After Watching Part Two

There are a number of life’s lessons I want to discuss from Part II. Some are mere sentences or seconds in the overall film, but they conjure of images from my past, and I wish someone had explained to me. There have been hundreds of books written by brilliant men on each of these topics…but I am not brilliant, and I don’t have the patience to read hundreds of books. So, as you’ll see, I write just a little about each. What I write is a starting point for you to consider and explore these ideas…the smartest thing you can do is to discuss them with your father. Or, as you get older, discuss them with your friends. Many, many, many ideas have no clear easy-to-find answer, and the trick is to make peace with this fact early on, as a young man.

The Water Moccasins- Newt’s friend dies a horrible and undeserved death while crossing the river. He did nothing wrong, yet something bad happened to him.

It seems enormously unfair.
The truth is that bad things do happen to good people, and no one knows why. It is such a difficult issue, that it even keeps some people from believing in God.

If you are a Christian, which I am, you will one day understand that God has a plan for the entire world, and everyone in it. He has the ability to fix things through miracles, but he often doesn’t. Why is this? If God loves us, why doesn’t he fix all the world’s problems?

This is a tough issue, and one that you’ll have to study as you study the Christian faith, but the short answer is this: If God fixed every problem, then it wouldn’t really be “life,” would it? If every time you hit a golf ball it was a hole in one…and every time you took a test you automatically got a 100…and if every time someone got sick God healed them… well, it wouldn’t be human life. We have joy, because we also know sadness. We feel good about success because our efforts kept us from failing. We are happy when we receive Christmas and Birthday gifts, because they are special, and only come twice a year.

If you got everything you ever wanted, you would be bored… or worse. Just look at all the rock stars, movie stars, and rich people that end up addicted to drugs or alcohol… or even kill themselves. Why does this happen? It seems crazy, because they have everything! Well, the truth is that that’s usually the problem. Suddenly they do have everything, and they realize that having everything isn’t enough to make them happy.

Bad things happen to good people. You’ll see it time and time again. And like the Hat Creek men did, the most you can do is try to help… maybe even risking your life if the occasion warrants it. But if that fails, you simply need to say your prayers, and ride away. Spending your life looking back at sad and unfair situations is no way to live.


The San Antonio Bartender – There was a significant lesson learned in that bar in San Antonio, when Gus McCray put an ass whippin’ on the surly bartender.

Simply stated, the life lesson we learned is never be rude to someone you don’t know. In the case of the bartender, he made the mistake of sassing a person he thought was “just an old man,” but who turned out to be a very tough former Texas Ranger. I have a friend who thought he was tough, and pushed around a much smaller guy, only to find out via a kick in the face that the little guy had a black belt in karate. Be aware, my Nephews… that other guy might be a cop, a badass, or a stone-cold killer. He might be a guy who just lost his job, or broke up with his girlfriend, or had a really, really bad day. You don’t need to back down from a fight when someone challenges you, but avoid starting trouble at all costs.

Also, remember what Captain Call said to Gus as they rode away: “You’re lucky they didn’t put you in jail.” The police don’t like it when people fight, and they’ll often times throw the winner in jail, even if the winner didn’t start it. And jail? That’s bad. Trust me.

Gus and Claire- While in San Antonio, Gus speaks at length about his love for Claire, and how letting her go was the greatest mistake he ever made. He seems very genuine in his pain, and we can’t help but wish he’d married her when he had the chance.

But the issue isn’t so simple. And it won’t be simple when you encounter it for yourself.

You see, Gus is thinking about “what might have been.” And in his mind, he has built up how wonderful life with Claire would have been. He’s not thinking about any hard times he and Claire may have had… he’s not thinking about all the adventures with Captain Call he would have missed out on… he’s not thinking about all the fun times he’s had since he lost Claire. He’s thinking only about “the sunny slopes of long ago,” where we only remember the good parts… and he’s projecting those forward, and thinking the “what might have been” would have been nothing but wonderful. This not the case… but we as humans torture ourselves with this all the time.

