William Sherod Robinson was a Texas lawman turned outlaw. After wearing out his welcome in the Lone Star State, Robinson showed up in Caldwell, Kansas, with a new name: Ben Wheeler. Caldwell, a hell for breakfast cowtown known far and wide as “The Queen of the Border,” was the untamed terminus of the legendary Chisholm Trail. The town harbored a myriad of desperadoes: drunken soldiers, hell-raising cowboys, gamblers, horse thieves, and assorted border trash. There, Wheeler joined forces with outlaw turned lawman Henry Newton Brown, a former sidekick of Billy the Kid. As the new city marshals, Brown and Wheeler cleaned up the town and earned the reputation of being the finest team of lawmen Caldwell had ever known.

Theirs is one of the most remarkable tales to come out of the Old West. After a year and a half of exemplary service to the citizens of Caldwell, where they were held in highest esteem, the trusted officers rode into the neighboring town of Medicine Lodge where Ben Wheeler, as did Henry Brown, again became a lawman turned outlaw. After their attempted bank robbery ended in disaster, their lives were violently terminated at the hands of a lynch mob.