Jim "Boy" Calloway
Voiced by Frank Ridley
Jim "Boy" Calloway is one of the named cast of Red Dead Redemption 2, working as character. The facts below are the ones the wiki records.
Turns up in the story without fitting any of the other labels.
- Role
- Other characters
- Voice actor
- Frank Ridley
- Status
- Not stated
- Occupation
- Gunslinger
- Affiliations
- Theodore Levin, Newton twins (formerly), Billy Midnight (formerly), Emmet Granger (formerly), Flaco Hernández (formerly), Black Belle (formerly)
- Also known as
- Boy Calloway
Player notes
Before becoming a gunslinger in the mid-1870s, Jim "Boy" Calloway works as a rancher, army scout and deputy sheriff. His reputation grows around tales of a left-handed draw and killings, including a fight at Lewsey Hollow. He rides with the Newton twins in 1873, then is said to have killed them at Sylvia's Saloon three years later, a claim he denies. In 1882, Slim Grant kills one of Calloway's cousins, and Calloway vows revenge but fails to appear for their arranged duel.
In 1899, Calloway has fallen into drunken obscurity. Arthur Morgan finds him unconscious in Keane's Saloon in Valentine, beside the writer Theodore Levin, who is preparing a biography of the old gunman. Levin sends Arthur after Calloway's former associates, Emmet Granger, Flaco Hernández, Billy Midnight and Black Belle. By the time Arthur meets Levin and Calloway again aboard a riverboat in Saint Denis, Granger, Hernández and Midnight are dead, while Black Belle has given her account.
Levin intends to credit Calloway with these encounters, but Calloway refuses the fiction and demands that Arthur bring Slim Grant to him. When Grant will not duel, Calloway shoots him in the back as he walks away. Ashamed and angered when Arthur reacts, Calloway challenges Arthur himself. Arthur kills him in the duel. Levin then claims that Grant shot Calloway from behind after Calloway mortally wounded him, and writes the other gunslingers' defeats into Calloway's legend.
Trivia
- ◆Calloway and Ansel Atherton are the only explicitly left-handed characters in the Red Dead series.
- ◆Calloway's Revolver is an obtainable weapon. When inspected, the engravings on it read: "Canis Canem Edit" - a Latin phrase meaning "dog eat dog", which is a synonym for "every man for himself" or "survival of the fittest". This is potentially a reference to the European/PAL title of another Rockstar game, known in North America as Bully.
- ◆Levin's published fabrication of Calloway's death omits the player's involvement entirely; even the in-game Compendium incorrectly states that Calloway was shot in the back by Slim Grant, in his unique revolver description. Looking at the protagonist's journal reveals they do not mind however, preferring to 'slip back into obscurity.'
- ◆In the book Wild West Heroes, No. 132, Calloway has an encounter with Landon Ricketts while trying to infiltrate a Mexican besiegement of a US Army fort. Ricketts initially holds Calloway at gunpoint and they briefly converse, with Ricketts letting Calloway know the reality of the situation (bandits control the fort, and the leader of the Mexicans is after the same man as Calloway) and join forces. It is not known to what extent this story is true.
- ◆The story mentions Calloway as a lawman with a history of being a rancher and an Army scout, and in the story, he was after Clanton Fitch, who killed his brother in Blackwater. None of this is stated or alluded to by Calloway, Levin, or any other source of information on him, although it's not necessarily an impossibility given Calloway's alleged experience as a gunslinger.
- ◆Ben Calloway reveals he and Jim are cousins while shopping at his store.
- ◆Calloway is implied to have deceased relatives buried in the cemetary by the Valentine Church.
- ◆While Jim Calloway technically does not have a unique dueling strategy, he will use his belt buckle to reflect the sunlight to blur the player's view as he leans back to save drawing time.
- ◆Jim 'Boy' Calloway takes some inspiration from the real-life gunfighter John Wesley Hardin:
- ◆Calloway is believed to have killed around 16 other gunslingers throughout his life - John Wesley Hardin attributed himself the killings of more than three dozen of men in several shootouts, however evidence suggests most of these killings could have been exaggerated or fabricated.
- ◆Both exaggerated their stories in order to gain notoriety, although John Wesley didn't travel with a writer, as he wrote his own autobiography while being imprisoned in the Texas State Penitentiary.
- ◆Alcoholism heavily affected their skills and reputations as gunfighters.
- ◆Just like John Wesley, Calloway was left-handed, and also favored the Schofield Revolver, the Red Dead equivalent of the Smith & Wesson No. 3.
Character data from Red Dead Wiki, CC BY-SA. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games.
Last verified September 14, 2026