Beginning at age 12 or 13, we begin making decisions from which there is no return. We consider the options available, and we head down a chosen path… from which there is often no going back. When you are very young, you make decisions like, “Am I going to be a complete dumbass and try drugs or cigarettes?”

As a teenager you decide what college to go to. In your very early twenties you decide what to study in college. In your mid-twenties to thirties you encounter even bigger decisions…decisions about work, marriage, and having children. And for every one of these decisions you make, there will be dozens of options you didn’t choose.

Consider this: Right now, in some town in the US, there is an accountant who is miserable. Every day he gets up, and thinks, “I should have been an actor. I should have taken a chance, and gone to New York… I could’ve made it, and right now I’d be a star.” There is also, however, a guy in New York trying to make it as an actor who drives cabs at night to pay the bills, and he’s miserable too. Every day he thinks, “I can’t believe I majored in theatre in college…I could have been an accountant, and had a regular life and a regular paycheck, and life would be awesome.”

Who’s right? Who made the wise choice? It’s impossible to know. In the end, the only way to make the right choice is to make a choice, then focus entirely on the good things in your life. Spending your time asking yourself, “What if? What if?” does you no good. If you choose to, you can keep your options open in the manner I discussed earlier, but if you decide not to, then look to the future of the path you’ve chosen with optimism and enthusiasm. No one likes a man who lives his life with one eye on the rear view mirror… in fact, that kind of man rarely likes himself.

Call and Maggie- Gus makes no bones about harassing Call for failing to show his love for Maggie. Call replies that Maggie was just a “whore,” and there was no reason for him to be kind to her. (Let me point out here that prostitution is a terrible thing, painful and destructive for both the woman and the man. However, in the late 1800s, the only un-married women who lived out west were prostitutes, so it was common for men to be involved with them.)

There is, however, an important lesson we can learn from this scene.

Captain Call is, in reality, remorseful for his meanness to Maggie. He knows she loved him, and he failed to even be kind to her…and he must live with that fact for the rest of his life. Well, my Nephews, you too will be haunted by the memories of the times you were mean to someone. You will one day be my age, and you will still look back at the way you behaved in 6th grade, and you will say to yourself, “I can’t believe I did that…I wish I could go back and be nicer to that person.” There are very few times in my entire life, age 10 to 41, where I don’t look back with regret at having been mean to someone.

So what’s the answer? Make kindness to others a huge part of your life. Try to be the kind of person in all situations that causes others to say, “Wow…that’s one high-quality dude.” I’m not talking about the situations where you must fight for what’s right… I’m not saying you need to be kind to someone who’s trying to bully you or a friend… I’m talking about seizing the opportunity to be kind when the opportunity arises. You will never regret having done so.

PoCampo, the New Cook – When Gus and Call hire PoCampo to join the Hat Creek Cattle Company as their new cook, they are shocked to hear he does not ride horses. He tells them, “It is not civilized.”

This is a situation where a man makes a decision based on a principle, and stands by it. (A principle is a core value you believe in…and you say, “I believe in this principle because it is morally right.”) You will develop dozens of principles in which you believe as you grow older, and knowing your parents I believe all your principles will be good ones.

Principles, however, are a funny thing.

Once you develop a principle, and truly believe in it, you must be true to it. If you fail to, then it ceases to be a principle. Here’s an example: Let’s say you believe in the principle “It is wrong to steal.” That’s an easy one, right? Well, what about when the cashier at the store gives you too much change? Is it okay to keep it? The answer, if you believe it’s wrong to steal, is “No, it’s not okay to keep the extra change.” If you do, you are stealing from the storeowner; in addition, the cashier will probably get in trouble when she adds up her money that night and finds she is short.

