Lancer; Hero of the West - The Prescott Affair
by Bob Brill author
Character counts

In Prescott, Lancer meets up with and works with Sheriff Jackson. The sheriff is a nice fellow, does his job and is not unpopular in town. He likes to eat which might give the reader the impression he may have a big belly. That is up to the reader. It is a question I anticipate may come up when I'm at the book signing at Peregrine Book Store in Prescott on Wednesday, August 13th.

What I didn't do in creating the character of Sheriff Jackson is to model him after Prescott's real life hero sheriff, Buckey O'Neill. O'Neill, well known as one of the Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders later in his life, ran the town about the same time. The reasons I chose not to add O'Neill to the mix while I did feature Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, are many.

Both Earp and Holliday are legends who have grown well beyond their own boundaries in American western folklore. It really doesn't matter how you incorporate them into a story; they could have been there and done that. The two have outgrown their own persona where the legend has become much more than the fact. A newspaper columnist once said (and I'll paraphrase here) "when the man outgrows the legend, print the legend."

While in O'Neill's case there are legendary stories (trying to rescue two buffalo soldiers who fell overboard in Cuba, etc.) there is much more fact known about the former Rough Rider. Prescott residents know the story well, it's documented, and there are very likely relatives of O'Neill still around to contradict whatever a writer of fiction wants to write. It is a slippery slope and one this author chose not to tackle.

Sheriff Jackson is a strong man in his own right and well respected by Lancer and even the deputy who would like to be sheriff one day. It was a choice this writer chose to make.