I was thinking about this movie, but I still need the scene spoonfed, or at least I think I do: the scene where they exchanged gunfire on the barge, but they stop and look at each other.
Does it have to do with the end of the American West and cowboys no longer having to shoot at each other?
It's basically showing how violence in the Old West could escalate and how ultimately pointless much of it was. A simple misunderstanding could have got Garrett killed. This is a world where people use their guns first. Listen to all of the stories the characters tell...a man steps on another man's boot, they have a gunfight and the man with the boots gets killed...a man steals another man's horse, so the aggrieved party puts a rattlesnake in the thief's bedroll and kills him...a whore gets one of her breasts shot off...the son of a store owner gets in a shooting and they have to tear down a door to make a coffin, etc. etc. These are people desensitized to violence because violence has been their go-to approach for solving problems. Just like the Kid's duel with Alamosa Bill, "You ain't thought of another way, have you?" "No, I haven't." Garrett shoots at a bottle, the man on the boat's first reaction is to shoot at him. Luckily the outcome wasn't the same as in all of those stories, but it easily could have been.
http://www.facebook.com/scarletworm
http://facebook.com/davidlambertart