Outlaws and Peace Officers

by Stephen Brennan

  I owe more than I can ever express to the West, which of course means to the men and women I met in the West. There were a few people of bad type in my neighborhood—that would be true of every group of men, even in a theological seminary—but I could not speak with too great affection and respect of the great majority of my friends, the hard-working men and women who dwelt for a space of perhaps a hundred and fifty miles along the Little Missouri. I was always as welcome at their houses as they were at mine. Everybody worked, everybody was willing to help everybody else, and yet nobody asked any favors. The same thing was true of the people whom I got to know fifty miles east and fifty miles west of my own range, and of the men I met on the round-ups. They soon accepted me as a friend and fellow-worker who stood on an equal footing with them, and I believe the most of them have kept their feeling for me ever since. No guests were ever more welcome at the White House than these old friends of the cattle ranches and the cow camps—the men with whom I had ridden the long circle and eaten at the tail-board of a chuck-wagon—whenever they turned up at Washington during my Presidency. I remember one of them who appeared at Washington one day just before lunch, a huge, powerful man who, when I knew him, had been distinctly a fighting character. It happened that on that day another old friend, the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, was among those coming to lunch. Just before we went in I turned to my cow-puncher friend and said to him with great solemnity, “Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the British Ambassador to make him dance, it would be likely to cause international complications”; to which Jim responded with unaffected horror, “Why, Colonel, I shouldn’t think of it, I shouldn’t think of it!”

  Not only did the men and women whom I met in the cow country quite unconsciously help me, by the insight which working and living with them enabled me to get into the mind and soul of the average American of the right type, but they helped me in another way. I made up my mind that the men were of just the kind whom it would be well to have with me if ever it became necessary to go to war. When the Spanish War came, I gave this thought practical realization.

  Fortunately, Wister and Remington, with pen and pencil, have made these men live as long as our literature lives. I have sometimes been asked if Wister’s “Virginian” is not overdrawn; why, one of the men I have mentioned in this chapter was in all essentials the Virginian in real life, not only in his force but in his charm. Half of the men I worked with or played with and half of the men who soldiered with me afterwards in my regiment might have walked out of Wister’s stories or Remington’s pictures.

  There were bad characters in the Western country at that time, of course, and under the conditions of life they were probably more dangerous than they would have been elsewhere. I hardly ever had any difficulty, however. I never went into a saloon, and in the little hotels I kept out of the barroom unless, as sometimes happened, the barroom was the only room on the lower floor except the dining room. I always endeavored to keep out of a quarrel until self-respect forbade my making any further effort to avoid it, and I very rarely had even the semblance of trouble.

  Of course amusing incidents occurred now and then. Usually these took place when I was hunting lost horses, for in hunting lost horses I was ordinarily alone, and occasionally had to travel a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles away from my own country. On one such occasion I reached a little cow town long after dark, stabled my horse in an empty outbuilding, and when I reached the hotel was informed in response to my request for a bed that I could have the last one left, as there was only one other man in it. The room to which I was shown contained two double beds; one contained two men fast asleep, and the other only one man, also asleep. This man proved to be a friend, one of the Bill Joneses whom I have previously mentioned. I undressed according to the fashion of the day and place, that is, I put my trousers, boots, chaps, and gun down beside the bed, and turned in. A couple of hours later I was awakened by the door being thrown open and a lantern flashed in my face, the light gleaming on the muzzle of a cocked .45. Another man said to the lantern-bearer, “It ain’t him”; the next moment my bedfellow was covered with two guns, and addressed, “Now, Bill, don’t make a fuss, but come along quiet.” “I’m not thinking of making a fuss,” said Bill. “That’s right,” was the answer, “we’re your friends; we don’t want to hurt you; we just want you to come along, you know why.” And Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked out with them. Up to this time there had not been a sound from the other bed. Now a match was scratched, a candle lit, and one of the men in the other bed looked round the room. At this point I committed the breach of etiquette of asking questions. “I wonder why they took Bill,” I said. There was no answer, and I repeated, “I wonder why they took Bill.” “Well,” said the man with the candle, dryly, “I reckon they wanted him,” and with that he blew out the candle and conversation ceased. Later I discovered that Bill in a fit of playfulness had held up the Northern Pacific train at a nearby station by shooting at the feet of the conductor to make him dance. This was purely a joke on Bill’s part, but the Northern Pacific people possessed a less robust sense of humor, and on their complaint the United States Marshal was sent after Bill, on the ground that by delaying the train he had interfered with the mails.

  The only time I ever had serious trouble was at an even more primitive little hotel than the one in question. It was also on an occasion when I was out after lost horses. Below the hotel had merely a barroom, a dining room, and a lean-to kitchen; above was a loft with fifteen or twenty beds in it. It was late in the evening when I reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the barroom as I came up, and I disliked going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don’t like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face.

