The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

A few years later, Hickok became marshal of Hays City, Kansas. On August 22, 1869, not long after he entered office, Hickok shot John Mulrey during an argument of which Mulrey was the instigator. He died a few hours later.

  On September 27, 1869, Samuel O. Strawhunthe name has been spelled various ways- practically destroyed a beer hall. Hickok walked in and shot him dead.

  Hickok lost a Hays City reelection bid on November 2, 1869, and appears to have worked as a U.S. deputy marshal for a while. He returned to Hays City just in time on July 17 to become involved in a gunfight with two Seventh Cavalry troopers, John Kile and Jeremiah Lonergan; the shootout took place inside the Paddy Welche Saloon. Hickok probably entered first. As he stood leaning against the bar, Lonergan grabbed him from behind and wrestled him to the floor while Kile ran up alongside, pulled a .44 Remington, stuck it in Hickok's ear, and jerked the trigger. The weapon misfired. Meanwhile, Hickok had managed to draw one of his own weapons. He jammed it against Lonergan's knee and blew it away. Lonergan naturally let go, at which time Hickok rolled over and shot Kile twice, once in the body and once in the arm. Hickok, apparently figuring the whole roomful of people was trying to kill him, jumped through a window and dashed to his hotel room. There he grabbed additional weapons and hid out in the local Boot Hill for the rest of the night, that particular hideout being the last place troopers would expect to find him. Meanwhile, Kile died.

  James Butler ("Wild Bill") Hickok (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  Hickok subsequently disappeared from Hays City, only to reappear in Abilene, where the city council in April 1871 appointed him town marshal. In the process the council created a tinderbox. Texas trail herds would be arriving soon, and most cowboys were southerners, whereas Hickok was a northerner, a Yankee. Since neither faction showed much tolerance or respect for the other, trouble would be the only outcome.

  At about 9 P.M. on October 5, a group of Texas cowboys led by gambler Phil Coe stumbled down the street, occasionally ordering drinks from saloon patrons, throwing over the bar bystanders who did not offer to pay. Coe even fired at a stray dog, which brought Hickok on the run. A street-corner confrontation occurred in front of the Alamo Saloon; it ended with both Hickok and Coe blazing away at each other from a distance of eight to 12 feet. Coe fired four rounds. Hickok banged away with both six-shooters, each man creating clouds of gunsmoke; Coe missed completely, but Hickok scored twice. He shot Coe in the stomach, a wound from which Coe died three days later. Hickok also accidentally shot his own deputy, Mike Williams, who came running up at the wrong time. Coe and Williams would be Hickok's last killings. His best-known biographer, Joseph Rosa, believes Hickok killed eight men altogether, at the maximum.

  Within a few weeks Hickok also confronted Texas gunman John Wesley Hardin. The marshal had made it illegal for anyone in Abilene to wear guns; when Hardin kept his strapped on, Hickok supposedly ordered Hardin to take them off and hand them over. Hardin's story was that he performed the Road Agent Spin on the marshal and forced him to back down.

  Did such an event actually happen? Probably. At any rate, when Hardin shot a man a few weeks later, he did not wait around for Hickok to come knocking on his door. Hardin "borrowed" the first fast horse going south to Texas.

  As for the marshal, when the cattle-shipping season ended, the Abilene city council dismissed him. Hickok had by this time acquired a dime-novel reputation. among others, made him a violent, straight-shooting, romantic hero. Bill reinforced the image by performing in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show from 1872 to 1874. Hickok became one of the "Scouts of the Prairie."

  But Hickok had sobriety problems, especially when acting. Furthermore, he seemed temperamentally unsuited to show business. He left the Buffalo Bill Show in March 1874 and spent the next two years in and around Cheyenne, Wyoming. There he acquired what appeared to have been trachoma, an eye disease.

  In Cheyenne, on March 5, 1876, he married Agnes Lake Thatcher, the widow of a circus owner. They honeymooned in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hickok left almost immediately afterward for the Black Hills in South Dakota, where gold had reportedly been discovered.

  Here he likely met Martha Jane Cannary, better known as "Calamity Jane," a mannish-appearing, nearly middle-aged prostitute. Bill may have indulged himself briefly, but there is little evidence of any serious association.

  Anyway, on August 2, 1876, as he sat playing poker in Deadwood's Nuttall and Mann's No. 10 Saloon, Jack McCall walked up behind and shot the gunfighter in the back of the head. Hickok died instantly. The bullet went through Wild Bill's skull and embedded itself in the wrist of a fellow poker player.