I believed it was okay to keep the extra change until I was about 20, at which time a philosophy professor explained to me the example stated above. I then realized I had been wrong, because keeping the change was not in line with my principle that “stealing is wrong.” I’ve never kept the extra change since then.

So what does this mean? It means that it is possible to refine your principles as you mature, and learn from life. It is my hope that when you refine your principles, it will always be for the better… but know this: There are lots of people who refine their principles for the worse. People who simply act like PoCampo, and say “I do not believe in riding animals,” when they are in front of you and others… maybe they even get involved in trying to pass laws making it illegal to ride animals… then they go home and ride animals when no one is looking.

These kind of people are a poison to the world. If you have a friend or business associate that you discover refines their principles for the worse, break away from them. Period. They will, one day, use their lies and lack of real principles to betray you as well.

The Blue Duck Showdown- As you saw, Gus had a showdown with Blue Duck by the creek, and he allowed Blue Duck to go on his way without a gunfight between them. Gus was not afraid, so why did he do this? As we saw, Gus’s decision to let Blue Duck go resulted in Laurie being stolen, and almost immediately Gus regretted his action. “I should’ve killed Blue Duck when I had the chance,” Gus said.

So what can we learn from this?

Well, the fact is that the chance to “take action and do something right” passed Gus by. Perhaps he over-thought the situation, and considered too carefully the fact that he might’ve been killed by Blue Duck, or perhaps that Laurie may have tried to run out to stop the fight and been hurt herself. Whatever the reason, he did not act… and the result was indeed very bad.

What Gus failed to have at this moment (which we see Gus almost always has) is a thing called “situational awareness.” Nicknamed simply SA, situational awareness is the ability to size up a scary or intense situation, then act appropriately and decisively. Having good SA is what enables you to act correctly when everyone around you is panicking. Good SA will save your life dozens of times…so often you won’t even notice it.

The wonderful thing about SA is that it can be developed, and practiced. Let me give you an example: Most people drive their cars like idiots…they drive down the road totally oblivious to the other cars around them, and assume everything is going to be fine. This, however, is not the case… and that’s why there are so many car crashes. One oblivious idiot runs into another. A good driver, however, has strong SA.

When they drive they are constantly taking in information, processing it, and preparing to act. They constantly check their rearview mirrors…they check their blind spots…they analyze the speed of the cars in front of them and behind them…they look way down the road for approaching trouble… and they are processing all this information to enable them to act if an idiot driver does something stupid. This is a driver with good SA, and they developed this SA through practice. They certainly didn’t have it the day they started driving!

You can apply SA to all facets of your life. You can think through- in advance- what you’d do if there was a fire in your house… what you’d do if you saw a car crash, and it looked like people needed help… what you’d do if you saw someone have a heart attack… and by thinking these things through, and envisioning your actions, you are preparing yourself to think and act when a totally unexpected situation arises.

Some professions train you to have SA- Military Officers, ER Doctors, Police and Firefighters, and more- but most people don’t choose careers that offer SA training.
If you don’t, then you’ll need to develop it on your own.

Why? Because even as a young man you’ll need it. Suppose you are walking down the street with a date, and you see three tough, suspicious looking dudes hanging around up ahead… what are you going to do? Without SA, you’ll just keep walking, and you’ll put that young lady in danger simply by being stupid. By sizing up the situation, making a quick decision, and taking action, you can keep you and your date safe.

The bottom line in this situation is that Gus’s SA, which is normally excellent, failed him. His thoughts should have been, “ I recognize that man. It’s Blue Duck. He’s a killer, wanted dead or alive. If I don’t act, I’ll endanger Laurie and my friends. I must act!”

And he should’ve drawn his pistol and started the fight.

Chances are almost zero you’ll ever be in a situation that requires that specific kind of SA, but- trust me- developing your SA is one of the smartest things you’ll ever do.