  He was not a “bad man” of the really dangerous type, the true man-killer type, but he was an objectionable creature, a would-be bad man, a bully who for the moment was having things all his own way. As soon as he saw me he hailed me as “Four eyes,” in reference to my spectacles, and said, “Four eyes is going to treat.” I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very foul language. He was foolish to stand so near, and, moreover, his heels were close together, so that his position was unstable. Accordingly, in response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, “Well, if I’ve got to, I’ve got to,” and rose, looking past him.

  As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head. It was not a case in which one could afford to take chances, and if he had moved I was about to drop on his ribs with my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in a shed. I got dinner as soon as possible, sitting in a corner of the dining-room away from the windows, and then went upstairs to bed where it was dark so that there would be no chance of any one shooting at me from the outside. However, nothing happened. When my assailant came to, he went down to the station and left on a freight.

  There was one bit of frontier philosophy which I should like to see imitated in more advanced communities. Certain crimes of revolting baseness and cruelty were never forgiven. But in the case of ordinary offenses, the man who had served his term and who then tried to make
good was given a fair chance; and of course this was equally true of the women. Everyone who has studied the subject at all is only too well aware that the world offsets the readiness with which it condones a crime for which a man escapes punishment, by its unforgiving relentlessness to the often far less guilty man who is punished, and who therefore has made his atonement. On the frontier, if the man honestly tried to behave himself there was generally a disposition to give him fair play and a decent show. Several of the men I knew and whom I particularly liked came in this class. There was one such man in my regiment, a man who had served a term for robbery under arms, and who had atoned for it by many years of fine performance of duty. I put him in a high official position, and no man under me rendered better service to the State, nor was there any man whom, as soldier, as civil officer, as citizen, and as friend, I valued and respected—and now value and respect—more.

  Now I suppose some good people will gather from this that I favor men who commit crimes. I certainly do not favor them. I have not a particle of sympathy with the sentimentality—as I deem it, the mawkishness—which overflows with foolish pity for the criminal and cares not at all for the victim of the criminal. I am glad to see wrong-doers punished. The punishment is an absolute necessity from the standpoint of society; and I put the reformation of the criminal second to the welfare of society. But I do desire to see the man or woman who has paid the penalty and who wishes to reform given a helping hand—surely every one of us who knows his own heart must know that he too may stumble, and should be anxious to help his brother or sister who has stumbled. When the criminal has been punished, if he then shows a sincere desire to lead a decent and upright life, he should be given the chance, he should be helped and not hindered; and if he makes good, he should receive that respect from others which so often aids in creating self-respect—the most invaluable of all possessions.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  TOM HORN, CATTLE DETECTIVE

  By Tom Horn

  It’s said Tom Horn set down his life’s story—from which this sample is excerpted—to hurry the lagging time. That may be so, as the manuscript was written from a Laramie County jail cell in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The year was 1903, and Horn stood convicted of the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy (a thing he denied in court but, allegedly, he’d bragged about around town), had been sentenced to hang, and was awaiting the results of an appeal.

  At the time of the killing Horn worked as a stock detective for the Swan Land & Cattle Company. His job was to hunt down rustlers, and to act generally as an enforcer for the company. More and more this had come to be a matter of ambush and assassination. Horn was known previously to have killed at least four men, and at the time of the trial, public opinion ran strongly against him. A great many people had had enough of big monied operations and their hired guns. There was also the age of the victim. The case received much attention in the press, almost all of it against Horn. Lurid articles were written purporting to paint a true picture of this cowboy monster. Horn’s brisk, truculent autobiography was his response. It’s interesting that he doesn’t even mention his arrest and trial. What does this mean?

  Perhaps he thought the whole business was beneath contempt, or that his wealthy bosses would see him cleared. He might have defended himself, if only to restate the case he’d made at trial. Why not? Certainly he was stung by his portrayal in the press. But stung to silence? I believe Horn probably killed the boy. When Horn set down his story he had no idea that it would ever be published. He was writing for himself—and perhaps a few friends, who would know the truth. Why bother to lie to yourself?

  It may or may not be a good idea to hurry along the lagging time—depending on how things turn out in the end. Eventually Horn’s appeal was denied, and he was hanged, just a short time after he completed his story. This excerpt is the end of his account.

  Early in April of 1887, some of the boys came down from the Pleasant Valley, where there was a big rustler war going on and the rustlers were getting the best of the game. I was tired of the mine and willing to go, and so away we went. Things were in a pretty bad condition. It was war to the knife between cow boys and rustlers, and there was a battle every time the two outfits ran together. A great many men were killed in the war. Old man Blevins and his three sons, three of the Grahams, a Bill Jacobs, Jim Payne, Al Rose, John Tewkesbury, Stolt, Scott, and a man named “Big Jeff” were hung on the Apache and Gila County line. Others were killed, but I do not remember their names now. I was the mediator, and was deputy sheriff under Bucky O’Neil, of Yavapai County, under Commodore Owens, of Apache County, and Glenn Reynolds, of Gila County. I was still a deputy for Reynolds a year later when he was killed by the Apache Kid, in 1888.