  The reasons for the slaying are speculative. Furthermore, there were no aces and eights clutched in Hickok's fingers, the so-called Dead Man's Hand. In fact, no one recorded his cards. McCall was tried for murder and hanged. Wild Bill was buried in Deadwood, where he remains the town's top tourist attraction, almost as well known in death as in life. Calamity Jane lies in the next tier, directly above Hickok.

  BUFFALO BILL; CALAMITY JANE; COE, PHILIP HOUSTON; HARDIN, JOHN WESLEY

  HIGGINS, John Calhoun Pinckney (a.k.a. Pink Higgins) (1848-1914)

  Pink Higgins was born in Georgia but in 1857 moved to Lampasas County, Texas. He fought Indians, joined the Ku Klux Klan, and in 1874 killed two Horrell Ranch cowboys, Ike Lantier, and Zeke Terrell. In January 1877, Higgins killed Merritt Horrell during a saloon fight in Lampasas. In March of that same year, a group of men, including Higgins, ambushed but failed to kill Sam and Mart Horrell. During a subsequent June 14, at Lampasas, the Horrell and Higgins clan shot at each other for several hours, killing only a Higgins brother-in-law, Frank Mitchell.

  One month later the Higgins bunch invaded the Horrell Ranch, but ran out of ammunition within two days. Still, it took the Texas Rangers to push them out. The rangers also forced both sides to sign a peace treaty.

  Higgins now briefly took his anger to the Mexican border town of Ciudad Acuna. There he shot and killed a man who had not fulfilled a horse deal. Higgins swam north across the Rio Grande and escaped.

  Higgins apparently loved his feuds, but feuds eventually did him in. In Kent County, Texas, on October 4, 1903, he and Texan William Standifer, each on horseback, shot it out with rifles. Standifer shot the Higgins horse; Higgins shot Standifer through the heart.

  In 1914 Pink Higgins died of heart failure.

  S66 (9190; HORRELL BROTHERS; STANDIFER, BILL

  HIGH Noon

  R$gki Nccre is arguably the most famous western movie of all time. Gary Cooper portrayed a lone man standing up to evil at high noon while others in his town cower in the shadows. Producer-director Stanley Kramer released this western. The message movie portrayed an American West not of reality but of imagination. No real-life American West lawman or outlaw ever faced this kind of storybook situation. It's a real history versus Hollywood scenario, in which Hollywood wins out.

  HODGES, Thomas J. (a.k.a. Tom Bell) (1830?-1856)

  Desperado Tom Hodges was known practically all his life as Tom Bell. Born in Tennessee, he served as a medical assistant during the Mexican War and afterward headed for California, where he became a mule thief. That got him five years in 1851, the initial part of his sentence likely being served on board a rickety anchored ship, used as a jail, in San Francisco Harbor. Anyway, he and others broke out in 1855. Bell formed a gang that for a brief period amounted to perhaps 30 individuals. Its members shot and killed without mercy, robbing stagecoaches, mines, and miners. They even stationed a thug in the Mountaineer Hotel at Auburn to notify the outlaws of guests with bulging pockets.

  The end came when lawmen caught Charlie Hamilton, a black associate of Bell's. Charlie talked, and on October 3, 1856, a posse shot up Bell's gang. Bell and some of the others escaped, but gang member Juan Fernandez led the lawmen to a San Joaquin River ranch and hideaway where Bell had established his headquarters. So this man who might have become a respected doctor was instead captured, led to a tree, given an opportunity to write two letters,
and hanged.

  HOLE-IN-THE-WALL

  The Wild Bunch outlaws had their favorite hideouts, one of the best known being the Hole-in-the-Wall, in Johnson County, Wyoming, near what is now Kaycee. Actually, it never was a hole in the canyon wall as has been touted but rather a notch, a path taken by an ancient river that had left behind red granite cliffs. From the top of that notch a person could see for miles, making it easy to spot approaching posses, friends, or enemies. Herds of cattle could be driven in or out through that notch. Butch Cassidy, a founding member of the Wild Bunch, believed a dozen men could hold off an army from that vantage point-which of course was not quite correct but makes a point.

  Not many people lived in that remote area, and they were never of the inquisitive type. Today, the region is still out of the way, remote, a park for visitors, campers, and those who want to experience a long-ago atmosphere of the Old and Wild West.

