The Story of the Outlaw Part 8

Here, then, were two rival kings. Each at times had occasion for a beef contract. The result is obvious to anyone who knows the ways of the remoter West in earlier days. The times were ripe for trouble. Murphy bought stolen beef, and furnished bran instead of flour on his Indian contracts, as the government records show. His henchmen held the Chisum herds as their legitimate prey. Thus we now have our stage set and peopled for the grim drama of a bitter border war.

The Pecos war was mostly an indiscriminate killing among cow men and cattle thieves, and it cost many lives, though it had no beginning and no end. The Texas men, hard riders and cheerful shooters for the most part, came pushing up the Pecos and into the Bonito canon. Among these, in 1874, were four brothers known as the Harold boys, Bill, Jack, Tom and Bob, who had come from Texas in 1872. Two of them located ranches on the Ruidoso, being "staked" therein by Major Murphy, king for that part of the countryside. The Harold boys once undertook to run the town of Lincoln, and a foolish justice ordered a constable to arrest them. One Gillam, an ex-sheriff, told the boys to put on their guns. On that night there were killed Gillam, Bill Harold, Dave Warner and Martinez, the Mexican constable. The dead body of Martinez was lying in the street the next morning with a deep cross cut on the forehead. From that time on for the next five years, it was no uncommon thing to see dead men lying in the streets of Lincoln. The Harold boys had sworn revenge.

There was a little dance in an adobe one night at Lincoln, when Ben Harold and some Texas men from the Seven Rivers country rode up. They killed four men and one woman that night before they started back to Seven Rivers. From that time on, it was Texas against the law, such as the latter was. No resident places the number of the victims of the Harold war at less than forty or fifty, and it is believed that at least seventy-five would be more correct. These killings proved the weakness of the law, for none of the Harold gang was ever punished. As for the Lincoln County War proper, the magazine was now handsomely laid. Only the spark was needed. What would that naturally be? Either an actual law court, or else--a woman! In due time, both were forthcoming.

The woman in the case still lives to-day in New Mexico, sometimes spoken of as the "Cattle Queen" of New Mexico. She bears now the name of Mrs.

Susan E. Barber. Her maiden name was Susan E. Hummer, the name sometimes spelled Homer, and she was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Susan Hummer was a granddaughter of Anna Maria Spangler-Stauffer. The Spangler family is a n.o.ble one of Germany and very old. George Spangler was cup-bearer to G.o.dfrey, Chancellor of Frederick Barbarossa, and was with the latter on the Crusade when Barbarossa was drowned in the Syrian river, Calycadmus, in 1190. The American seat of this old family was in York county, Pennsylvania, where the first Spanglers settled in 1731. It was from this tenacious and courageous ancestry that there sprang this figure of a border warfare in a region wild as Barbarossa's realm centuries ago.

On August 23, 1873, in Atchison, Kansas, Susan Hummer was married to Alexander A. McSween, a young lawyer fresh from the Washington university law school of St. Louis. McSween was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and was educated in the first place as a Presbyterian minister. He was a man of good appearance, of intelligence and address, and of rather more polish than the average man. He was an orator, a dreamer, and a visionary; a strange, complex character. He was not a fighting man, and belonged anywhere in the world rather than on the frontier of the b.l.o.o.d.y Southwest. His health was not good, and he resolved to journey to New Mexico. He and his young bride started overland, with a good team and conveyance, and reached the little _placita_ of Lincoln, in the Bonito canon, March 15, 1875. Outside of the firm of Murphy, Riley & Dolan, there were at that time but one or two other American families. McSween started up in the practice of law.

There appeared in northern New Mexico at about this time an Englishman by the name of J. H. Tunstall, newly arrived in the West in search of investment. Tunstall was told that there was good open cattle range to be had in Lincoln county. He came to Lincoln, met McSween, formed a partnership with him in the banking and mercantile business, and, moreover, started for himself, and altogether independently, a horse and cattle ranch on the Rio Feliz, a day's journey below Lincoln. Now, King Murphy, of Lincoln county, found a rival business growing up directly under his eyes. He liked this no better than King Chisum liked the little cow men on his flanks in the Seven Rivers country. Things were ripening still more rapidly for trouble. Presently, the immediate cause made its appearance.

