Are Ben Wade and Dan Evans Morally Transformed? Transformations in 3:10 To Yuma
Brett Gaul
Southwest Minnesota State University
3:10 To Yuma (2007) is the story of one-legged Civil War veteran and rancher Dan Evans
and his attempt to transport the notorious outlaw Ben Wade to the town of Contention to catch
the 3:10 train to Yuma. Dan, his wife Alice, and their sons William and Mark eke out a living
raising cattle in Arizona. Because of drought and expensive medicine for his tuberculosisstricken son Mark, Dan is behind on his ranch payments. After Dan’s creditor burns his barn
down, he is desperate for money and agrees to help transport Wade to the train in exchange for
$200. During the journey, Ben and Dan develop a sense of respect for each other and each man
appears morally transformed. While Ben appears to change from morally bad to morally good,
Dan appears to change from morally good to morally exemplary. According to the Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary, the transitive verb “transform” means to “[c]hange the form, shape,
or appearance of; alter the character or nature of.”1 Thus, a “transformation” could refer to a
change in form, shape, or appearance—“external transformation”—or a change in character or
nature—“internal transformation.” This means that someone could be transformed in appearance,
but not in character; changed in character, but not in appearance; or changed in appearance and
in character. In this paper I shall trace the alleged transformations of both Ben and Dan and argue
that although both men are morally transformed, the transformations may only be external
because they seem due simply to the particular circumstances in which the two men find
themselves.
1
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th ed., s.v. “transform.”
2
The Story
3:10 to Yuma begins in dramatic fashion as Dan, Alice, William, and Mark are awakened
at night by the sounds of nervous cattle. The family soon finds out that the cattle are nervous
because the barn is on fire. Dan rents his ranch from Mr. Hollander, and because Dan is behind
on his payments, Hollander and his hired man Tucker are burning down the barn. Tucker tells
Dan that his payments must be current in a week or that the house will burn next. Instead of
making all of his payments, Dan has only been making some of them so that the family has
enough money to buy feed and water for the cattle and medicine for Mark. William thinks his
father is weak and is concerned that his father will not take care of this situation. As the arsonists
ride away, William picks up a gun and aims at one of them. Dan abruptly takes the gun out of
William’s hands and says, “I’ll take care of this.” William, struggling to wrest the gun away
from his father, replies, “No, you won’t.”
The next morning Dan and his sons go out to round up the cattle. While following the
herd’s tracks they come across Ben Wade and his gang robbing a stagecoach containing the
payroll for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Ben uses Dan’s cattle to stop the stagecoach and his
gang kills all of the men on it expect for Byron McElroy—a Pinkerton security guard with whom
Ben has a history. Although Ben lets Byron live, he shoots and kills Tommy Darden, one of his
own men, after Tommy carelessly fails to make sure that all of the other Pinkerton guards in the
stagecoach are dead. Upon seeing this take place, Dan and his sons attempt to hide from Ben and
his gang, but they are quickly spotted. Ben and his gang urge Dan not to do anything “foolish”
and convince him and his sons to give up their horses. Before leaving Dan and his sons to walk
back home, Ben tells them they will find their horses and cattle on the road to Bisbee.
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After Dan and his sons find their horses and cattle, Dan tells his sons to drive the cattle
home while he takes Byron to Bisbee and goes to talk with Hollander to try to get him to make
things right. Not only is the land in a drought, but Hollander has also dammed the creek so that
Dan cannot get any water. In exchange for taking the medal he was given for being wounded in
the Civil War, Dan tries to convince Hollander to let him get by until spring. However,
Hollander refuses to take the medal and grant Dan more time to catch up on his payments.
While Dan is talking with Hollander, Ben and his men are drinking in the saloon. Ben is
sitting alone at the bar when Dan enters the saloon later looking for Hollander again. Desperate
for money, Dan convinces Ben to give him money for two dead cattle, his time, and his boys’
time. In the course of this, Ben is apprehended by law enforcement. Because Ben and his gang
are responsible for 22 robberies resulting in over $400,000 in losses for the Southern Pacific
Railroad, Mr. Butterfield, the local Southern Pacific agent, wants Ben convicted in a federal
court. For this to happen, though, they have to transport Ben to Yuma prison. Because Ben is a
dangerous man, Bisbee law enforcement concludes that Mr. Butterfield will need three additional
men to help transport Ben to the 3:10 train to Yuma. Tucker and Byron McElroy soon agree to
help. Because Byron is injured, the town doctor—who is no good with a gun—has to go along.
