West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels

by James Reasoner

  That job didn’t last long, though, because William Kidder Meade, U.S. Marshal of Arizona Territory, appointed him Deputy U.S. Marshal for the district of Arizona just six months later.

  C.P. and I were in our fifth day of conversing at the Bucket of Blood in Seligman, and I wanted to learn what had happened to Owens during his later years of enforcing the law.

  Frick had coffee in a mug and on the table by the time I sat down at our regular place. I was on my second cup by the time C.P. walked in. For some reason, his step didn’t seem as sure and powerful as before. He blinked and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. I couldn’t believe it. Commodore Perry Owens, the lawman with the level steely-eyed stare, had blinked. Something didn’t seem right.

  “Frick,” I said. “C.P. doesn’t appear well. Does this kind of thing happen often?”

  The barman took a moment to answer. He looked at C.P., but the old lawman’s eyes were unfocused and his steps faltering. C.P. put a hand on the bar for support. He bowed his head as if in prayer.

  “C.P.’s not been all right since him and Miz Lizzie come back from visiting folks in Indiana. Most days he’s good, but sometimes he’s like now.”

  He came out from behind the bar and took C.P. by the arm. “Ye’re looking spry this morning, C.P. Come on over to yer table. Mr. Evanston’s a waiting.”

  “Evanson? Who’s that?”

  “Man from Phoenix.”

  “Where?”

  C.P. followed where Frick led him, but didn’t seem to know who the bartender was. Frick turned him around and sat him in the chair opposite me. “Here’s Mr. Evanston,” he said, waving his hand at me. “Hang on a minute, C.P., I’ll be getting you a cup a jamoka.”

  C.P. stared at me. “Tell me, Kid,” he finally said. “How’d ya get outta them handcuffs down to Tonah? Tell me that and I’ll letcha go.”

  “C.P., my name is Alexander Evanston. I’m a reporter for the Phoenix Sun.”

  He grinned. “I remember when you went by Claude Preston, Kid. Did you think that’d fool anyone? Huh? A man can change his name, but there ain’t no way he can change his face. After riding all the way from Morgan with you on that forsaken train, you figure I’d forget?”

  So I played the part of Kid Swingle in C.P.’s dream world. I don’t know what happened to him to throw him off like that, but I never got to talk to him again about his lawman days. I left for Phoenix the next day.

  I never got to meet Elizabeth Barrett Owens, but I have heard and read that she was a solid, no-nonsense woman. In the failing months of his life, the woman everyone knew as Lizzie cared for C.P. hand and foot, even though he no longer knew who she was. In those final days, C.P. thought the Blevins boys had come back from the grave to “get” him. Perhaps they did. Perhaps those ghosts stole his mind. Perhaps they just let his body live on and on.

  Commodore Perry Owens died in bed on May 28, 1919. He was 67 years old.

  As I said, I never again was privileged to talk to him about the old days, so I must summarize his story from my research.

  Actually, there’s one more tidbit I should add first. During a lull in the conversation on the third day, I found the courage to ask C.P. about one salient fact I’d uncovered when looking for background information in preparation for interviews with the old lawman.

  “Tell me, C.P., just who is Elfie Owens?”

  The Bucket of Blood went completely silent, as if the saloon and everyone in it were hanging on his reply. “Elfie?” C.P. said in a dead voice. “Elfie is my only daughter,” he said. “As you probably know, she was here in Seligman for a year. Fifteen years old at the time. I thought to give her a family, being as her ma’d died.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Only the Good Lord knows.”

  “You don’t stay in contact?”

  “Young man, I offered that girl my home to live in and me and Lizzie as her only kin. She wouldn’t have it. She spent less than a year in high school here in Seligman before she run off with a railroad man.”

  I could tell he was wrought about the subject, but he continued. “She took off with a railroad man, I figure, though I have no proof. One day she’s here, smiling at last where she’d been pouting ever since she come to Seligman. Only thing that’ll change a woman that fast is a man. The next day she’s gone, clothes packed in a big carpet bag, the one she’d brought her things in from St. Johns. Gone. I thought maybe she’d be in touch, but she’s never contacted us. Never. I had a daughter, now I don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

  * * *

  The year 1889 saw Commodore Owens step from behind his badge to become a horse rancher once more. His position as sheriff was taken over by the newly elected St. George Creaghe, who had once been Commodore’s bondsman.

