BELLE STARR (1848-1889)

Thorp suggested that she wrote "Bucking Bronco" but this is doubtful.

Here is a bit of her biography:
Born in Missouri, Myra Maybelle Shirley. Her father operated an inn and a livery stable. She was educated at the Carthage Female Academy, in Classics and piano.

After a Union attack on Carthage, the family moved to Scyene, Texas, where Belle met Jesse James and the Youngers. The Shirleys had strong Confederate sympathies.
Married Jim Reed in 1966. Bore a child, Rosie (Pearl). Belle Starr was a crack shot, and carried two pistols.
Jim was wanted for murder, and they moved to California, where she had a second child, James Edwin. Moved to Texas and associated with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family involved in cattle and horse thievery, and whiskey trading. Jim was killed in Paris, TX.
In 1880, she married the Cherokee named Sam Starr. In 1883, Belle and Sam were charged with horse theft; she served nine months in prison.
In 1886, Sam Staff and Officer Frank West killed each other in a gun fight.
In 1889 she was ambushed and killed.

(About 1888, my grandfather, then about 12 years old, watched her play poker, at which she was expert.)