by Bruce Graham
There I was, at age 50, on the cusp of being broke. And the poor business climate dried up a lot of trade for me.
At about this time, however, I was approached by an alliance of Oklahoma tribes of Native Americans, who were faced with speculators in petroleum, who the tribal leaders believed intended to cheat them of their resources. Oil exploration gave the tribes hope that at some time the petroleum industry would eventually pay off, but for the moment there was little profit for the developers or for them since the wells seemed unproductive. The area that appeared rife with indications of oil, in the northeast corner of what was then called “Indian Territory,” however, had recently been entered by squatters, settlers under spurious conveyances and outlaws. The tribes believed that this was encouraged and perhaps under recruitment by the petroleum people, so that the tribes would surrender their land to the speculators.
The tribes had no means by which to determine if the area was a worthwhile source for oil, or to overcome the business interests and their influence in Congress. They were, however, determined to drive the illegal settlers and the outlaws from the area, with the objective of eventually making a deal with the petroleum interests.
The tribes offered me fifty dollars a day, plus living expenses, for up to three months scouring the area, and driving out the interlopers and various criminals who were drifting into the area and whatever gun fighting was called for, in such a way that the tribes would not be accused of making war.
I accepted, with the conditions that I return to Trinidad for a week each month to see to my other jobs as they developed and that I be given freedom to act as I chose and that I was guaranteed to be paid three months, even if my work finished before that, but that I wouldn’t work in the winter. I also insisted that at least two tribal deputies assist me in my work.
I was provided an advance of three hundred dollars and began my work in May. The tribes provided a map showing the locations that they believed needed dealing with and a letter over the signatures of the chiefs, appointing me as their agent to “evict persons occupying tribal land without right.” Two Cherokee deputies joined me in my work, on the understanding that they were only to back me up, not to engage in the direct confrontations.
While all of the episodes were different in their details, in general they were of a type. I arrived at a squatter location, which would include tents or jury built structures. I called out that I represented the tribe and that the squatters were to leave. One or two disreputable looking men would appear, usually with rifles or wearing guns. I would identify myself as a representative of the Native Americans who owned the land and tell them that they were to leave the area immediately and stay out of the Indian Territory.
Sometimes they would laugh, other times argue that they had title deeds, and occasionally simply tell me where I could go and that they’d kill me if I didn’t leave them alone.
I would reiterate my statements, and say that I could outshoot them if they chose to make a fight of it. In this I was relying upon their macho getting the better of their common sense, and about half the time it would. If one of them went for his gun or upped his rifle I would shoot him before he could get away a shot, or once in a while after he had fired wildly, sometimes because they were liquored up.
If they didn’t make any overt offer of violence but threatened me, I would draw and shoot one of their horses or mules, with the comment that it would be them next.
In each event, I pulled from my saddle bag a torch that I carried for the purpose, lit it up and threw it into the tent or shack, warning them to save what they could while I made sure that they got out of the area.
By this time they would know that I meant business and would pack their few pathetic possessions and prepare to leave. I would wait while they did so and rode behind them to the nearby good road, bid them farewell and warn them not to return. I would watch while they made it into the far distance and move on to the next victims.
Only two of the events merit special mention. During a blistering July hot spell I found a settlement but no people. I located them, three men and a woman, cavorting in a nearby pond. I quietly gathered up their clothes and tossed them into a pile near the campsite and called for them to come out. They left the water and rushed around looking for their clothes. I gave them my usual speech and told them that if they didn’t get their gatherings together to leave I’d burn their duds and their camp and they could leave the Indian Territory naked. They at first were furious, then calmed down and saw it my way and packed up, dressed and left peacefully, even laughing good naturedly, possibly because I hadn’t simply shot them down.
The other episode was not so humorous. The campsite was busy with work going on putting up what looked like a ramshackle building. When I challenged the half dozen men, two of them immediately went for their guns. In the fracas I shot down two of them and my horse was shot out from under me. I was thrown into the bushes and was hit once, then again, in the arm and shoulder before I could drop a third man. The others scattered into the brush, chased by the Cherokee deputies. I was an hour rounding up and saddling one of their horses and making good my escape. I spent a week out of action after the doctor in Chelsea patched me up. When the Cherokee deputies and I returned to the camp site we found the place deserted and the ripening unburied bodies that we put under the ground.
I was able to break up two or three settlements a day for a total of close to two hundred. When I had “cleansed” an area I would mark it off the map and move on to another area. The tribes were probably surprised that by the end of Summer I had driven out almost all of the interlopers. Although I confronted somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred trespassers I needed to kill only a total of six.
The outright criminals, most of whom drifted over from Arkansas and Missouri, were a more difficult project. I had nothing to go on until the Native Americans let me know of a holdup or cattle rustling and I would take off, with the Cherokee deputies, and sometimes with a Federal Marshal, after the malefactors. If we failed to find them within a day or two we waited for further word while I dealt with the squatters. When we located the bandits we would “surround” them and demand their surrender, and a few shots from different directions would usually cause them to throw down their weapons and surrender. Two gangs, including Ned Pepper and his crew, were too wiley and evaded us, and the Archamault Brothers put up a serious fight before they were killed, after they had slain one of the deputies.