  That same year, Red McNeil, whom Commodore had never captured, was taken into custody in Ogden, Utah, after robbing a saloon and shooting a patron in the leg. He was sent to Sugar House prison in Utah to serve a ten-year sentence. While there, he studied, and after his release in 1899, he became a hydraulic engineer, never again riding the outlaw trail.

  Commodore ran again for sheriff of Apache County in 1892 as an independent because he could not get the Democratic Party to back him as its candidate. Republican W.R. Campbell won, and immediately hired Commodore Perry Owens as his chief deputy. From the few records that exist, I assume he spent his time apprehending lawbreakers.

  On August 8, 1893, scarcely a year after becoming chief deputy of Apache County, Commodore was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal by William Kidder Meade, U.S. Marshal for Arizona Territory. His term was defined as to continue during Marshal Meade’s continuance in office unless sooner revoked. Newspapers of the time carry several references to Commodore Owens as he acted in his capacity as a lawman. One man he arrested was Juan Garviso, who was found guilty of manslaughter in the saloon brawl and shooting death of Deputy Sheriff Edward Wright. Garviso got eight years in Yuma because he confessed.

  Compare that to Charles C. Waggoner, who killed Issac Lee. He did not confess, and after a lengthy trial, he was sentenced to forty-five years in prison.

  Will Barns, Commodore’s friend and a witness to the Holbrook shootout, was elected to the Territorial Legislature in November 1894. He immediately went to work trying to get Apache County divided into Navajo to the west and Apache to the east. As a result, Navajo County came into being on March 21, 1895, carved from Apache County. Governor Louis C. Hughes then appointed C.P. Owens sheriff of the new county. He took his oath of office on April 1, 1895, and he kept his Deputy U.S. Marshal’s badge.

  Unlike during his term as Apache County sheriff, the newspapers referred to Commodore as “Navajo County’s efficient sheriff.”

  Twenty years ago, newspapers quite often carried snippets of information that Sheriff C.P. Owens had captured someone, was taking some criminal to jail, or was returning from such a trip. One such, for example, noted that one F.H. Bloodgood was conducted to the territorial prison to serve two years, having been found guilty of “seduction.”

  Owens’s undersheriff, by the way, was Robert Hufford, a nephew. As Owens had little formal education, he tended to surround himself with those who did. Hufford was once such, and he penned much of the official correspondence from the county sheriff’s office.

  W.K Meade resigned his U.S. Marshal position July 1, 1897, which automatically terminated Commodore Owens’s deputyship, and marked the end of his career as an officer of the law.

  A day or two after Commodore Perry Owens died, the Phoenix Sun picked up an obituary article from the Associated Press. It trends to the hyperbole but it also is a mighty good tribute to the man.

  Romantic Figure of Pioneer Days Has Passed

  From Stage of Action

  Seligman, Ariz. June 25.— A romantic figure of Arizona’s pioneer days has just passed in the person of Commodore Perry Owens, cattleman, sure-shot, dashing Indian fighter, and fearless sheriff, who died here.

  With long waving hai
r, a pleasing personality and dignified carriage, Commodore Owens carved a spectacular career on Arizona’s tables of history.

  Owens was born in Indiana and came to Arizona via Texas and New Mexico in 1882, to become a range foreman of a cattle company at Navajo Springs.

  In a single-handed battle with three Navajo Indians who were stealing the company’s cattle, Owens killed the trio. Then followed numerous clashes with the red raiders, many of whom fell before his Henry rifle. In time the Indians came to believe he bore a charmed life and gave him a wide berth, since despite the frequent battles with them, he never received a wound.

  In 1886 when outlaws throughout Apache County were defying the law, Owens was elected sheriff, and, backed by Judge Robert E. Morrison, now of Prescott, he obtained indictments against 16 of the most notorious thieves and murders.

