The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  Jose Rodriguez testified that the Villistas had forcibly inducted him into the rebel army. Reneteria stated that he had been pressed into the federal Mexican army for five years. After discharge, Yaqui Indians had taken him prisoner for 14 months. Following that he had found employment unloading ore from boxcars, but after Villa raided the ore station, Reneteria found himself suddenly in his army.

  Rangel testified from a cot and said that while working as a vaquero on a Chihuahua ranch, he had been purchasing supplies in Chihuahua City. Villa's men had snatched him off the street and inducted him into their forces.

  Castillo claimed that he had been a private soldier with the federal army and had been locked in a house for eight days before agreeing to join Villa.

  Garcia insisted he had been on his way home to Oaxaca when Villa partisans surrounded and beat him with a spade until he agreed to enlist.

  At the trial, both sides rested early on the morning of April 21, 1916. At 11:30 the jury rendered its verdict: all were found guilty of murder in the first degree. The judge sentenced each one to be hanged by the neck until dead, their execution to take place between the hours of 6 A.M. and 6 P.m. on Friday, May 19, 1916. While their appeals were being heard, the prisoners were transported to the Santa Fe Penitentiary, where the governor delayed their execution until June 9, 1916. On that date, Francisco Alvarez and Juan Sanchez were taken to Deming and hanged. The others received a 21-day reprieve. It had been three months and 21 days since the Columbus raid.

  On June 30, Governor William C. McDonald commuted the sentence of Jose Rodriguez to life imprisonment. Rodriguez was released from the penitentiary in February 1921. The remaining fourReneteria, Garcia, Castillo, and Rangel-were brought to Deming, New Mexico, and hanged side by side on June 30. They went calmly to their deaths and today lie in remote, unmarked graves in the Deming Cemetery.

  DENO, Charlotte (a.k.a. Lottie) (1844?-1934)

  Lottie Deno, one of the West's great lady gamblers, was well known and highly respected, one reason being that she was also mysterious. By some accounts, she was born Carlotta J. Tompkins in Warsaw, Kentucky, on April 21, 1844. Her parents called her Charlotte, but everyone else called her Lottie. The financial shock of the Civil War ruined her parents. She was rumored to have married Johnny Golden, reportedly a jockey who turned to gambling-and so did she. In Texas he reportedly killed a man during a card dispute, then fled the state. The buxom redhead was thereafter on her own. Gambling was about all she knew. She lived for a while in San Antonio, where she adopted the moniker "Lottie Deno," the name being, according to historian Robert DeArment, a twist on a crude English/Spanish phrase, "Lotta Dinero," meaning lots of money. She worked in such high-class gambling houses as Jack Harris's Vaudeville Saloon, the Comanche Club, and the Jockey Club. In 1876, this tastefully dressed lady, now in her early thirties, stepped off the stagecoach at Fort Griffin, Texas, and became a gambler in the Bee Hive Saloon.

  She stayed nearly two years; then suddenly she was gone, marrying Frank Thurman, a gambler and owner of the University Club in San Antonio. At that time, she dropped the name Lottie Deno and became Charlotte Thurman. The two of them worked in the Gem Saloon at Silver City, New Mexico, spending a couple of years there until moving on to the mining town of Kingston, New Mexico, where Charlotte reportedly won $9,000 in one evening.

  These two gamblers, however, knew when to quit. She and her husband moved to Deming, New Mexico, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Frank died in 1908 and Charlotte in February 1934.

  .O: HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY; THURMOND, FRANK

  DERRINGER

  Henry Derringer Jr. developed this pocket pistol in 1825. The barrel length ranged from a half-inch to four inches, and the guns were usually sold in matched pairs of .33 to .50 caliber. Primarily because of its size, which made it easy to conceal, the Derringer became a favorite of ladies of the evening, as well as of gamblers and holdup artists.

  DESPERADO

  Desperadoes were desperate, dangerous outlaws of the early American West. They were usually mounted. Examples were the Dalton brothers and the James boys. Singular desperadoes would have included such figures as John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, and Butch Cassidy. The desperado era had basically run its course by the late 1880s.

  DIE With Their Boots On

  To die with one's boots on is to die bravely in battle. It is a way of saying that someone fought all the way to the end, accepting death on the field of combat rather than dying in bed with a cover over his or her head. Those who die with their boots on never surrender, preferring not to die as a victim. People who die with their boots on have reached the point where all they have left to give is their life, so they give it too.

