Continuity mistake: Tristan is seen sailing on the ocean. In all panorama shots the boat is a two-master, but when you see him behind the steering wheel there is one mast only. (01:09:20)
Continuity mistake: When Tristen arrives home after being gone for many years - he sits with his father, Col. William. The Colonel has a chalk board around his neck and he writes, "Am Happy." Tristen replies, "Me too." The next scene shows the "Am Happy" chalk board again, but the printing is different from when the Colonel wrote on it in the previous scene. (01:22:00)
Continuity mistake: After Tristan's second return he comes to Susannah's house. They make eye contact while he is still standing behind the wall. The camera cuts to Susannah and then back to him, and he is standing in the garden, with no time in between to walk further down to the gate and enter. (01:24:55)
Continuity mistake: Susannah's hair problems during her first encounter with Tristan after his many years of absence have been stressed already. But Tristan's hair has an even stronger mind of its own, as there is a wide strand combed back covering his parting, which looks as if it has been fixed elaborately, but which nevertheless comes and goes during the scene. (01:25:50)
Continuity mistake: When Tristan returns to see Suzanne at her new home with Alfred, her hair is down. But in every shot her hair is either pulled behind her ear, then both sides in her face, then one side pulled back, and so on. (01:25:55)
Continuity mistake: At the fair when Isabelle goes to give Suzanna the baby, she actually hands it to her in one shot, but in the next (a split second) Suzanne shows no sign as if the baby ever left Isabelle's hand. (01:38:24)
Continuity mistake: When Tristan attacks the policeman who has shot his wife he gets hit on his cheek with a rubber truncheon. However, in the next shot the blood is running from his temple. (01:39:15)
Continuity mistake: Susannah visits Tristan in prison. Whenever the camera is on her her face is touching the bars and Tristan's is a bit away, and vice versa. (01:43:40)
Continuity mistake: When Susannah visits Tristan in the prison, she turns her head away as he says "Go home to Alfred", but in the next shot she is looking at Tristan again. (01:45:35)
Continuity mistake: In the liquor storage Tristan cuts the other guy on the cheek, and he starts bleeding immediately. This scene is intercut with a scene where Susannah cuts off a lock of her hair. When we return to the storage, the guy takes his hand to the cheek, but now there is much less blood than it was only a couple of seconds earlier, and it has not been wiped off. (01:50:35)
Continuity mistake: When Tristan pushes one of his bootlegger opponents into a pitchfork the spikes are coming out of his chest. The way they were wrestling chest to chest Tristan should have been seriously injured too. (01:51:00)
Continuity mistake: When Susannah comes to the ranch she takes a photograph of the three brothers. Alfred is holding a glass and has both legs up. At the end of the movie Tristan looks at the picture, and Alfred's glass is missing, and one leg is stretched out. (01:54:00)
Continuity mistake: In the end when they have killed the bad guys you can see the indian singing and dancing over them with a knife and he throws his hat off and it lands on the ground at the car but then there is a wide shot off the whole scenario and the hat is gone. (02:00:30)
Continuity mistake: When Tristan, Alfred and Suzanna run into each other at the fair, the baby is asleep in one shot, then awake in the next and back asleep once again in the next shot.
Continuity mistake: When Alfred confronts Tristan on the porch, the morning after Tristan has done the deed with Susannah, the buttoning of Alfred's shirt becomes reversed, then changes back again.
Continuity mistake: When Samuel is dying and Tristan is sitting over him, from one angle Tristan's hand is covering his mouth, but in the reverse angle it's down.
Continuity mistake: In the scene of Alfred and Tristan at Susanna's grave, when shots of Alfred show him speaking to Tristan, he looks to his right, as if the two men were side by side and facing the grave, and they seem to have been side by side in the last shot in that scene, when they leave the grave-site. However, the sun lights the left side of Alfred's face, and in the alternating shots, which show Tristan listening to Alfred, the sunlight is on the right side of Tristan's face.
Answer: Very early in the story when one stab is narrating, he's kind of introducing everybody and makes a reference about Decker having "illegally" married an Indian woman, and there are several references to the fact that the father was not happy working for a government that was killing Indians and also went out of his way to make sure they were in no way discriminated against. I think it's possible that may be why they were looking for Decker and why Colonel went out of his way to hide his living there.
I believe Decker had been a bootlegger. That would be the reason why the O'Banions (sellers of booze themselves), were with the sheriff when they came looking for Decker at the Ludlow's ranch. And also, the reason why the O'Banions didn't want to say what Decker was wanted for because.it was their own personal vendetta concerning bootleg whiskey. Maybe they had reason to believe that he was still selling bootleg whiskey around those parts. Also, later in the movie, when Tristan returns home after 7 years, Decker says to him "There's good money in bootlegging if you know what you're doing." And, Decker says that with a huge smile. Like he definitely knew what he was talking about and could definitely give Tristan some pointers about being a bootlegger.
Alcohol wasn't illegal until well after World War 1. The initial scene with the O'Bannons takes place before the boys go off to war, and it's stated afterwards that Alfred voted for the Volstead Act making alcohol illegal.
Not sure about this. At the time the sheriff comes looking for Decker, it's roughly 1915, and liquor is not yet illegal.