Laurie’s Capture- Jake Spoon left Laurie behind in their camp while he went to gamble. As a result, Blue Duck captured Laurie, and sold her to a group of vicious outlaws. This would not have happened if Jake had been a man, and lived up to the responsibilities he’d undertaken.

Responsibility can be a confusing thing, because as a young man you probably think responsibility is limited to things you agree to. Someone asks you to do something… you agree to do it… and it then becomes your responsibility. If you don’t discuss it, and agree to do it, then it’s not really your responsibility.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are many, many responsibilities you assume, without there being any discussion whatsoever. The most obvious of these for a young man is driving with other people in your car. Most young men think, “Hey, they got in the car…it was their choice to get in… I’m not responsible.” And when someone in the car encourages the driver to drive fast, or burn out, or run a stop sign, the driver simply obliges them. Why not? It’s fun, and everyone thinks the driver is cool for taking risks.

Listen up, Men… that ain’t the case. As soon as someone gets in your car, you have an immediate responsibility to them and their parents to drive safely. Period. Even if they are cheering you on to be stupid, you have a responsibility because your actions affect their lives… and the lives of everyone in their family.

So what do you do? You say, “Listen up…right now I have a responsibility to keep you alive and out of the hospital while you’re in my car. If you want to ride with a stupid driver, find a stupid driver to give you a ride.”

As I said earlier, you have lots of responsibilities you don’t necessarily agree to… you are responsible for the safety of any girl you take out on a date… you have a responsibility to stand up for people weaker than you… you have a responsibility to tell people who ask you to try drugs, “Drugs are for wimps, geeks and losers. I’m none of those. Are you?” You have a responsibility to use your God-given gifts to help other people.

Jake Spoon…well, he failed in his responsibility to protect a woman he was dating. He didn’t think it through, and probably said to himself, “Heck, she’ll be fine. I won’t be gone long. What could happen? I want to go play cards, and don’t I get to do what I want to do?”

As a result of his failure to live up to a responsibility, a woman was hurt very badly.
Don’t let that happen to you.

Blue Duck Shoots the “Chigger” - As you no doubt recall, Blue Duck shot a young Indian who did not want to gamble, for no other reason than the fact they disagreed. Upon seeing this, one of the men commented, “My God, life is cheap up here on the Canadian (River)”

Life is always cheap among men like these- they are murderous scum, so killing comes easy to them. Life means nothing, so why not kill someone who disagrees with you?

I’m quite certain you will never hang around with men who are killers; chances are you will never even know a murderer in your entire life. But the thing I want you to understand that is that there is no honor among men who are dishonest.

Let’s say you have a friend you know lies to people…do you think he won’t lie to you, just because you are friends? He will. He’ll lie to you whenever it suits him, and he’ll use the fact you trust him to his benefit.

Or, let’s say you have a friend who sells a little pot from time to time… he seems like a nice guy otherwise, so why shouldn’t you hang around with him- especially if you aren’t selling pot yourself? Because, my Nephews, he is a criminal, and he has no respect for the law or the people he’s hurting. And if the cops catch him, and he can avoid going to jail by saying the drugs were yours, he will. He won’t think twice about it! Why? Because he’s a criminal to start with! You might think you two are friends, but he has no friends other himself and the money he makes.

When you get older, you will find that you end up making friends in the field in which you work… maybe guys who work at the same company as you, or guys who work in the same general field… you know, they buy the services or equipment your company sells, or maybe you sell stuff to them and their company.

You will want to pay very close attention to what these friends do, and what they tell you about themselves. If you hear them talking about how they “take things” from the office, then you can bet they will “take things” from you. If you hear them tell you about how they cheat on their wives or girlfriends, then you can be sure they will cheat you if they can. If they stab other people in the back to work their way up in the company, then you can bet they will stab you in the back.

My point here is pretty simple: Blue Duck was a killer, so he thought nothing of killing that unarmed man. If you have a friend who is a liar, he will think nothing of lying to you if it will benefit himself.