Seeing that they are still a man short, Dan also agrees to help in exchange for $200. Mr.
Butterfield agrees to his price and Ben is then taken to Dan’s house to throw Ben’s gang off of
their trail. Upon meeting Ben, Dan’s wife Alice encourages her husband to reconsider his offer
to help.
ALICE: You can change your mind, Dan. No one will think less of you.
DAN: No one can think less of me. You think he’s too much for me?
ALICE: He’s a killer, Daniel.
DAN: Then someone ought to have the decency to bring him to justice.
ALICE: What are you thinking?
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DAN: If I don’t go, we got to pack up and leave, and God knows where without a prayer,
dirt-poor. Now I’m tired Alice. I am tired of watching my boys go hungry. I’m tired of
the way that they look at me. I’m tired of the way that you don’t. I’ve been standing on
one leg for three damn years, waiting for God to do me a favor. And He ain’t listening.
Ben also knows that Dan is overmatched. While sitting around the campfire the first night after
leaving Dan’s house, Ben asks, “What are you doing out here, Dan? You got a family to protect.
You’re not a lawman. You don’t work for the railroad like Mr. Shiny Shoes over there. You’re
not a Pinkerton.” Replies Dan, “Maybe I don’t like the idea of men like you on the loose.” Dan,
Doc, Byron, and Mr. Butterfield then go to sleep while Tucker takes the first shift guarding Ben.
When Tucker falls asleep during his shift, Ben uses a fork he took from Dan’s house to
stab him in the neck repeatedly. Ben could have killed any one of them as they slept, but he says
he picked Tucker because he had taken Ben’s horse. When Dan expresses disapproval with
Ben’s actions, Ben responds, “Your conscience is sensitive, Dan. I don’t think it’s my favorite
part of you.” The next morning on the trail Byron insults Ben by saying that he came “from the
seed of a drunk gravedigger and the rancid womb of a whore.” Ben then tackles Byron, takes his
gun, and throws Byron off a cliff. “Even bad men love their mommas,” says Ben. Before Ben
can kill anyone else, Dan’s son William—whom Dan had instructed to stay at home and guard
the ranch—unexpectedly shows up and helps to disarm Ben.
Around the campfire that night Doc asks Ben if it is true that he “dynamited a wagon full
of prospectors in the Western Territories last spring?” “No, that’s a lie,” says Ben. “It was a train
full.” Ben then says he has to go to the bathroom, so Dan accompanies him away from the fire.
As they walk, Ben remarks to Dan that William reminds him of himself when he was younger.
Dan quickly tells Ben that William is not going to be anything like him because “William’s got a
head start on the path to decency.” Replies Ben, “Yeah, that’s why I don’t mess around with
doing anything good, Dan. You do one good deed for somebody…I imagine it’s habit-forming.
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Something decent. See that grateful look in their eyes, imagine it makes you feel like Christ
Hisself.”
Their conversation is cut short when they are shot at by some Apache. After Dan is
wounded, Ben takes Dan’s gun. Skilled marksman that he is, Ben then kills all of the Apache
attackers. Because Ben has saved their lives and is armed, they let him go. However, they do not
let him go away completely unencumbered as Dan throws the keys to Ben’s handcuffs into the
brush. Although Ben has taken all of their horses, they go after him anyway.
The next day they catch up with Ben at a place in the mountains where the railroad is
blasting a tunnel. In his attempt to get a laborer to help him with his handcuffs, Ben is
apprehended by a railroad man who recognizes him as Ben Wade. It turns out that some years
ago Ben killed the man’s brother. As the railroad man is torturing Ben, Dan, Doc, William, and
Mr. Butterfield attack Ben’s new captors and get him back. Although Doc is shot and killed, the
rest of the group gets away by blasting the tunnel shut. They quickly head to the town of
Contention to wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma. In town Mr. Butterfield rents a hotel room so that
they can wait for the train. Upon entering the room, Ben looks out the window. “Well, well,” he
says. “That looks like rain clouds over Bisbee. You still need that $200, Dan?” “Shut up,” says
Dan. Ben then offers Dan $400 if he’ll lay down his gun and let him walk out the door. When
Dan refuses, Ben offers him $1,000. Dan still says no. Dan even says no to Ben’s cut of the
stagecoach money.
