Robert M. Utley is a first-rate historian and a terrific writer of the history of the old west. If you haven't read his books, they are well worth getting from Amazon, other online sources, and/or your local public library.
One I remember in particular is one I bought many years back and that I actually used a few years ago in a graduate level course on history of the west -- "The Last Days of the Sioux Nation." An especially vivid scene in that book is Utley's narrative of Sitting Bull's arrest and death in 1890. Those who came to arrest the great warrior got into a gun battle with his supporters. Sitting Bull was wounded and died from the wounds. The most poignant part of Utley's recounting was the dancing circus pony. It seems that Buffalo Bill (William Cody) gave a trained circus pony to Sitting Bull out of the friendship the two shared over the years of Sitting Bull's work as part of Cody's Wild West Show.
In the midst of the confusion and gunfire, the circus pony became confused by the noise and thought he was back in the Wild West Show. He stood up on his back legs and began to dance/prance around in the midst of all the gunfire, mayhem, and death.
Utley's books are filled with such insights into the real life in the old west, and such glimpses of detail abound. Get his books and read them. You'll feel like your living in the old west itself as you get lost in the details of his wonderful writing.