  While the grand jury was reporting the true bills, a dozen or so outlaws fled the country rather than face the new sheriff. The latter tracked three of the remainder to the Blue River and there, when they were resisting arrest they were felled by the guns of Sheriff Owens and his posse. A fourth member of the gang, Finn Clanton, was trapped, captured, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

  Perhaps Owens’ most spectacular battle was one fought at Holbrook, where the sheriff killed Andy Cooper, a notorious bad man, and two companions. Owens had been told that the trio had taken refuge in a house near the railroad tracks. He rode down the street to the building, walked to the door and rapped for admission, with his rifle held at his right hip. Cooper opened the door and attempted to draw a revolver but the sheriff fired from the hip. Cooper fell badly wounded. At the same moment another shot rang out from behind from the gun of one of Cooper’s men; the bullet missing the sheriff’s head. With his back to his second assailant, Owens threw his rifle over his shoulder and fired. The outlaw dropped mortally hurt.

  As the sheriff retreated a few steps he saw a man through the window maneuvering for a shot and again the sheriff’s rifle spoke. The outlaw inside fell to the floor and died within a few minutes. It was Cooper, who had been shot when he opened the door.

  Then the third desperado made his appearance, running around the corner of the house with his revolver raised to fire, but before he could pull the trigger Owens shot and the last of the gang died in his tracks.

  Owens served but one term as sheriff of Apache County, but it was said that at the end of this tenure of office every outlaw in the county had been driven out, killed or arrested.

  For a short while the ex-sheriff served as an express messenger, but later he entered business on his own account and died peacefully in commercial harness.

  As I said, the article varies from the true facts that I uncovered in my searching for the true story of C.P. Owens.

  I have written the story of Commodore Perry Owens as it happened, taking as my sources newspapers of the day, of which there was a large collection in the morgue at the Phoenix Sun. For a while after the gunfight in Holbrook, editors of newspapers in Apache County seemed to take umbrage with Commodore Owens, wondering in print why the county needed law officers who walked around with abbreviated cannons on their hips. Still, I could not help but notice that although St. George Creaghe shunned C.P. Owens while serving as Apache County sheriff, the moment his successor, W.R. Campbell became sheriff, he hired C.P. as his chief deputy. Why would he do so if C.P. were not an efficient effective peace officer?

  Barely one half year after C.P. became chief deputy sheriff of Apache County, he was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal by William K. Meade, U.S. Marshal for Arizona. Again, of all the men in Arizona, why did Meade choose C.P. Owens?

  I repeat this information to make a point. Commodore Perry Owens was seen by his fellow lawmen an honest, trustworthy man who was extraordinarily effective as an officer of the law.

  I found him straight-forward and honest in telling me his side of the life of Commodore Perry Owens. It pained me to see him lose his mental faculties, and I would have liked to have attended his funeral. However, I heard Elizabeth Owens decided to take C.P.’s body to Albuquerque for burial. Only later did I find out that he was actually buried in Flagstaff. It seems heavy rains in June of 1919 served to wash out several bridges between Seligman and Albuquerque, so Lizzie buried C.P. in Flagstaff, where the train had been shunted to a siding.

  While C.P. died of natural causes, some of those who lived in the wild years of Apache County were not so lucky. Frank Wattron, justice of the peace and druggist, died of an overdose of laudanum. He took the tincture of opium to help himself sleep. J.D. Houck, who convinced C.P. to come to Arizona in the first place, took strychnine in May 1921, and died just two years after Commodore.

  Lizzie Owens, who was twenty-two when she married fifty-year-old C.P. Owens in 1901, still lives in Seligman to this day.

  Alexander Evanston

  Phoenix Sun

  December 1921

  Author's Comment

  Many have written about Commodore Perry Owens, most of whom I have read, some in unpublished manuscripts of their memories. Help came from the Wells Fargo Bank History Department, Arizona Historical Society, and authors such as Earle R. Forrest, Will C. Barnes (who witnessed the Holbrook fight), Dana Coolidge, Jo Jeffers, Harold Waite, George Crosby Jr., and David Grassé, who wrote the most comprehensive book concerning Commodore Perry Owens ever—The True, Untold Story of Commodore Perry Owens. Still, although based on history, I have written a novel. And, thanks to those who have gone before, it carries a glimmer of truth.

