Landon Ricketts was a former famous gunslinger during the height of the Old American West, and stories of his adventures and fights were commonplace during John Marston's childhood. He appeared in many gunfights including one where he killed the Butcher Brothers in 1896 and the infamous Blackwater Massacre of 1899. The massacre was apparently part of the reason Ricketts chose to move to Chuparosa, sometime after a gunfight in eastern California in 1902, for a more "quiet" lifestyle. Landon also had a wife who died from unknown causes. As an experienced gunman, he serves the people of the town as an unofficial lawman or vigilante.