  BOOT HILL

  DIME Novels

  Dime novels-cheap 10-cent sensationalist books printed by the thousands for a mass audience-go all the way back to the 1860s. Through a series of adventure formulas, these paperbacks brought a fascinating string of characters to life; in fact, they created figures that real-life individuals seemed to fit. Calamity Jane and Deadwood Dick got their start as dime-novel figures. The public in particular thrived on melodramatic western stories with heroines of purity and heroes of virtue and bravery. Thanks to dime novels, such individuals as Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok catapulted from little-known people into world-famous ones. Unfortunately, neither truth nor realism ever became an essential component of dime novels.

  DIXON, Simpson (a.k.a. Simp Dixson) (?-1870)

  Simp Dixon, who may or may not have been related to John Wesley Hardin through Hardin's mother's side of the family, was likely born in northeast Texas, never served in the Civil War, and was probably only about 18 or 19 years old when he died. Hardin referred to Dixon as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and called him "a man who had sworn to kill [the occupying] Yankee soldiers for as long as he lived." Hardin mentioned that he and Simp had once been engaged in a thicket shootout with Yankee soldiers that left two dead.

  In February 1870, however, life ran out for Simp Dixon. He died during a Limestone County shootout with Union soldiers led by Sergeant Dash. The soldiers buried him in the Fort Parker Memorial Cemetery near Mexia, placing him oblique to the other graves because he was "crossways with the world." John Wesley Hardin described Simp as "one of the most dangerous men in Texas."

  LEE-PEACOCK FEUD; HARDIN, JOHN WESLEY

  DODGE City, Kansas

  Dodge City, Kansas, began as a cow town, perhaps the most famous cow town of them all. Taking its name from the nearby Fort Dodge, the community began as a buffalo-hide collecting and shipping point. By 1873, as the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railroad entered the neighborhood, and as Texas cattle followed the western extension of the Chisholm Trail, the time seemed ripe for the creation of a high-flying community serving a variety of needs.

  Texas cattle arriving in Dodge City led to the establishment of restaurants, saloons, barber shops, and grocery stores. The Dodge House became one of the West's better-known hotels, and Front Street the wildest and most active part of town. When the crime rate started to soar, the city taxed its saloons, brothels, and gambling casinos to pay for law enforcement.

  Although the town's gunfighting reputation was blown somewhat out of proportion (the wildest years occurred between 1876 and 1885, but only about 15 killings took place), several lawmen made reputations for themselves. These included the Masterson brothers (James, Ed, and Bat) plus Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday never shot anyone in Dodge, but he did spend some time in and around the Long Branch Saloon. So did "Mysterious Dave" Mather, who was more lethal. Still, although shootings did occur, none fit the movie-classic mode of H$gkf Noon.

  It took the Texas fever to kill Dodge City as a cow town. In 1884, the governor quarantined the state, and the cattle drives abruptly halted.

  EARP, WYATT; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY; MASTERSON, EDWARD JOHN; MASTERSON, JAMES; MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY; MATHER, DAVID; SHORT, LUKE

  DODGE City Gang

  As Dodge City, Kansa
s, cleaned out some of its betterknown unsavory individuals, many of them, along with reckless individuals-gamblers, gunmen, and fugitives from cow camps and railroad yards-fled to East Las Vegas, New Mexico. The shallow Gallinas River, easily crossed by anyone over two feet tall, separated East Las Vegas from West Las Vegas. So the two towns formed one tiny community; still, each lived in its own different, unique world.

  By mid-1879, East Las Vegas, a railroad town, had essentially arrived. The unincorporated town had saloons, brothels, a few restaurants, and no few wild and woolly residents. The Earp brothers and Doc Holliday joined in the festivities. Holliday opened the last dental office of his career but soon closed it and substituted a saloon and gambling hall.

  But the man who controlled the unincorporated town of East Las Vegas turned out to be Hyman G. Neill, a confidence man most folks knew as "Hoodoo Brown." He became the acting coroner and justice of the peace, and he considered himself not only the mayor but the town council. His police force consisted of former Dodge City, Kansas, gunfighters and confidence men, Brown paying them by shaking down local merchants. Thus the Dodge City Gang, as most residents and visitors referred to it, actually controlled East Las Vegas during its formative period. Brown retained a right-hand man called John "Dutchy" Schunderberger. With his almost unpronounceable name, Dutchy had to be good with his fists and his guns, and he was.