While Dan and Ben have been laying low in the hotel room, Mr. Butterfield has been
busy convincing the town marshal and two of his men to help get Ben on the train. The marshal
and his men agree to help until Ben’s gang arrives in town and Ben’s right-hand man Charlie
Prince offers townspeople $200 to anyone who shoots one of Ben’s captors. This offer results in
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30 to 40 more guns on them. “Oh, to hell with this,” says the marshal. “The fight’s no longer
fair.” After the marshal and his men renege, Ben predicts that even Mr. Butterfield will back out.
“Now what you’ve gotta figure,” he says to Dan, “is why you and your boy are gonna die.
Because Butterfield’s railroad lost some money?” As the marshal and his men leave the hotel
unarmed, they are shot and killed anyway. Ben says that the gang will kill Dan and William too.
William then asks Ben to call them off.
BEN: Why should I?
WILLIAM: Because you’re not all bad.
BEN: Yes I am.
WILLIAM: You saved us from those Indians.
BEN: I saved myself.
WILLIAM: You got us through the tunnels. You helped us get away.
BEN: If I’d had a gun in them tunnels, I would have used it on you.
WILLIAM: I don’t believe you.
BEN: Kid, I wouldn’t last five minutes leading an outfit like that if I wasn’t as rotten as
hell.
After seeing the marshal and his men get gunned down, Mr. Butterfield returns to the
room and backs out just as Ben predicted. He releases Dan from any obligation he has to him or
to the railroad and even says he will pay Dan the $200 right now and he can walk away. Dan
says that is what the government gave him for his leg. “They weren’t paying me to walk away,”
he says, “they were paying me so they could walk away.” Dan says that he will still take Ben to
the train. There are a few conditions, however. He wants Mr. Butterfield to take William home,
he wants guarantees that Hollander and his men will never set foot on his land again and that his
water’s going to flow, and, he says, “I expect you to hand my wife $1,000 cash dollars when you
see her. You got money to spare.” Mr. Butterfield agrees and Dan says goodbye to his son.
As Dan and Ben leave the hotel for the half mile trek to the train station, an intense
gunfight ensues. At one moment during the trip, Ben actually points out to Dan that a man is
sneaking up on them. If Ben had said nothing, the man would have shot Dan and Ben would
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have been free. Ben and Dan make their way to a building and enjoy a brief moment of calm
from the gunfight. Then Ben, admitting that he has been playing along with Dan, says, “I ain’t
doing this no more, Dan.” “I’m getting you on that train, Wade,” replies Dan. As Dan attempts to
escort Ben out of the building, Ben grabs Dan’s arm and throws him to the ground. “Your son
went back!” says Ben. “The boy’s gone, hero. Ain’t nobody watching no more. You still got that
one good leg. Why don’t you use it to get on home?” Dan then attacks Ben, but Ben quickly
subdues him and begins to choke him with his handcuffs. As Dan struggles to breathe, he tells
Ben he’s never been a hero. “The only battle I seen, we was in retreat. My foot got shot off by
one of my own men. You try telling that story to your boy,” says Ben. “See how he looks at you
then.” Upon hearing this, Ben releases his chokehold on Dan. “Okay, Dan,” says Ben.
The two men then continue on to the train station and Dan eventually gets Ben on the
train. “Well, you did it, Dan,” says Ben. Just as he says this, though, Dan is shot by Charlie
Prince. Ben yells “No!” but Charlie continues to fire shots at Dan. As Dan lies dying, Charlie
says, “For a one-leg rancher…he’s one tough son of a bitch.” Charlie then tosses Ben his pistol.
There is a moment of quiet before Ben uses the gun to shoot Charlie and the remaining members
of the gang with a shot apiece. William, who has run away from Mr. Butterfield, rushes up to his
dying father and says, “You done it, Pa. You done it. You got him on the train.” William angrily
draws his gun on Ben but then lowers it. Ben grabs his bullets, voluntarily boards the train, and
hands his gun and ammunition to the person in charge of the prisoner car. As the train pulls
away, Ben whistles for his horse and the movie ends.
8
The Transformations
During the journey to the 3:10 to Yuma, both Ben and Dan appear morally transformed
and religion plays a role. Although the role of religion is clearer in Dan’s transformation than it
is in Ben’s, it is interesting to note that while Dan and Ben are waiting in the hotel room for Mr.
Butterfield to return from talking to the marshal, Ben asks Dan if has ever read the Bible. Ben
says that he himself did once. When he was a boy, his father was killed over a shot of whiskey.