The toughest Federal Marshal I met was Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed reprobate and a heavy drinker, an excellent tracker. He told about his Confederate service during the Civil War. He helped me find the Graysons, father and son, who gave up without a fight when they heard Cogburn’s voice, and who Cogburn took back to Fort Smith to face the celebrated hanging Judge
Parker. Before I departed the Territory I heard that he and a pair of deputies had wiped out the Ned Pepper gang.
I finished my work by early October, received my final payment and the sincere thanks of the tribal leaders. When I returned to Trinidad I recontacted three prospective clients with whom I had communicated during my time in Oklahoma. Two of them still wanted my services and I was able to accommodate them.
In time I broke even in my financial fortunes by selling my land near Trinidad and in South Dakota at significant losses from what I paid for them. I continued my gunfighting ways, although against my better nature, I was less scrupulous in judging the decency of the cause in which I enlisted. As the turn of the century approached, however, I realized that the days of the “Wild West” were coming to an end. This was brought home to me with a shock when, while enjoying dinner at the T Restaurant in November, 1896, a man who I knew worked at the County Clerk’s office rushed in and shouted “McKinley has won the election.” I wasn’t surprised at the statement, but I was curious as to how this man could have learned the news. I called out, “How do you know?”
As he turned to leave, he called out “My brother in Saint Louis cal
led me on the telephone.”
I had heard about the telephone, but was not aware that it had been connected to little Trinidad, Colorado. I speculated that this could be of use to me. But it was almost another year before my own telephone was installed, at exorbitant cost, and I could add my telephone number to my notice in the Rocky Mountain News. And because so much of my business originated in the wilds of the Far West, where telephones were even scarcer, by the time I was receiving more than a few calls a year I was faced with the end of my gunfighting career.
CHAPTER THIRTY
One interesting sidelight in my career was during an autumn of, I think 1890 or 1891, when I was in Hays City, Kansas, heading home from a job in South Dakota. I was suddenly caught without ready cash when a railroad wreck somewhere was keeping me from getting back to Trinidad before a snowstorm isolated the town. It just happened that one of the saloons needed an assistant to its faro dealer. I volunteered for the job, and partly because they had heard of my repute with a gun, figured I’d be less likely to be hoorahed by the customers. The saloon provided me room and board, but couldn’t pay me because they were just opening, instead giving me I O Us payable in one year. I left and never got around to cashing the I O Us. I understand that they are worthless.
If I dwelt on my exploits I could describe dozens more events, most of them of a type and most of which I am pleased with, but some of which I regret having had to do. And they almost all culminated the same with one of two outcomes: gun play where my skill and speed were the advantage over amateurish and clumsy gun handling, usually ending in a dead man in a dusty street or seedy tavern, or a wounded man in a dingy small town lockup nursing a bullet wound waiting to see a judge and confront a jury.
In late 1898 a wire arrived at my diggings from one James Hastings, who identified himself as the head of the Skagway, Alaska, Better Business Group, inviting me to meet him at the Crossroads Café in that city, at my usual rate for travel, to confer about dealing with a difficult situation. I responded that I would meet the gentleman as indicated, when advanced my travel expenses. I knew that the time was the Yukon gold rush and that passage would be by ship from Seattle. We agreed by wires on a date and time. I packed enough clothes that I could deal with whatever the man’s issue was without a trip back to Trinidad.
On arrival in Skagway I located the Crossroads Café and was hailed by a portly, well dressed gentleman who introduced himself as Hastings and me to two other men, also seeming prosperous.
After a few pleasantries Hastings got right to the point. “Have you ever heard of Dave Mather?”
“Not that I recall.”
“In a quiet way,” said Hastings, “he has tried the town and we can’t put up with him anymore. You sound like an Easterner.”
“I’m from Vermont, was in the Union Army.”
“All right. Would you have a problem killing a fellow New Englander?”
I smiled. “Not for that reason.”
“Other than his ability as a cold blooded killer, we know nothing about him. Nobody has the courage to inquire.”
“What’s he done?”
“He has a long pedigree of violence, but not as a quick hand with a gun. His last episode before coming here was in Dodge City, he killed a man named Barnes and fled for his life, jumped bail. Up here he managed to get himself on the list of candidates for the Northwest Mounted Police before he came down here and has made a pest of himself. To get to the point, we want you to get rid of Mather.”
“How fast is he?”
“Nobody seems to have seen his speed with a gun. His work has been, shall we say, not so that it could be judged.”
“What is he doing that’s a problem?”
Hastings leaned back. “Royce, you tell it.”
One of the other men nodded. “He meets the ships coming in and collects what they call protection money. He supposedly threatens to cause a disturbance with the people coming in, shoot up the place, which will get the boat impounded pending an investigation, the Coast Guard is a stickler about it. His current rate is $300 a ship, which is not enough in itself, but the ship owners don’t trust him and figure the figure will go up and up. Besides, he has a couple of others who do the same thing.”
