The Fourth Western Novel

by H. H. Knibbs

  Dodge City was all the other trail towns poured into one and recast into bigger-than-life size. Here was the hub of all the New West. Like spokes of a wheel, the trails, the roads, the railways, the telegraph lines, every means of communication converged at Dodge. From every direction, animals, men, and goods flowed into this anthill of commerce and stew pot of sin, and then flowed out again on another channel, along the spokes to the rim, the Pacific, north to Chicago and the Great Lakes, south to Texas and Mexico, east to the Mississippi. All this was the Dodge Country.

  One thing everybody had in common in Dodge City, regardless of age, sex, nationality, religion, or previous condition of servitude: gambling. This was the universal recreation, and it was the vocation, as well, of a substantial percentage of the town’s inhabitants. Such an atmosphere, in which the gambler ranked in respectability with any other entrepreneur, was congenial to Ben Thompson. He ran a saloon for a while, but as on previous occasions, soon was devoting his efforts to full-time gambling.

  Ben prospered in Dodge City, and then headed for Austin at the end of the cattle season of 1876. He needed every cent he had made, and more, for brother Billy was in a heap of trouble.

  CHAPTER 38

  The law caught up with Billy Thompson in 1876. His arrest and the tenacity with which the law clung to him were sure signs of the changing times. The law men of Texas—the Rangers—were taking over. A systematic hounding and extermination of the desperado got under way, planned like a long-term military campaign. It had to come. For all over Texas, as elsewhere in the Southwest, the bad man had created a jungle in which life and property were at the mercy of the gun-toter.

  The name of Billy Thompson was but one among more than three thousand or so listed as “wanted” in the Crime Book issued to all Ranger Captains. “Gone to Texas”—under the new dispensation—would no longer mean the final solution of crimes anywhere in the country. The day of reckoning had arrived here, too, along with the consolidation of the big ranches, the spread of the railroads, the settlement of farm communities.

  Even as bold and hardened a killer as John Wesley Hardin was no longer to be found in the open, defying the law. He, too, was among the wanted now, for the killing of Deputy Sheriff Charley Webb of Comanche County on May 26, 1874. He had been missing since that day, and, in a curious and significant reversal of the trend, had “Gone From Texas.”

  The beginnings of the concerted drive against cattle-rustling brought about the capture of Billy Thompson. This same general campaign would reach out for Hardin in a year or so, bring him back to trial and put him into the state penitentiary. Bill Longley, ranked with Hardin, King Fisher, and Ben Thompson as one of the top gunfighters, was being fenced in, would escape the lynchers and then be hanged by law. Sam Bass would walk into a deadly hornet nest at Round Rock and meet death while trying to rob a bank. Everywhere, large-scale private armed conflict of the seventies—the Mason County War, the El Paso Salt War, the universal hostilities in the Kimble County outlaw rendezvous—was being suppressed by the Rangers. The railroad from Corpus Christi to Laredo stretched through the heart of the Brush Country no-man’s land, dropping home-seekers like seeds of a new and orderly era.

  One of the Rangers in Austin, Captain J. C. Sparks, led a group of men in 1876 to a ranch nearby, where one Eb Steward was reported hiding out with some pilfered stock. The officers got Steward, and while there, they came upon Billy Thompson, unarmed, calmly perched on a corral fence. Billy had never taken up cattle-rustling and felt secure against arrest. But Captain Sparks remembered a reward still out for Billy on a murder charge several years old. Billy offered no resistance, still under the impression that he would be turned loose as soon as it was plain that he had no connection with stealing cattle.

  Brother Ben was on hand immediately when Billy landed in the Austin jail. On a habeas corpus writ, Ben obtained Billy’s release, the judge ruling that he was being held without any charges. Billy was re-arrested on a warrant charging cattle theft. He faced another hearing, and the court again discharged him. As Billy walked out of the courthouse, the Rangers seized him again, this third time on the strength of the fugitive warrant for the murder of Sheriff Whitney in Ellsworth, Kansas, three years before. At the jail, Sheriff Corwin refused to accept the prisoner without a local warrant, and Billy was again turned loose. He had gotten into the saddle, ready to go back to the ranch, when Captain Sparks and a squad of Rangers surrounded him and forced him to go along to the office of the adjutant general. There they kept him under heavy guard until Sparks could talk to the governor.

