later justice of the peace, but the pay was miniscule, and he and his family were forced to move from one house to another for nonpayment of rent. It got worse. The once-famous lawman was accused of stealing canned goods from grocery stores (including his father-in-law’s) while making his nightly marshal rounds. He lost both jobs but escaped prosecution. To top things off, Homer’s American Legion post ejected Hart after members contacted the Department of the Army and found there was no record of Hart’s service or claimed medals.

These were dark days for Hart and his family. His boys grew up. Although Hart was never the war hero he pretended to be, Richard J. Hart Jr., his namesake and oldest son, died fighting for his country in WorldWar II.

As he aged, the senior Hart developed a cataract in his one good eye and became almost blind. Finally, on October 1, 1952, the Prohibition cowboy once feared as Two-Gun Hart suffered a severe heart attack and died in Homer. He was 60 years old.

“And now,” as famed Midwestern radio commentator Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”

The truth was that the man who achieved a modicum of celebrity as Richard J. “Two Gun” Hart, the reincarnation of the Old West lawman, was not a mixed-blood Oklahoma cowboy. His name was actually James Vincenzo Capone, and he was born not in the United States but in Naples, Italy, in 1892. Brought to the New World as an infant by his immigrant parents, he lived