I gave it some thought. Since I had never heard of Mather, and his work had been almost out of sight, the risk was worth it, for the right price. And the man did seem to deserve getting rid of. “Five hundred dollars, half in advance.”
“That’s rather steep, isn’t it? Jim Courtright’s fee was half that.”
I smiled. “Courtright’s dead, Luke Short got him in Fort Worth. And I got the better of Courtright years ago. Maybe try Luke Short. I assume that you’ve tried to get some gun hands to come up and I’m the only one.”
One of the other men began to say something, but Hastings held up his hand.
I inferred that the other man was about to say that Luke Short wanted more than I charged. “That’s my rate, for my life on the line. Take it or leave it.”
Hastings looked at the other men, who nodded. Hastings pawed around in his coat and produced a billfold. He counted out five fifty dollar bills and handed them to me.”
I took the money and said “Now, tell me about this Mather. Where can I find him?”
Finding Mather was simple: he was waiting for the ships to dock. He stood out as one without any anxiety about the ship and the only man going onto the ship, not among the surging mob leaving the vessel.
I waited until he went up the slightly swaying gangway against the final few bringing up the rear of the departing group. When he was halfway up the gangway I called out: “Mather. Dave Mather.”
The man wheeled about, right hand going to his pistol. “Who wants Dave Mather?”
I knew that he wasn’t certain who was speaking. “The bail bondsman in Dodge City, for the Barnes killing.” His eyes were darting about the dock.
I waved a paper that I had written out the night before. “I have a warrant---”
Mather swayed on the gangway and whipped up his pistol.
I drew my ’73 and jumped from one side to the other.
Mather’s gun roared.
I fired once, twice.
Mather sort of wilted and sagged to his knees. His pistol fired again. He pitched on his face on the gangway.
Two uniformed men appeared on the ship and went to Mather. They fussed with him. A man in police blue arrived from the dock.
“I saw it,” said a woman off to the side. “This one said he was a bounty hunter with a warrant and the man up there went for his gun. This one was shot in self defense.”
The police confirmed that Mather was dead. When the police took my statement they pressed me to explain why I was in Skagway and why I had called out to Mather. The best story that I could come up with was that I believed that Mather was wanted in the States and I was trying to get him to surrender to return. Was it my fault that he drew on me, forcing me to defend myself? The authorities couldn’t break my story and I was eventually able to leave, with the business group’s money in my pocket.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The telephone was the beginning of the end of the Old West. Next came the automobile, one of which arrived in Trinidad right after the Spanish American War. Soon there were several and the livery stable helped to bring on the era of the internal combustion engine when, on the first day of the new century, 1901, the proprietor unveiled a sign: “MOTOR VEHICLE FUEL HERE. SIGN UP FOR PURCHASE.” The owner explained that the wagon supplying the fuel made deliveries only every month and demanded that the livery stable buy an entire wagon load. “I can’t pay out good money for something unless I am sure that I can sell it,” he said.
And the new century ushered in the end of several of my colleagues and others. The Rocky Mountain News in early April, 1901 reported that J. B. Books, whose swiftness with a gun was legendary, had died in a multiple shoot out at the Metropole Public House in Reno, Nevada. A few days later we learned that Tom Ketcham
, known as “Black Jack,” had been executed. He was not a reputable gunfighter like myself, but a criminal, once with the “Hole in the Wall” gang, and who had been treated for wounds, and an arm amputated, in Trinidad a year or so earlier. Within a few weeks a small item in the medical segment of the News noted the peaceful passing of Lige Gardner, whom they identified as a railroad hand but I knew as a gun handler of some skill. His death was cited because caused by Bright’s Disease, that is, kidney failure. Then, only four months later, the newspaper reported that John Elder, another fast gun, had died in bed in Sweetwater, Texas. And in December, 1901 the News said that Cole Thornton had died on the operating table of a surgeon in Denver. The sawbones was attempting to remove a bullet that had been lodged near Thornton’s spine since his shootout in the El Dorado country almost twenty years earlier. Over that winter word circulated that the leaders of the Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, had disappeared after several other members of the gang had been killed or imprisoned. Although they were outlaws as distinguished from more or less legitimate gun hands such as myself, their departures signaled the waning of an era.
One of my last major jobs allowed me to bridge the gap between the old and new ways. I had almost resolved to end my career as a gunfighter when a call came from Peter Whitcomb, who identified himself as an agent for the Uintah Railway in western Colorado.
“Never heard of it.”
“Not many have. I’ll try to make it brief. About thirty years ago a man named Gilson discovered an ore that is in great demand for many reasons. It’s apparently found only out here on the border between Colorado and Utah. It’s mined in an area that until last year was part of the Ute Reservation. We’ve been packing the stuff out and now we’re building a railroad to carry the stuff out. Unfortunately, a gang of renegade Utes is making life miserable for the construction crew. We need help to chase them out, or otherwise get rid of them. You’re it.”