  A weeks-long legal battle then got under way between those who wanted to send Billy back to Kansas and those who tried to keep him in Texas. After his interview with Governor Coke, Ranger Sparks swore out another warrant and put Billy back in jail. While this was going on, the lawyers hired by Ben obtained a capias from Aransas County, where a murder charge had been sworn out against Billy. Then the governor decided to honor the Kansas requisition, but Sheriff Corwin refused to give up the prisoner, contending he was placed in jail marked “hold for Aransas County.” In the meantime the case went to the court of appeals, after the district judge had ruled that Kansas had priority.

  Ranger Sparks, impatient of further delay, entered the jail during the sheriff’s absence and managed to get hold of Billy Thompson. He placed Billy on a mule, and chained his ankles together under the animal. With a heavy Ranger guard, the mule securely tied to a Ranger’s horse, the group moved up Congress Avenue, around the Capitol Square, and to the Summit Station of the International and Great Northern Railway. The news of Billy’s seizure had spread quickly, and a large crowd formed to watch the procession.

  Ben Thompson filed a charge of kidnapping against Captain Sparks, and Ben’s lawyers telegraphed every county seat on the railroad route trying to get Billy taken off the train on a habeas corpus writ. Between Corsicana and Dallas, a large number of men came aboard the train. The officers thought they recognized some friends of Belle Starr, the Outlaw Queen, whose place near Dallas had become notorious as a hideout for desperadoes. Sparks sent word ahead to Sheriff Moon in Dallas for reinforcements, stating he expected an attempt to rescue Billy.

  In Dallas, a throng had gathered at the railroad station, and Sheriff Moon was informed that among them were many friends of the Thompsons. He took no chances. The sheriff got all his available deputies, nearly all the jail guards, a detachment of city police, and a platoon of a home guard outfit known as the Lamar Rifles to stand guard. But after Dallas, there was still the area to the north to traverse, part of Texas, and the whole Indian Territory. Sparks telegraphed to Austin so Sheriff Moon could be given authority to send along a force to cope with any possible mob violence this side of the Kansas line.

  From Ellsworth, Sheriff Hamilton went to the Kansas state boundary to take custody of the prisoner. The train reached Ellsworth about ten o’clock at night. A crowd had gathered, some friendly, some hostile, to Billy.

  “Let’s get a rope, boys,” someone said.

  “Let’s turn him loose,” someone else said.

  Three heavily-armed Rangers, the Kansas sheriff, and the prisoner got off the train and marched to the Ellsworth jail.

  The threats of lynching or of rescue continued as the legal machinery began grinding out due process for Billy Thompson. In a few days, Billy was moved to the jail at Salina, then transferred to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, to await trial. He wore heavy irons there, and a round-the-clock watch of guards armed with double-barreled shotguns kept a vigil over him.

  Billy had no money, and Ben had exhausted every resource to obtain funds that would assure his brother the best legal talent in Kansas. The going was rough, and Ben wrote to Billy:

  “I always told you Billy that you would have no show if you were arrested on this charge and I was caught broke. We will do what we can for you and see that you have able counsel. But it is a hard case
and will take a good deal of money to get you out. Keep up the good spirit. I will leave no stone unturned to get you clear.”

  Ben went to Ellsworth to take personal charge of the defense forces. Billy’s brother-in-law, Robert Gill, also arrived to help. The case was set for spring, and repeatedly postponed. Billy Thompson was finally brought to trial on September 5, 1877, more than four years after the shooting of Sheriff Whitney. He entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of murder, on the grounds that the killing was accidental. The trial lasted nine days and went to the jury on September 14.

  A courtroom packed with spectators waited to hear the verdict. An hour after the jury withdrew, word came that a decision had been reached. Billy was brought back to the courtroom, surrounded by sheriff’s deputies. Smiling, he seemed to be less concerned than his friends and the other onlookers.

  The jury foreman rose to read the verdict:

  “We, the jury, find William Thompson, not guilty of the murder of Chauncey B. Whitney.”

