Revenge Through Corruption: The true reason that Rufus Buck killed Nat Love's family. Love's (and Buck's) father was cruelly abusive to the latter, killing his mother one day before abandoning the young Rufus in order to start a new life. Rufus got his vengeance in corrupting the son that Buck Sr. actually loved, turning him into a revenge-obsessed outlaw and ensuring that their father's crimes would follow him even in death.
• A Scar to Remember: After Buck killed Nat Love's parents, he carved a cross in the boy's forehead. In an interesting twist, Buck didn't make the scar so that Nat would remember him, but so that he would remember Nat when they next met.
• Scope Snipe: Pickett pulls one on an enemy sharpshooter shortly before blowing up the money meant for the Buck gang at long-range.
• Self-Made Orphan: Buck. It takes him a decade to hunt down and kill his abusive, murderous father, but we see him take his revenge in the first scene.
• Sequel Hook: While Nat plans to put his past behind him and gets on with his life with Mary and Cuffee joins Bass as his Deputy. The final shot of the movie is someone watching them ride off in the distance, implied to be Trudy due to holding her signature bowler hat.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Almost everyone gets in on this to some degree.
  Cherokee Bill: Now I don't particularly enjoy violence. That being said, you are currently in the company of extremely violent individuals. [Swigs some liquor] Ugh. Shit. So, don't do no stupid shit. All right?
• Standard Evil Organization Squad: Rufus Buck's gang is notorious for its ruthlessness and the standard response to them is absolute fear.
  • Big Bad: Rufus Buck, the Diabolical Mastermind with a reputation for being the Devil himself. As the man who took over the town of Redwood and killed Nat Love's parents, he's the top enemy.
  • Co-Dragons: Trudy and Bill are this to Rufus with Trudy heading the gang in Buck's absence while Bill does most of the talking for the other two.
  • The Evil Genius: Wiley Escoe, the conniving Manipulative Bastard tasked with running Redwood, who instead used the opportunity to get rich. He turns out to be the reason, by way of informing on his boss, for both of Rufus Buck's defeats.
  • The Brute: Angel, as the physically largest member who operates primarily as a Mook Lieutenant. His few lines include attempts at intimidating Bass Reeves and Stagecoach Mary and he's the one brought in to torture the captive Mary and Nat Love.
• Stiff Upper Lip: Trudy never seems to smile, get upset, or flinch, even when facing a speeding train. She just gives it a Death Glare as it screeches to a halt in front of her.
• Strolling Through the Chaos: During the final battle, Reeves is seen calmly walking across the main square, while scoring at least five consecutive headshots.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: During a lull in the action, Pickett pulls out a coin from his pocket that stopped a bullet that would have killed him and makes a remark about it not being his time. He is immediately shot in the back by Cherokee Bill.
• Sweet on Polly Oliver: Jim was somewhat attracted to Cuffee even before finding out her biological sex and is rather unsettled that he was the only one who didn't know.
  Beckwourth: Hoo! Close shave! Close fuckin' shave. [Chuckling] I thought I was falling for a fella for a little bit. That's why I didn't say nothing. Well, I ain't the only one. I can't... I can't... It wa'n't just me! [Dead serious] It wasn't just me.
  Pickett: It was just you, Jim.
• The Man They Couldn't Hang: Beckwourth reveals that Nat rescued him from the noose at some point in the past.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The train engineer stops the train because Trudy is sitting on a horse on the tracks, even though it's quite obvious that she's intending to rob the train. He's immediately shot in the ensuing robbery.
  • The train passenger who challenges a mob of armed bandits to fisticuffs.
  • The lieutenant general's son was apparently just wandering around the passengers' cars after the train made a sudden stop in the middle of the desert, basically inviting himself to be killed or captured by bandits.
• Train Job: Buck's gang is introduced as they pull a train job, only the bounty they are after is Buck.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Trudy recounts a childhood story of her meek sister and a bully who hit her with an apple and caused her to fall and break her ankle. Their father had beaten her for not protecting her sister properly, and then went to exact punishment on the bully. He arrives to find that "someone" had slit the girl's throat that evening. He's so disturbed that Trudy is sent away to live with relatives.
• Undying Loyalty: Mary gets this from Cuffee, Nat from his friends, and Buck from his gang (barring Escoe).
• Unflinching Walk: When he's freed from a safe in which he was transported as a prisoner, Rufus just walks undisturbed while a fight erupts between the US cavalry soldiers guarding him and the gang that came to free him.
• Villainous Friendship: Rufus Buck with Treacherous Trudy Smith (with hints of Unholy Matrimony) as well as Cherokee Bill. The first thing Buck does when freed by his gang is tap both with a surprisingly tender Headbutt of Love.
• Villainous Gold Tooth: Buck pistol-whips the gold teeth out of Escoe's mouth as revenge for his attempts to take control of Redwood for a quick profit.
• Visionary Villain: Buck built up Redwood to be a haven for black people to live under their own rule. His first act upon being freed is to hurry back to the town to check on its well-being and save it from destruction. Then he murders a citizen for saying he won't pay taxes.
• Visual Pun: The characters express concerns about attempting a robbery in "a white town." When they get there, not only are all the buildings white-washed, but the people are wearing primarily white clothes, and even the dirt roads are white. There's a helpful title card identifying it as "Maysville (it's a white town)."
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Beckwourth and Pickett spend most of their time insulting or annoying each other, but Bill has a fair amount of Big Brother Instinct for Jim and loses it when he gets killed.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Members of Buck's gang claim their crimes are to gain funds for fighting the uphill battle of making Redwood a thriving black town in the postwar South. And they won't let anyone, including the people living there, get in the way.
• Waif-Fu: The diminutive Cuffee kicks the snot out of men twice her size.
• The Western: Specifically of the "Revisionist Western" variety, in which the cast is entirely black, the soundtrack is modern, and all the white/Latino characters are incompetent and/or evil.
• Wham Line: When Rufus tells Nat about finally tracking down his murderous, alcoholic father.
  "He was clean, sober. He had his own church, a pretty little wife... and he had a son...about the age of ten years old...whose eyes blazed like mine."
• Wham Shot: The final shot of the film pans from our heroes riding off to new adventures to a feminine figure on a hill watching them go… with Trudy's bowler hat in their hand.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Buck's sudden need for cash was motivated by his need to save Redwood from white developers as the territory transitioned to statehood. With the money blown up at the end and Buck and his crew (mostly) dead, the town seems to be left without any financial backers and in utter shambles from the showdown. The heroes simply ride off and never speak of the town again.
• Young Gun: Beckwourth; although he has one of the fastest draws in the setting, he tends to care too much about getting the reputation and accolades of being the Fastest Gun in the West. Reeves, Cuffee, and Pickett all warn that focusing on flashy tricks and looking cool are going to be the death of him. They're proven right when Jim challenges Cherokee Bill to a duel; the latter cares way more about not dying than being the best, so he has no problem shooting first.

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