  Still, the Dodge City Gang and its iron-fisted rule over East Las Vegas had started to fade by early 1880. The Earps and Holliday drifted off to more lucrative pastures in Arizona. Hoodoo Brown's town marshal, Joe Carson, was slain in a gunfight, and the job passed to "Mysterious Dave" Mather, who shot some of the wrong people before he again got mysterious and vanished. Among his other talents, Hoodoo Brown went on to become an administrator for the estate of the recently murdered Michael Kelliher, killed by J. J. Webb, one of Brown's violent policemen. Webb and Brown, of course, both skipped town, Webb charged with murder, and Hoodoo with larceny (since Brown had taken all of Kelliher's money, estimated to be at least $2,000).

  Webb escaped from prison on December 3, 1881, and is thought to have died of smallpox in Arkansas during 1882. As for Hoodoo Brown, there are stories of his being in El Paso, Texas, as well as in Deming, New Mexico, but neither he nor the remnants of the Dodge City Gang ever again controlled anything. How and where Hoodoo Brown died is anyone's guess.

  EARP, WYATT; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY; MATHER, DAVID; SHORT, LUKE.

  DODGE City War

  During the early and mid-1870s, a group of merchants, gamblers, and saloonkeepers created, or became known as, the Dodge City Gang, led by Mayor James H. Kelley, better known as "Dog" Kelley. The Masterson brothers-Ed, Jim, and Bathandled law enforcement. They also operated various saloons. Wyatt Earp arrived primarily to gamble but also served as a policeman and city marshal. An 1878 law against gambling and prostitution did not arouse much opposition, especially since sin paid salaries for law enforcement personnel. However, an open city did extract its penalties. While trying to disarm a drunken cowboy in 1878, City Marshal Ed Masterson had been slain.

  In 1879, an antigang movement called the Reformers arose. It defeated Bat Masterson as the Ford County sheriff, and he left town. By 1881, Mayor Kelley and his council had been thrown out by the voters, and the new mayor, Alonzo B. Webster, who also had fingers in saloons and brothels, posted a warning to the gang:

  To all whom it may concern: All thieves, thugs, confadente men, and persons without visible means of support, will take notice that the ordinance enacted for their special benefit will be rigorously enforced on and after to»zorr+w,

  Although the council dismissed Masterson as city marshal, someone wrote Ben's brother, Bat Masterson, and asked him to come to Dodge and help. Bat arrived in mid-April 1881, and immediately got into a shooting spree with saloon gunmen A. J. Peacock and Al Updegraff, the participants firing rounds at each other in the business district, although only Updegraff was wounded. Bat was arrested and paid an eight-dollar fine, plus court costs.

  Dodge City Peace Commission. (Standing in rear) W. H. Harris, Luke Short, Bat Masterson; (sitting) Charles E. Bassett, Wyatt Earp, M. F. McLane, and Neil Brown (Kansas State Historical Society)

  To further complicate the situation, the fashionably dressed gambler Luke Short arrived in town within the year (1882), and by February 1883 he had purchased a half-interest in the Long Branch Saloon. He and the Mastersons were long-time friends, and with the Mastersons' support, Short's partner, William H. Harris, campaigned for mayor against reform candidate Lawrence E. Deger. Deger won.

  When Luke Short complained, he and five gamblers were arrested too, marched to the railroad depot, and given a choice of taking the train east or west. Short went east, complaining every step of the way that conditions in Dodge were out of control. Newspapers across the nation picked up on the excitement, and stories started appearing that referred to the disturbance as the Dodge City War.

  Talk arose of troops being raised, but that came to nothing. Fortunately for Short, he had friends, and it wasn't long before six of them, including Wyatt Earp, along with Short, began strutting through the city streets. Accommodations were reached. No one shot anyone, of course, and there was more laughter than intimidation around the public square and on Front Street. In 1890, once things quieted down, the seven, who remained friends, including Short, had their photo taken. The picture, with tongue in cheek, has historically been dubbed "The Dodge City Peace Commission." Meanwhile, Dodge City continued with Mayor Deger's somewhat modified reform movement.

