What if in the shootout between Ranse and Liberty that Liberty had only been wounded? When the doctor would have removed the bullet he would have seen that it had come from a rifle or shotgun which Tom had used rather than the handgun Ranse was using. I suppose the doctor wouldn't have disclosed that but when Liberty recovered he would go looking for a rematch with Ranse. Could Tom have saved Ranse a second time?
shareIf the townspeople had buried a wounded Valance, it would've been a case of no-harm, no-foul. Had the doctor removed the bullet(s) - Rance's and/or Tom's - it (or they) wouldn't have told him much. They were probably the same caliber, whether fired from Rance's revolver or Tom's rifle. Even if they were slightly different (i.e. .45 .vs. .44), they'd be indistinguishable to the layman's naked eye, and no one would care, anyway. Besides, bullets shot into a body are usually deformed to some extent, and in that era, even pristine bullets fired from different guns couldn't be told apart from the rifling. And had Valance survived, chances are that the effects of his wound(s) would have deterred him from seeking out future gunfights; but, who knows.
shareThey don't always remove the bullet. Andrew Jackson, for example, got shot in a duel and the bullet remained lodged in his chest until his death ~40 years later. If the bullet lies close to a vital organ, removing it is a risky operation. Not to mention the risk of infection with Old West medical standards and the lack of antibiotics. The bullet itself would have gotten extremely hot when fired and is unlikely to be carrying pathogens.
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
A "merely wounded Liberty" scenario would be more likely if the bullet had come from Ranse's pistol; but Tom was an experienced gunman and knew where to aim the fatal shot. Still, had Liberty survived I have little doubt that he and his cronies and their land baron employers would never rest until Ranse Stoddard was dead. It would have been a simple matter of bringing in another dozen or more hired guns to put an end to the kind of opposition and threats that Stoddard had been posing to the powers behind Liberty and his gang.
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Then you walk over and put a round in his head to finish him.
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