The central question of the novel Kit Cope Rides the High Country.
Kit himself actually answers this question in the affirmative, although perhaps due more to youthful naivety than courage…
What would you do? Has anyone here heard of the Llano Estacado? Otherwise known as The Staked Planes? The Palo Duro Canyon? In whose waterless draws and crags the broken Comanche people eluded the whites for decades…
It is into this treeless burning expanse that Kit and his posse must go, into the last stronghold of the dying race of the Comanche…
Llano Estacado: Yes, it’s often mentioned and described in the Karl May novels
I don’t know if I would risk my life to save others. Would you enter a burning house if you hear a child cry inside?
The problem is: People only know what they do if they’re actually confronted with the situation.
It’s like asking: You find a dead man and a bag with one milion dollars. What would you do?
We’re not able to answer the question, untill we actually find a dead man with a million dollars, and our behaviour might surprise us
Your character answers the question in the affirmative: that’s what matters, speaking about your novel. What you would do, or I would do, is not essential - we’re not in the novel (the problem might have been of interest for you while writing it, after all you created the character, and the situation)
It’s a very difficult question and I guess everyone in extreme circumstances behaves differently, so it’s hard to predict our reaction.
I hope I would risk my life to save others.
I tend to be a little more pragmatic about these things than the average person, so I think it would really have to depend on the circumstances, I would have to assess the situation and decide whether its really worth the risk.
Trust Douglas Mortimer to come up with the coolest answer, ha ha (my favourite character from the Dollars films)! Great posts, thanks everyone.
In considering the question myself, I think the person or persons would have to be considerably vulnerable for me to risk my own life to go after them - children or women, etc. A cowboy had a very deep sense of personal code and reputation, the reason a gunfight could break out so quickly over a simple lack of respect or a silly insult. I remember during the research phase of writing my novel, coming across an account from a cowboy who said people were so much more respectful in those days, since insult could quickly give rise to gunplay.
I think many a young cowboy would have stepped forward or joined a posse to hunt a child stealer - after all, look what it meant to merely go up the trail for three months? Death on all sides, and not only from Indians…
Is there any doubt that cowboys were brave and courageous men (boys, actually - so also a little naive, I think). They earned almost nothing for their work.