After the funeral, Ben’s mother put him on a bench and told him to start reading the Bible. She
said she was going to get them train tickets so that they could go back East and start over. It took
Ben three days to read the whole book; his mother never came back. Ben’s being abandoned by
his mother seems to have led to his life of crime and those three days reading the Bible appear to
mark the beginning of his transformation from kid to criminal. But why does he refrain from
killing Dan during the course of the trip to Contention? It is clear that he could have killed Dan if
he had wanted to do so. Moreover, why does he voluntarily board the train after Dan has been
killed and he has killed the remaining members of his gang? Is he doing it to please William?
Ben appears to be externally transformed, but has he been internally transformed as well? Now
that he has killed off his gang, is he going to give up his life of crime?
The role of religion in Dan’s transformation from morally good to morally exemplary is
clearer. He seems to begin to change from morally good to morally exemplary when he agrees to
assist Ben to the train. Dan interprets God’s alleged silence to mean that he has to take matters
into his own hands. He seems like a good man who has just had some bad luck. Although Dan
says he does not like the way his sons look at him and the way his wife does not, most—if not
all—of their perceived dissatisfaction with him is probably due to the stress of being poor. But
because Dan cannot help the fact that he lost his leg due to friendly fire or that it will not rain, it
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would be foolish to blame him for his family’s bad circumstances. Nevertheless, Dan evidently
thinks that the only way he can earn the admiration of his wife and sons is if he takes Ben to the
train and collects his $200. If he cannot accomplish that and keep his life, he appears to think that
the next best thing is collecting “insurance” on his death in the form of the guarantees he exacts
from Mr. Butterfield. Dan is willing to die to attempt to bring Ben to justice, but given the
circumstances his death does not seem worth it—even with Butterfield’s guarantees. Would
Dan’s wife and sons have had less respect for him if he had taken Butterfield’s offer of $200 to
walk away? It is difficult to see how. It was remarkable that Dan stayed alive as long as he did.
Does morality require that Dan give his life to attempt to bring Ben to justice? Again, given the
circumstances, it is difficult to see how. While Ben and Dan are waiting in the hotel for the 3:10
train, Ben confides to Dan that he has already been to Yuma prison twice and escaped both
times! Must Dan die so that Ben can escape from Yuma prison again? While Dan is transformed
externally, it is not clear whether he is transformed internally as well.
The Influence of Context
Because both Ben and Dan are performing actions they did not do before, it is safe to
conclude that they are at least transformed externally. But are Ben and Dan also transformed
internally? The results of certain psychological experiments on how even small changes in a
person’s environment can greatly impact his moral behavior give me pause. These experiments,
as Kwame Anthony Appiah puts it, question whether acts flow from our character, where
character is understood as “a trait that is consistent across situations and, therefore, insensitive to
differences in the agent’s environment, especially small ones.”2 For example, Alice M. Isen and
2
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 40.
All of the experiments mentioned in my paper are discussed by Appiah on pages 40-41 of Experiments in Ethics.
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Paula F. Levin did an experiment to see if anyone in a shopping mall would help a stranger if he
dropped a stack of papers near a phone booth.3 The researchers learned that those people who
had serendipitously just found a dime in the phone’s coin-return slot were far more likely to help
than those who did not find anything. While 6 of 7 dime finders helped pick up the papers, only
1 of 25 non-dime finders did. In another study, Kenneth E. Matthews and Lance K. Cannon
discovered that people were much less likely to receive help picking up some papers they
“accidentally” dropped when the ambient noise level was 85 decibels (the level of busy city
traffic) as opposed to 65 decibels (the level of typical human speech).4 Another experiment,
however, John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson’s study of Princeton University seminary
students, is the most relevant to the issue of moral transformations in 3:10 To Yuma.
Darley and Batson conducted an experiment with forty Princeton seminary students.
While some students were asked to prepare a short talk on the value of seminary experience,
other students were asked to prepare a short talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The talks
would then be given in a nearby building. As each student walked down the alley to the building
where his presentation would take place, he would encounter someone “sitting slumped in a
doorway, head down, eyes closed, not moving. As the subject went by, the victim coughed twice
and groaned, keeping his head down.”5 Which students would be more likely to help? Darley and
Barton found that “[o]f the 40 subjects, 16 (40%) offered some form of direct or indirect aid to
the victim…, 24 (60%) did not….”6 Of those who were asked to prepare a talk on the parable of
A. M. Isen and P. F. Levin, “The Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 21 (1972): 384-388.
4
K. E. Matthews and L. K. Cannon, “Environmental Noise Level as a Determinant of Helping Behavior,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32 (1975): 571-577.