  Friends of Thompson applauded, cheered, and yelled as the handcuffs and chains were removed from the prisoner’s wrists and ankles.

  Several days later, a card of thanks, signed by William Thompson and Robert Gill, appeared in the Ellsworth paper. It said:

  “To the citizens of Ellsworth, who so kindly sympathized with us in our recent trouble, we wish, through this medium, to return our heartfelt thanks.”

  The year-long fight to save Billy Thompson left Ben flat broke. He still had his six-shooter and his fine English breech-loading shotgun, the weapon that had brought death to Sheriff Whitney. Ben went to Dodge City again, and while there he hocked the shotgun for seventy-five dollars at Chalky Beeson’s Long Branch saloon. For months it hung on the wall back of the bar.

  Things had gotten so bad for Ben by now that the comedian Eddie Foy playing at the Comique in Dodge City in 1878, could later speak of “that drunken bum, Ben Thompson.” The story went that Ben and Foy met backstage between acts. Ben wandered in and told Foy to get out of the way so Ben could shoot at a light nearby. Fortunately, Bat Masterson, by then a close friend of Ben’s and also serving as sheriff of Ford County, came along and persuaded Ben to lower his pistol and leave the theater.

  In Dodge City, Ben struck it lucky at a faro game, got a stake to deal monte, and in a few weeks was riding high again. He had more than two thousand dollars in cash, after redeeming his eight-hundred-dollar ring, his five-hundred-dollar diamond stud, his three-hundred-dollar watch and chain, and his shotgun.

  Along with other gambling men, he streaked out to Leadville, Colorado, where a mining boom offered good pickings. There he got off to a bad start. He bucked the tiger and lost all his cash. Then he put up his jewelry and all that went, too. In an outburst of rage—which by now gave signs of becoming chronic along with drinking—Ben shot up the gambling joint, ran everyone out of the place, and then stormed along the street, driving everybody indoors again.

  Next spring Ben was in Dodge City, still licking his financial wounds. Bat Masterson told him of a call for gunfighters to serve in the Colorado war between the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad and the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Ben enlisted with the Santa Fe.

  CHAPTER 39

  In Pueblo, Colorado, during three turbulent days of June, 1879, Ben Thompson stood off a drunken mob that threatened the Santa Fe railroad properties. With his Colt .45 Frontier single action in his hand, the Texan defied the crowd seeking to take possession of the roundhouse which he and a group of ten men were guarding.

  Ben served in Pueblo as a hired gunfighter with the Santa Fe in what came to be known as the Grand Canyon War. It was part of the general conflict between the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe and the Denver and Rio Grande for control of the southern transcontinental route. The Santa Fe had pushed its rails as far as Pueblo, and, in order to reach Denver, leased the Rio Grande line. While continuing to work on the alternate route over Raton Pass, New Mexico, the Santa Fe engaged the Rio Grande in armed combat for the extension over the Royal Gorge, which the Rio Grande insisted had not been included in the lease.

  Armed mobs were being transported all over the state by the competing lines, assaulting trains, beating up employees, damaging property. At Pueblo, bands of drunken men roamed the streets at night, terrorizing the citizens, who had reached a state of near-panic. Chicken roosts were raided, garments stolen from clotheslines, and windows smashed. Ex-Governor Hunt, hired by the Rio Grande, commandeered a train, and with two hundred men aboard, traveled from town to town, carrying off some of the station agents as prisoners, and intimidating others to abandon their posts.

  The properties at Pueblo were the key to control of the extension in the Grand Canyon area. Late in May of 1879, rumors had spread of an impending attack by the Rio Grande army. The Santa Fe men were hired wherever possible. At Trinidad, Paddy Welsh and forty-five deputies were enlisted. Sheriff Charles Hickey of Bent County, Colorado, was assigned to raise a force, and Sheriff Bat Masterson of Dodge City, Kansas, was reported bringing up sixty-five men. For a couple of weeks nothing happened at Pueblo, and the Santa Fe let most of its men go, putting only a few in key positions, including the roundhouse where Ben Thompson commanded the guard.

