American Outlaw: Edward James Adams and the Twilight of Frontier Violence

Introduction: The Body and the Crowd

in a plain pine coffin, his body bearing the visible marks of the three bullets that had ended his life the previous afternoon. The crowd represented nearly ten percent of Wichita's entire population, and it included farmers who had traveled from rural counties specifically to confirm that the outlaw was truly dead, merchants who had feared their businesses would be robbed, mothers who had kept their children indoors during the weeks when Adams was known to be operating in the area, and police officers who had lost colleagues to Adams' violence and who came to bear witness to the conclusion of a manhunt that had cost their department three dead and several wounded.