  .366- O. CASSIDY, BUTCH; SUNDANCE KID; WILD BUNCH

  HOLLIDAY, John Henry (a.k.a. Doc Holliday) (1851-1887)

  John Henry Holliday (named for both his uncle and his father), but forever known as Doc Holliday, was born on August 14, 1851, in Griffin, Georgia, of well-to-do parents; his father, Henry, was a druggist. Dr. John Holliday, Henry's brother, made the delivery. He also performed cleft-palate surgery on the youngster. Nevertheless, the boy spent much of his youth in intensive speech therapy. In 1864, when John Henry Holliday reached 12, the family moved to Lowndes County, Georgia, settling near Bermiss. Sometime during this period young John Henry decided to become a dentist, and although his and his family's feelings ran high against the North, everyone agreed that the best training could be had at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in Philadelphia. In 1870, young John paid the $105 fee and enrolled. He graduated on March 1, 1872, with a degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. He opened his practice in Atlanta.

  John Henry ("Doc") Holliday (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  Somewhere along the way, perhaps since early childhood, he developed a nagging cough diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis. The only cure-move west to a drier climate. In September 1873 he took a train to Dallas, Texas, and opened his new office at 56 Elm Street. Before long, remote from his family, he became aware of the many Dallas saloons and of gambling. Doc Holliday began spending more time with dice and cards than with teeth. By May 12, 1874, when the city charged him with gambling, he knew dentistry was a lost cause; he would never go back. In January 1875, Doc Holliday and saloon keeper Charles Austin broke the monotony by firing

  a few rounds at each other. Holliday was charged with assault with intent to murder, but a jury found him not guilty.

  For a while he lived in Denison, Texas, but showed up in Fort Griffin, Texas, in 1875; there he was charged with gambling and drinking. By summer he had reached Denver, where he used the alias of "Tom Mackey" and dealt faro at the Theatre Comique. Doc was now becoming a drifter as well as a gambler. On February 5, 1876, he arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and from there moseyed over to Deadwood, South Dakota. But Deadwood could not hold him either, and he now began a gambling odyssey that carried him back and forth and up and down in the West and Southwest, pausing briefly at a dozen or so towns before reaching Breckenridge, Texas, in summer 1877. There, on July 4, he caned Henry Kahn, a local gambler, and Kahn put a little round hole in Doc Holliday. It took Doc time to heal, but before long he reappeared in Fort Griffin, Texas. Here he met Kate Elder, better known historically as "Big Nose Kate." She was well traveled, educated, and 26 years old. She also worked in a brothel, but she gave that up to follow Doc Holliday as his common-law wife.

  Doc and Kate moved to Dodge City, where Doc hung out his shingle as a dentist but spent much of his time gambling. The two moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico where he found Wyatt Earp and his brothers, whom he had first met somewhere along the route, probably in Dodge City or Abilene, Kansas. Wyatt mentioned new gold strikes in Arizona. So in 1879, the Hollidays and the Earps arrived in Prescott. Here, although Doc cemented his relationship with the Earps, he and Kate found that they had about all they could stand of each other. Still, they reached Tombstone together in September 1880. There Doc continued to be in and out of trouble-gambling, liquor, and pistol work being at the root of it.

  On March 15, 1881, eight road agents attempted to rob the Wells Fargo Tombstone-to-Benson stage, killing the driver and a passenger. Rumors immediately surfaced regarding Doc's involvement, and the fallout between him and Kate made the robbery and murder accusations more serious. On July 5, 1881, Kate testified before judge Wells Spicer that Doc Holliday had in fact participated in the stage holdup and murders. Holliday was arrested, but the charges were dropped when the district attorney asked that the case be dismissed. Kate left town.

  Holliday continued as before, drinking, gambling, and occasionally fighting. He participated with the Earps at the so-called Gunfight at the OK Corral on October 26, 1881. Doc carried a nickelplated revolver in his pocket and a double-barreled shotgun concealed under his long coat. When the shooting started, either Wyatt or Doc put a revolver bullet into the belly of Frank McLaury. Doc then emptied his shotgun into Tom McLaury, who was desperately trying to get his rifle out of a saddle scabbard. In the meantime, someone's bullet bounced off Doc's hip. In the uproar that followed the killings and the funeral, Wyatt Earp and John Henry Holliday went to jail for roughly 30 days before being released.