  EARP, WYATT; MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY; SHORT, LUKE.

  DOOLIN, William (a.k.a. Bill) (1858-1896)

  Bill Doolin was born and raised in Arkansas. He worked mostly as a cowboy but joined the Dalton Gang around 1891. It robbed three trains in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), one at Lelietta, one at Red Rock on June 1, 1892, and the third at Adair on July 13. Afterward, the gang headed for Coffeyville, Kansas, its intentions being to rob two banks at once, but Doolin's horse reportedly came up lame, and he dropped out. Had Doolin remained with the Daltons, Coffeyville would probably be the end of his story.

  Instead he married and then reorganized the gang with himself as leader, including in it such individuals as Dynamite Dick Clifton, George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce, George "Red Buck" Weightman, Little Dick West, and several others. By mid-1893, they were robbing trains and stagecoaches. The lawmen on their trail would not be denied. On the afternoon of September 1, 1893, the outlaws slipped into Ingalls, Oklahoma, and had to shoot their way out.

  Three famous lawmen-Chris Madsen, Heck Thomas, and Bill Tilghman-continued the pursuit, over time whittling down the Doolin gang members. At Eureka Springs, Bill Tilghman captured Doolin at a bathhouse and dragged him to Gutherie, Oklahoma, where the whole town turned out to cheer as Doolin was led down the street. Nevertheless, within a short time he led a jail break and again disappeared.

  The lawmen now adopted another tactic, that of watching the home of Doolin's father-in-law near Lawton, Oklahoma, where the outlaw's wife and

  child lived. Thus on the night of August 25, 1896, as Doolin walked toward the house leading his horse, Heck Thomas called on him to surrender, then killed him with a shotgun.

  DALTON BROTHERS; MADSEN, CHRISTIAN; THOMAS, HENRY ANDREW; WEST, RICHARD

  DUANE, Charles P. (a.k.a. Dutch Charley) (1829-1886)

  Dutch Charley Duane was born in Tipperary, Ireland. The family moved to Albany, New York, around 1837, and within another five years Charles had become a wagonmaker as well as a local athlete, excelling in prizefighting. A German competitor gave him the name of "Dutch Charley," and it followed him all the way west, where he arrived in San Francisco during the height of the Gold Rush in January 1850. Throughout the next few years, Duane became quite the man's man around town engaging in boxing matches, but also being repeatedly hauled into court for brawling. He frequently knocked an opponent unconscious before the man even realized that the fight had started
. On February 17, 1851, he not only attended a masked ball but beat one man senseless and then shot him in the back. Dutch Charley escaped prison only because the victim recovered.

  On July 27, the courts gave Duane a year in jail for injury to another person, but because of political connections the governor secretly pardoned him. He was again arrested for brawling on April 5, 1852. The court fined him $50. On June 6, 1853, perhaps for the first time, he found serious work, becoming assistant chief of the San Francisco fire department. Three years later, however, the vigilance committee reorganized. It hanged four thugs and ordered Dutch Charley (who had not reformed) out of town. Duane hustled east to Washington, D.C., where he unknowingly drank liquor containing wood alcohol. It nearly killed him, weakening his legs in particular. So when he returned to San Francisco in 1860, though he still started brawls, now there was a difference-he usually lost.

  During that same year, William Ross took possession of a piece of San Francisco land that Dutch Charley claimed. The two men argued about it, and Dutch Charley shot Ross in the back. On October 22, 1866, Duane went on trial for murder. The jury found him not guilty.

  Dutch Charley Duane never changed much even after that. His end came in May 1886, when he fell out of a buggy. He died of his injuries.

  DUBLIN, Richard (a.k.a. Dick Dublin) (?-1818)

  Richard Dublin was born, and grew up with his brothers Dell and Role, on a small farm along the South Llano in Kimble County, Texas. All the youngsters became outlaws. Dick, the oldest, was described as "a large man, stout and of dark complexion, who looked more like the bully of a prize ring than the cowman he was." Although the motive remains murky, Dick and a partner in crime, Ace Lankford, killed two men at a country store in Coryell County. Combined county and state rewards totaling $700 went out. Dick Dublin, boasting he would never surrender, fled to the mesquite and chaparral thickets, becoming a desperate and much-wanted fugitive.