  About the Author

  Charles T. Whipple, an international prize-winning author, uses the pen name of Chuck Tyrell for his Western novels. Whipple was born and reared in Arizona’s White Mountain country only 19 miles from Fort Apache. He won his first writing award while in high school, and has won several since, including a 4th place in the World Annual Report competition, a 2nd place in the JAXA Naoko Yamazaki Commemorative Haiku competition, the first-place Agave Award in the 2010 Oaxaca International Literature Competition, and the 2011 Global eBook Award in western fiction. Raised on a ranch, Whipple brings his own experience into play when writing about the hardy people of 19th Century Arizona. Although he currently lives in Japan, Whipple maintains close ties with the West through family, relatives, former schoolmates, and readers of his western fiction. Whipple belongs to Western Fictioneers, Western Writers of America, Arizona Authors Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Asian American Journalists Association, and Tauranga Writers Inc.

  SIX-GUNS

  SIX CLASSIC WESTERN NOVELS

  The good old shoot-'em-up westerns are still around; and this collection has six by the masters on the genre.

  William M. "Bill" Tilghman had one of the most illustrious careers of any Old West lawman, serving as sheriff, town marshal, and deputy United States marshal in some of the toughest places west of the Mississippi. But he faced perhaps his greatest and most dangerous challenge when he rode alone into the wild Oklahoma Territory settlement of Burnt Creek on the trail of a gang of rustlers and outlaws with some unexpected allies . . . THE LAWMAN, by New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner, is the first novel in West of the Big River.

  In Frank Roderus’ HOME TO TEXAS, Charlie McMurty was only twenty-three years old and already the world was waiting to spread itself out at his feet He brought a herd north, got a great price, bought a beauty of a saddle, and had enough left over once he repaid his neighbors to buy a ranch so he could ask for the hand of his sweetheart. Unfortunately, on the way back to Texas he was robbed and left for dead. To make matters worse one of his attackers was his friend he'd hired to help him with the herd. All he had left was a big debt back home and a big hole in his chest. His new quest became the need to be able to return his neighbor's money. First he had to heal and learn some fancy shooting.

  Violence stole young Ben Brand's family from him, but blessed with uncanny speed and skill with a gun and befriended by an old mountain man, Ben sets out on a bloody
quest for vengeance. As he tracks his enemies over the years and the miles, Ben battles men and the elements—and risks his own soul—to become the avenging nemesis known as Iron Heart! Long out of print and originally published under the pseudonym Walt Denver, IRON HEART is another classic Western from Jory Sherman.

  Veteran author Clay More spins a fast-paced Western adventure in STAMPEDE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS. With her father murdered and her brother crippled by bushwhackers, half her herd stolen and her crew massacred by vicious rustlers, beautiful blond Elly Horrocks is going to have her hands full keeping the family ranch going. Luckily for Elly, drifting cowpoke Jake Scudder has a nose for trouble. When he finds himself smack-dab in the middle of a conspiracy to steal the richest hunk of range in the territory, it'll take all of Scudder's skill with guns and fists to save himself and keep Elly from being wiped out. Diamondbacks aren't the deadliest varmints in Rattlesnake Pass anymore!

  Some men deserved to die like rabid animals. In FAST HAND the Thornberrys and their worthless cousin counted among those the world would be better off without. Judge Sebastian Hand sentences the Thornberry gang to the gallows for rape and murder. But when they escape, the judge trades in his gavel for a gun, and suddenly he's judge, jury, and executioner all in one. Karl Lassiter is the pen name of a prolific writer born in Texas and now living in Albuquerque, NM who also writes under the pen name Jackson Lowry.

  James J. Griffin brings back Texas Ranger Jim Blawcyzk in this book. Blawcyzk isn’t really working for the Texas Rangers this time, though. In fact, he winds up on the wrong side of the law with the Rangers after him for part of the book, because he takes off his badge and goes off on his own after the gang that attacked and possibly murdered his wife and son. As a result, RANGER’S REVENGE is a little grittier than Griffin’s earlier books, but it has the same fine action scenes, interesting settings, and welcome touches of humor. AMAZON LINK