  On January 17, 1882, Holliday and John Ringo met in the middle of Allen Street and cursed one another. Ringo had his hand on his hip; Holliday had his in his breast pocket. Lawmen broke it up. Furthermore, following the wounding of Virgil Earp and the slaying of Morgan Earp, Holliday rode with the Earps during their various vendettas. He allegedly participated in the slaying of Frank Stillwell.

  John Henry ("Doc") Holliday (Ben Traywick Collection)

  In 1882, Holliday arrived in Denver, Colorado, where he was arrested. He was soon released, and moved to Leadville, Colorado, where his tuberculosis caught up with him. This time the only medicine was whiskey, and it prodded him into shooting Billy Allen, a murder being prevented only when bystanders wrestled him to the floor. In 1887, at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Doc was too sick to support himself either by gambling or dentistry.

  During the morning of November 8, 1887, John Henry "Doc" Holliday died at the Hotel Glenwood in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. His last words were, reportedly, "This is funny." He lies in an unmarked grave in Glenwood's Linwood Cemetery. Kate was by his side when he passed on.

  CGo! DENO, CHARLOTTE; EARP, VIRGIL; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP; GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL; HORONY, MARY KATHERINE; RINGO, JOHN PETERS

  HOLMES, W. A. (a.k.a. Hunkydory) (1833?-1889)

  Originally from Texas, Holmes was drawn to the Southwest in search of gold. He made it to Arizona Territory, where sometime around 1863 he earned a living as a "hawker" of church-owned tracts of land. He found the work dissatisfying, however, and returned to prospecting around Safford.

  He reportedly struck it rich with a very successful silver mine, the Daisy Dean, in the vicinity of Globe, but he was forced to expend his newfound wealth on a legal defense. It seems that a fellow prospector, Banjeck Marco, if Holmes's account is accurate, tried to jump his claim. Heated words escalated to the point where Holmes killed the alleged claim jumper. The trial cost him his fortune, but the jury freed him.

  Thereafter he remained in the vicinity, a well-liked figure locally known as a staunch Democrat. He was also something of an entertainer, as well as a reasonably skilled poet. One of his poems was entitled "Hunkydory"-thus the nickname.

  In the meantime, an ex-scout commonly known as the Apache Kid and several cohorts were convicted of shooting and wounding Al Seiber, the Army's renowned chief of scouts. The responsibility of getting the prisoners to Yuma Prison fell upon the shoulders of Apache County sheriff Glenn Reynolds.

  Reynolds deputized Holmes for the journey, and on November 1, 1889, the two men loaded the prisoners into a private stagecoach hired for the trip
to Casa Grande. From there the group would proceed by train. The sheriff armed the stage driver, Eugene Middleton, with a revolver. Reynolds carried a double-barreled shotgun as well as a six-shooter, and Holmes had a lever-action Winchester and a sixshooter.

  The first night passed without incident. On November 2, however, the trip turned tragic. At the steep Kelvin Grade, the prisoners were herded out of the coach in order for the team to be able to make the pull. The Apache Kid, whom the lawmen considered extremely dangerous, was ordered to stay in the coach, along with another Apache, Hoscal-te.

  The coach started the tortuous climb, the remaining six prisoners walking behind. Having concocted a plan, the prisoners gradually positioned themselves, and then at a designated signal overpowered Reynolds and Holmes. Sheriff Reynolds was shot to death. "Hunkydory" Holmes either had a fatal heart attack (he was in his fifties) or was killed by gunfire, all depending on which version is believed. During the melee, stage driver Middleton was wounded in the mouth and neck, but he survived. The prisoners fled into the Arizona landscape to make their own histories. Holmes, a bachelor, was buried at Globe in an unmarked grave.

  See APACHE KID

  HORN, Tom (a.k.a. James Hicks) (1860-1903)

  Tom Horn was born in Scotland County, Missouri, the fourth in a family of four boys and four girls. In 1874 he left home, primarily to escape his father's beatings, and within a couple of months was working for the Santa Fe Railroad in Kansas City. A few months later he was in Santa Fe driving stages to Prescott, Arizona, for the Overland Mail. He became fluent in Spanish, a skill that led the Fifth Cavalry to retain him. Tom worked frequently with Al Sieber, chief of scouts, Sieber teaching him the mule-packing trade. Horn and numerous others often rode with Gen. George Crook tracking and pursuing Apaches back and forth across the deserts, the mountains, and the border between the United States and Mexico. Horn would write extensively about himself, giving himself most of the credit for