Love was born enslaved on the plantation of Robert Love in Davidson County, Tennessee around 1854. His father was a slave foreman on the plantation's fields, and his mother the manager of its kitchen. Love had two siblings: an older sister, Sally, and an older brother, Jordan. Despite slavery-era statutes that outlawed black literacy, he learned to read and write as a child with the help of his father, Sampson. When slavery ended, Love's parents stayed on the Love plantation as sharecroppers, attempting to raise tobacco and corn on about 20 acres, but Sampson died shortly after the second crop was planted. Afterward, Nat took a second job working on a local farm to help make ends meet. At about this time, he was noted as having a gift for breaking horses. After some time of working extra odd jobs in the area, he won a horse in a raffle, which he then sold back to the owner for $50. He used the money to leave town and, at the age of 16, headed West.
Life as a cowboy
Love traveled to Dodge City, Kansas, where he found work as a cowboy with cattle drivers from the Duval Ranch. According to his autobiography, Love fought cattle rustlers and endured inclement weather. He trained himself to become an expert marksman and cowboy, for which he earned from his co-workers the moniker "Red River Dick." In 1872, Love moved to Arizona, where he found work at the Gallinger Ranch located along the Gila River. He wrote in his autobiography that while working the cattle drives in Arizona he met Pat Garrett, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, and others.
In October 1877, Love writes that he was captured by a band of Pima Indians while rounding up stray cattle near the Gila River in Arizona. Although he claimed to have received over 14 bullet wounds in his career, Love wrote that his life was spared because the Indians respected his heritage, a large portion of the band themselves being of mixed blood. The band of Native Americans nursed him back to health, wishing to adopt him into the tribe. Eventually, Love writes, he stole a pony and escaped into west Texas.
Life after being a cowboy
Love decided he needed to leave the cowboy life. He married his wife Alice in 1889 and settled down, initially in Denver, taking a job in 1890 as a Pullman porter, which involved overseeing sleeping cars on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. While working for the railroad, he and his family resided in several western states, before finally moving to southern California. In 1907, Love published his autobiography entitled Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as 'Deadwood Dick,' by Himself, which greatly enhanced his legacy. Love spent the latter part of his life as a courier and guard for a Los Angeles securities company. He died there in 1921, at the age of 67.
used Love in the novellas Nine Hide and Horns, which was published in the anthology Subterranean Online and Soldierin, which was published in the anthology Warriors, in the novella Black Hat Jack and the novel Paradise Sky.