  The tension mounted again in Pueblo as the rival railroads took their battle to court, to obtain legal sanction for the use of force. Judge Thomas Bowen of Arkansas on June 10, 1879, issued a writ in favor of the Rio Grande, ordering the Santa Fe to relinquish possession of the Pueblo properties. Sheriff Price served the writ on Frank Hardy, dispatcher at Pueblo. Hardy asked for time to get instructions, and got together fifteen armed men during the half hour postponement allowed by the sheriff. At the same time, Hardy informed the Santa Fe officials that the shooting might start at any moment. When the sheriff returned, he was told that the office would not be surrendered, and Price left to organize his posse.

  The hostilities had brought Inspector General E. B. Sofris of Governor Pitkin’s staff to Pueblo. He looked over the situation and telegraphed the governor at Denver that the Santa Fe had about a hundred and fifty men under arms and that the Rio Grande had a hundred and was recruiting more, making an outbreak of firearms imminent.

  Meanwhile, Sheriff Price approached Ben Thompson at the roundhouse and demanded to take possession there. Ben answered that he had been hired to hold the roundhouse until overpowered by a superior force, or until the officers of the law could show clear legal title, and the right to use force to make good such title.

  “Well,” said Sheriff Price, “you have an armed mob in there, and it is my duty to suppress it.”

  Ben replied that there was no mob, but that the men inside were construction employees sent there to guard the company’s property. He gave Sheriff Price permission to enter the roundhouse and look the men over.

  “If you find any who has violated the law, you can arrest him,” Ben said, “but I’ll be at the door here to make sure that none of the deputies get in.”

  While Ben stood guard at the entrance, Sheriff Price went inside for a few minutes, and then left without attempting any arrests. The sheriff had been advised by his lawyers that there was nothing in Judge Bowen’s writ authorizing the use of force.

  But the Rio Grande officials had no intention of being halted by any such technicalities. At the Grand Central Hotel, they were hiring all comers, and providing arms and plenty of whisky. In front of the Victoria Hotel, fifty of these newly-enlisted “deputies” were lined up and given rifles with bayonets by their commander, chief engineer McMurtrie of the Rio Grande, who then marched them to the depot. Deputy Sheriff Pat Desmond, with another forty or fifty men, reached the depot at the same time.

  The streets and bluffs around the town were filled with spectators. The Pueblo Democrat reported that the man in command of the roundhouse stepped out and shouted:

  “Come on, you sons-of-bitches, if you want a fight, you can have it!”r />
  Almost at the same moment, a cattleman, identified as W. F. Grunside of Batito, appeared on the station platform and defied the posse to take that building.

  Deputy Desmond called out:

  “Let’s go, men! Let’s take the telegraph office!”

  The Rio Grande army swarmed over the station platform, knocking down the cattleman, and rushed to the telegraph office just as the door was locked from inside. Yelling and cursing, they tried to batter down the door, and then started shooting through it, and through the windows. They finally broke in, fatally wounding one man.

  Meanwhile, Sheriff Price, with his pistol in his holster, walked over to Ben Thompson and attempted to persuade him to give up the roundhouse without precipitating a pitched battle. While Ben was refusing his request, a group of men, six or more, sneaked up behind Ben, pinned his arms to his sides and overpowered him. The sheriff then convinced the other men in the roundhouse that it was useless to resist against his superior numbers. The Pueblo Democrat reported: “The Santa Fe men gave up on the capture of their leader, and handed over their arms to Sheriff Price, and marched sadly and quietly out, prisoners of war.”

  An Austin newspaper, repeating a rumor that had gained currency in Colorado, declared:

  “N. P. Strayhorn and W. S. Johnson have returned from Colorado… Ben Thompson was captain and Strayhorn lieutenant in charge of the roundhouse… The roundhouse was held for three days, and the above gentlemen say there were some rumors that a little crookedness prevented an engagement and brought about a surrender and a cessation of hostilities.”

  Specifically, the rumor was to the effect that rather than engage Ben Thompson in a gunfight, involving the risk of greater eventual cost and fatalities, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway authorized the sheriff to offer Ben twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars to surrender the roundhouse.