Imagine your life is that of a law man in the 19th century, tracking down the outlaws who've

polluted the land of what was called the Indian territory. Your tools of the trade consist

of your trusty horse, maybe a dog, a wagon that holds supplies like bacon, coffee and blankets,

plus a trusty pistol or two, a rifle, maybe a shotgun. Your mission is to bring in a number of

outlaws that range from horse thieves and bootleggers to bank robbers and murderers. Your posse

may include one or two other armed guards and a cook. The terrain is dangerous and filled with

all kinds of hazards, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, bandits who have no interest in being taken

in dead or alive, who will kill to stay free, no clean water, whether they can freeze you to death

or bake and dehydrate you. The job wasn't an easy one, there's just anyone could do.

And this tough job was even tougher for a man like Bass Reaves, who despite his incredible skills

and reputation was a black man and former slave, working in a very volatile period of racial history.

He began his law enforcement career just a decade after the end of the Civil War.

And then he would work during an era of forced Native American removal.

An era when three races were all trying to figure out how to live together, but only one,

white Europeans decided what the rules of the cohabitation were going to be.

Despite this, Reaves would thrive as a law enforcement officer, possibly if not probably making

more money from his bounties than any of his peers. Said the Bass killed at least 14, maybe as many

as 20 outlaws over a 30 year career. He was involved in a number of shootouts, sometimes going up

against multiple armed men, but he was never injured while arresting over 3,000 criminals.

Maybe he was possibly shot in a shootout with gunslinger, but he won that shootout and basically

just walked it off. And he might not have been trying to arrest that man, sometimes shootouts,

could just spring up over a card game or an insult, real or perceived. He's often remembered

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