5
John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson, “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and
Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1973): 104.
6
Ibid., 104-105.
3
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the Good Samaritan, 53% offered help, compared with 29% of those asked to prepare a talk on
the value of seminary experience.7
Although the topic of each student’s talk proved to be a somewhat accurate marker for
predicting whether he would help a stranger, an even more accurate marker turned out to be
whether the student was in a hurry. In addition to giving the students different topics for their
talks, the researchers also broke the students into three groups: high-hurry, intermediate-hurry,
and low-hurry. Those in the high-hurry group were told that they had “better get moving”
because they were late and were expected a few minutes ago.8 Those in the intermediate-hurry
group were told, “‘The assistant is ready for you, so please go right over.’”9 Finally, those in the
low-hurry group were told, “‘It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might
as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it shouldn’t be long.’”10 Of the low-hurry
group, 63% offered help, compared with 45% of the intermediate-hurry group, and only 10% of
the high-hurry group.11 In short, the best predictor for whether a student would help an ailing
stranger was not whether the student had just been preparing remarks about helping those in
need, but simply whether the student was in a hurry. “It is hard to think of a context in which
norms concerning helping those in distress are more salient than for a person thinking about the
Good Samaritan,” write Darley and Batson, “and yet it did not significantly increase helping
behavior.”12 In fact, “on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the
parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!”13 If
context can influence even Good Samaritan studying seminarians to act out of character, perhaps
7
Ibid., 105.
Ibid., 104.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid., 105.
12
Ibid., 107.
13
Ibid.
8
12
the same is true for Ben and Dan. Since one would not conclude that the seminarians in question
have been internally transformed from people of good character to people of bad character, why
should we automatically conclude that Ben and Dan are internally transformed? Perhaps what
accounts for their external transformation is simply the context in which they find themselves.
Conclusion
Because context can play such a powerful role in how humans act, I would not say that
both Ben and Dan are internally transformed. Although Ben does kill all of the members of his
and even boards the train to Yuma, Ben also calls for his horse. This suggests that he intends to
escape from the train. Even though Ben also gave his gun to the guard in the boxcar, we know
that he is skillful enough to overtake the guard anyway. While Ben is sorry that Dan died, there
is not much evidence to suggest that Ben’s character really changed. Since he met Dan, Ben is
acting in ways that he previously did not, but there is no indication that Ben’s behavior is due to
anything other than the particular circumstances of meeting Dan and William. As William says,
Ben may not be “all bad,” but just because he is not all bad does not mean that he is actually
good now either.
As for Dan, there are a couple of good reasons to suggest that he also has not been
internally transformed. The main reason that Dan offers to help Mr. Butterfield bring Ben to
justice is that Dan desperately needs money. Hollander and Tucker have just burned down his
barn and promised to do the same to his house in a week if he does not pay what he owes.
Although most of the circumstances for his family’s plight appear to be out of Dan’s control, he
feels like a failure. If Dan did not need the money so badly, would he be willing to put his life at
risk to bring Ben to justice? There is nothing in his character to suggest that he would. While it is
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true that Dan does say that he does not like the thought of men like Ben on the loose, he seems to
say this simply to avoid dwelling on the fact that he would never have taken on the dangerous
job of escorting Ben if he did not need the money so badly. Later, when everyone else bails out
on the plan, Dan negotiates the promise of land, water, and money from Mr. Butterfield in
exchange for taking Ben to the train himself. Dan has to know that this is a suicide mission, but
he undertakes it anyway in an apparent attempt to earn the admiration of his family—particularly
William. Dan never does tell his boys that his leg was actually shot off by friendly fire, and so by
taking Ben to the train he can be a real hero, even if it costs him his life. Because death is a steep
price to pay to win the admiration of one’s family, I do not think that Dan would have agreed to
take Ben to the train by himself if not for the dire circumstances in which he found himself.
Although both Ben and Dan are externally transformed in the sense that they act
differently than they did before, I do not think there is enough evidence to conclude that they are
internally transformed. Both men are influenced by the circumstances. While the circumstances
allow Ben to appear morally good, they allow Dan to appear morally exemplary. Appearing
morally good costs Ben his gang, but unfortunately for Dan, appearing morally exemplary costs
him his life.