  After this war in the Pleasant Valley I again went back to my mine and went to work, but it was too slow, and I could not stay at it. I was just getting ready to go to Mexico and was going down to clean out the spring at the mine one evening. I turned my saddle horse loose and let him graze up the canyon. After I got the spring cleaned out I went up the canyon to find my horse and saw a moccasin track covering the trail made by the rope my horse was dragging. That meant to go back, but I did not go back. I cut up the side of the mountain and found the trail where my horse had gone out. It ran into the trail of several more horses and they were all headed south. I went down to the ranch, got another horse and rode over to the Agency, about twenty miles, to get an Indian or two to go with me to see what I could learn about this bunch of Indians.

  I got to the Agency about two o’clock in the morning and found that there had been an outbreak and mutiny among Sieber’s police. It was like this: Sieber had raised a young Indian he always called “the Kid,” and now known as the “Apache Kid.” This kid was the son of old Chief Toga-de-chuz, a San Carlos Apache. At a big dance on the Gila at old Toga-de-chuz’s camp everybody got drunk and when morning came old Toga was found dead from a knife thrust. An old hunter belonging to another tribe of Indians and called “Rip,” was accused of doing the job, but from what Sieber could learn, as he afterwards told me, everybody was too drunk to know how the thing did happen. The wound was given in a very skilful manner and as it split open old Toga’s heart it was supposed to be given by one who knew where the heart lay.

  Toga and old Rip had had a row over a girl about forty years before (they were both about sixty at this time), and Toga had gotten the best of the row and the girl to boot. Some say that an Indian will forget and forgive the same as a white man. I say no. There had elapsed forty years between the row and the time old Toga was killed.

  Rip had not turned his horse loose in the evening before the killing, so it was supposed he had come there with the express intention of killing old Toga.

  Anyway, the Kid was the oldest son of Toga-de-chuz and he must revenge the death of his father. He must, according to all Indian laws and customs, kill old Rip.

  Sieber knew this and cautioned the Kid about doing anything to old Rip. The Kid never said a word to Sieber as to what he would do. The Kid was First Sergeant of the agency scouts. The Interior Department had given the agency over to the military and there were no more police, but scouts instead.

  Shortly after this killing, Sieber and Captain Pierce, the agent, went up to Camp Apache to see about the distribution of some annuities to the Indians there, and the Kid, as First Sergeant of the scouts, was left in charge of the peace of the agency.

  No sooner did Sieber and Captain Pierce get started than the Kid took five of his men and went over on the Aravaipo, where old Rip lived, and shot him. That evened up their account and the Kid went back to where his band was living; up above the agency. Sieber heard of this and he and Pierce immediately started to San Carlos.

  When they got there, they found no one in command of the scouts; Sieber sent word up to the camp where the Kid’s people lived to tell the Kid to come down. This he did escorted by the whole band of bucks.

  Sieber, when they drew up in front of his tent, went out and spoke to the Kid and
told him to get off his horse, and this the Kid did. Sieber then told him to take the arms of the other four or five men who had Government rifles. This also the Kid did. He took their guns and belts and then Sieber told him to take off his own belt and put down his gun and take the other deserters and go to the guard house.

  Some of the bucks with the Kid (those who were not soldiers), said to the Kid to fight, and in a second they were at it—eleven bucks against Sieber alone. It did not make any particular difference to Sieber about being outnumbered. His rifle was in his tent. He jumped back and got it, and at the first shot he killed one Indian. All the other Indians fired at him as he came to the door of his tent, but only one bullet struck him; that hit him on the shin and shattered his leg all to pieces. He fell and the Indian ran away.

  This was what Sieber told me when I got to the Agency. And then I knew it was the Kid who had my horse and outfit. Soldiers were already on his trail.

  From where he had stolen my horse, he and his band crossed over the mountain to the Table Mountain district, and there stole a lot of Bill Atchley’s saddle horses. A few miles further on they killed Bill Dihl, then headed on up through the San Pedro country, turned down the Sonoita River, and there they killed Mike Grace; then they were turned back north again by some of the cavalry that was after them.

  They struck back north, and Lieutenant Johnson got after them about Pontaw, overtook them in the Rincon Mountains, and bad a fight, killing a couple of them, and put all the rest of them afoot. My horse was captured unwounded, and as the soldiers knew him, he was taken to the San Pedro and left there; they sent word to me, and eventually I got him, though he was pretty badly used up.