Let me tell you a little fable that will help you understand: There was a fox getting ready to swim across a river, when a scorpion crawled alongside him and asked for a ride across.

The fox said, “No way! You are a scorpion, and you might sting me!”

The scorpion said, “Why would I do that? If I stung you, you’d die, and sink…and because I’d be riding on your back, I’d drown when you went under the water.”

The fox thought about it, and said, “Well, that’s true. Hop on, and I’ll give you a ride across.”

When they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the fox. The poison went to work immediately, and the fox couldn’t swim anymore. As the two of them started to sink under the water, the fox cried, “Why did you do it?!! Now we are both going to die!”

And the last thing the scorpion said before the water washed over him was, “I couldn’t help it…I’m a scorpion, and it is in my nature.”

Men who are dishonest are the same way- whether they are liars, or drug dealers, or cheaters, or just generally dishonest- these things are in their nature. And just like the scorpion, when the time comes and you give them a ride, they will sting you, too.

Gus Rescues Laurie- With July Johnson by his side, Gus rode into the camp full of armed men, and killed them all. July didn’t even fire a shot.

How was he able to do this?

One word: Experience.

There is no substitute in life for experience. Everything is hard before it is easy, because you have to gain experience for it to become easy. This applies to sports, schoolwork, your profession… it applies to everything. In order to do something well, you must take the time to learn the fundamentals, then you must practice them. Practice is often boring, but it’s the only way you’ll ever be really good at something!

I have found a trick to shortening the length of time between being a beginner and being able to do something successfully. It took me most of my life to learn this trick- because I never wanted to admit I was a beginner at anything- but I finally figured it out. The trick? Well, the trick is based on the fact that everyone likes to be asked for advice… and if you ask someone for advice, they will almost always help you! So, when I want to try something new, I go to someone who’s already good at it, and say, “Hey, you look like you’re good at this… and I don’t know a thing about it. What should I know before I get started? What lessons can you teach me that would help a beginner?”

Unless the person you ask is a total loser, they will bend over backwards to help you. Why? Because you took the time to recognize and compliment their talents, and now they will want to pay you back for your kind words.

Using this trick is difficult for many men, because men want to be good at everything right away. Men hate the idea that someone else has a skill they don’t. But I’m here to tell you… if you can get past that, not only will you learn faster from people who can teach you, you’ll actually have fun in the beginner stage. Why? Because you’ve admitted you are a beginner, so you’re expected to look goofy while you learn. Without the pressure to look cool, you might actually have fun during the learning process!

There’s also a second lesson from this scene, although it’s a little more subtle. Why was Gus able to ride into the camp and surprise them in the first place?

The answer is as old as the military itself… and it goes along with one of the first “sayings” I learned as a Marine. The saying? The road to hell is paved with the corpses of 2nd Lieutenants who failed to post security.

The idea is that you’re never totally safe. If you are a military unit, you cannot allow everyone to snuggle up in their sleeping bags and sleep all night- you have to have men on post away from camp, listen and observing! If someone approaches, you have a man ready to sound the alarm, and open fire. If those Indians had posted security, their sentry would have seen Gus coming, and could have shot first. This would have woken the others, and they could have fought back.

It is my advice you “post security” throughout your life, in everything you do. You don’t need to be paranoid, but you need to make security part of you Situational Awareness. You need a gun in your home, and you need to be trained to use it. During business deals, you need to consider, “What if the other guy is lying to me?” When you are driving you need to think, “What am I going to do if that guy over there does something stupid?”

Like I said, there’s no need to go through life thinking other people are out to get you… but it’s always smart to “post security.” It’s better to have security and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

The Murder of July’s Friends- Upon returning from the shootout with the Indians, July finds his step-son Joe, his best friend Roscoe, and the girl Janie dead. He realizes it was his fault, because he failed to listen to Gus, who told him to stay behind.

