This is a stunning Wild West Show or theatre image. It is by the theatre photographer Elmer Chickering in Boston. In ink on the back is "To Lucie from friend Thunder". Thunder may have been a stage name? Some believe this is an early image of Pawnee Bill Lillie. However, I do not see it. There are several images in public and my collection of Pawnee Bill in the same age period and I do not think this one is a good match. Also, I can find nothing that says Pawnee Bill was ever known as THUNDER in a Show or theatre production. At any rare, it has it all. Thunder is in a great buckskin outfit with a side arm and holding a Winchester 73 rifle. The two Indians are in full regalia with single shot rifles. As well, the Indians appear to be Eastern American Indians rather than plains Indians.
I have been able to identify the man and Indian woman. He called himself Eagle Eye ( not Thunder) and the Indian woman is his wife, Neola. I do not know who the Indian man is. The two were a traveling trick shooting group in the 1880s.