For a man, this is a very difficult scene to watch, because July was in a “No Win” situation. Gus told him to stay behind, and he should have. However, there was only a chance that his friends would be in danger, but he knew for a fact that Gus would be in danger… and he didn’t want to let Gus down. In addition, he didn’t know about all of Gus’s experience- didn’t know that Gus would be fine without his help- and for all July knew, Gus was just saying he didn’t need help.

You will find yourself in situations like this throughout your life- situations where you are presented with limited amounts of uncertain information- and you will be asked to make decisions. What do you do? You analyze the available information, and you act. You act like a man, and do the thing you feel is most right.

There will be times, however, when you return from the path you chose, only to find you made the wrong decision. You did what you thought was right, only to find it was wrong. It is very painful, this kind of hard lesson… especially when it’s a situation like July’s. He did do the right thing, going with Gus. But it turned out very, very badly.

What can you do about it, after the fact?

Nothing, except heed Gus’s advice to July when he said, “Yesterday’s gone. You can’t get it back.”

Yesterday is gone. And when you can learn from your mistakes, you do. But sometimes you can’t, because you did the right thing to begin with. In that case, you can only bury the dead, and ride on. Looking back and torturing yourself over what might have been is of no value to anyone.


The Slippery Slope of Jake Spoon- While playing cards with three very bad brothers, Jake Spoon makes a mistake that men often make: He compromises his standards in order to look cool, and fit in with the crowd. The brothers ask him if he has a problem with robbing banks, and instead of saying, “I believe in obeying the law,” he says what he thinks they want to hear.

Compromising your standards is sometimes called a “slippery slope,” because it’s like stepping out onto an ice-covered hillside. You slip just a little at first… then as you attempt to regain your footing you slip more. As you struggle against that slip, you slide even more. And the more you try to regain your balance, the more you slide down. Before long, you’re flat on your butt sliding full-speed down the slope, wondering how you went from just stepping onto the slope to sliding out of control.

So how did you get there, sliding full-speed down the hill? It’s easy… you took the first step onto the slippery slope, and from there you were no longer in control.

Jake’s first step onto the slippery slope was to tell these men that he didn’t object to robbing banks. Once he’d done that, the men seemed to like him…and they asked if he wanted to ride with them to get away from the saloon and the soon-to-arrive lawmen. And look what happened… Jake was already out on the slope, so why not slide down the slope a little further? And in less than five minutes, Jake Spoon went from being a respected former Texas Ranger to riding with outlaws.

And trust me, you will see Jake pay an awful price for taking that first step out onto the slippery slope.

Laurie and Gus- After rescuing Laurie from the gang, Gus and Laurie end up in the Adobe Walls, where Gus asks her to play cards to keep her mind off the trauma she’s been through. When Laurie begins to cry again, Gus tells her, “Go ahead and cry it out to old Gus… you got to much life ahead of you to let this ruin you.”

Believe it or not, there are going to be things in your life that will be so bad, you’ll think at the time you’ll never get over them. And sadly, some people let the past rule their lives… every minute of every day. As an older, wiser man, Gus knows this, and he’s trying to get Laurie to put the past behind her.

These days, we have therapy and medication and syndromes and diseases and names for everything, and the truth be known there’s nothing wrong with using these tools to help you get past something traumatic. But the issue is that it’s important to get over things from your past that haunt you. If you don’t, it might ruin all the great days ahead.
Remember what Gus said to July: The past is gone, and you can’t get it back.

I should also point out one of the few things I’ve learned about women, which Gus obviously knows: A woman in pain usually just wants you to listen to her talk… and that’s what Gus does. He doesn’t tell her how he’s going to fix the situation, and kill Blue Duck for her… he just listens. The best book ever written on this topic is entitled Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. I’m not much into self-help books, but read that one. You’ll learn more about women than you’d learn in five lifetimes.
Now, it’s time to take a break from all this reading. When you are ready, watch Part Three of the movie. We’ll pick up after that.