There had been a former partner and friend of Major Murphy in the post-tradership at Fort Stanton, Colonel Emil Fritz, who established the Fritz ranch, a few miles below Lincoln. Colonel Fritz having ama.s.sed a considerable fortune, concluded to return to Germany. He had insured his life in the American Insurance Company for ten thousand dollars, and had made a will leaving this policy, or the greater part of it, to his sister. The latter had married a clerk at Fort Stanton by the name of Scholland, but did not get along well with her husband. Heretofore no such thing as divorce had been known in that part of the world; but courts and lawyers were now present, and it occurred to Mrs. Scholland to have a divorce. She sent to Mr. McSween for legal counsel, and for a time lived in the McSween house.

Now came news of the death, in Germany, of Colonel Emil Fritz. His brother, Charlie Fritz, undertook to look up the estate. He found the will and insurance policy had been left with Major Murphy; but Major Murphy, accustomed to running affairs in his own way, refused to give up the Emil Fritz will, and forced McSween to get a court order appointing Mrs. Scholland administratrix of the Fritz estate. Not even in that capacity would Major Murphy deliver to her the will and insurance policy when they were demanded, and it is claimed that he destroyed the will.

Certainly it was never probated. Murphy was accustomed to keep this will in a tin can, hid in a hole in the adobe wall of his store building.

There were no safes at that time and place. The policy had been left as security for a loan of nine hundred dollars advanced by a firm known as Spiegelberg Brothers. Few ingredients were now lacking for a typical melodrama. Meantime the plot thickened by the failure of the insurance company!

McSween, in the interest of Mrs. Scholland, now went East to see what could be done in the collection of the insurance policy. He was able finally, in 1876, to collect the full amount of ten thousand dollars, and this he deposited in his own name in a St. Louis bank then owned by Colonel Hunter. He had been obliged to pay the Spiegelbergs the face of their loan before he could get the policy to take East with him. He wished to be secured against this advancement and reimbursed as well for his expenses, which, together with his fee, amounted to a considerable sum. Moreover, the German Minister enjoined McSween from turning over any of this money, as there were other heirs in Germany. Major Murphy owed McSween some money. Colonel Fritz also died owing McSween thirty-three hundred dollars, fees due on legal work. Yet Murphy demanded the full amount of the insurance policy from McSween again and again. Murphy, Riley & Dolan now sued out an attachment on McSween's property, and levied on the goods in the Tunstall-McSween store. The "law" was now doing its work; but there was a very liberal interpretation put upon the law's intent. As construed by Sheriff William Brady, the writ applied also to the Englishman Tunstall's property in cattle and horses on the Rio Feliz ranch; which, of course, was high-handed illegality. McSween's statement that he had no interest in the Feliz ranch served no purpose. Brady and Murphy were warm friends. The lawyer McSween had accused them of being something more than that--allies and conspirators. McSween and Tunstall bought Lincoln county scrip cheap; but when they presented it to the county treasurer, Murphy, it was not paid, and it was charged that he and Brady had made away with the county funds. That was never proved, for, as a matter of fact, no county books were ever kept! McSween started the first set ever known there.

At this time there was working for Tunstall on the Feliz ranch the noted desperado, Billy the Kid, who a short time formerly had worked for John Chisum. The latter at this stage of the advancing troubles, appears rather as a third party, or as holding one point of a triangle, whose other two corners were occupied by the Murphy and McSween factions.

Whether or not it was a legal posse which went out to serve the attachment on the Tunstall cattle--or whether or not a posse was necessary for that purpose--the truth is that a band of men, on February 13th, 1878, did go out under some semblance of the law and in the interests of the Murphy people's claim. Some state that William S.

Morton, or "Billy" Morton, was chosen by Sheriff Brady as his deputy and as leader of this posse. Others name different men as leaders.

Certainly, the band was suited for any desperate occasion. With it was one Tom Hill, who had killed several men at different times, and who had been heard to say that he intended to kill Tunstall. There was also Jesse Evans, just in from the Rio Grande country, and, unless that were Billy the Kid, the most redoubtable fighter in all that country. Evans had formerly worked for John Chisum, and had been the friend of Billy the Kid; but these two had now become enemies. Others of the party were William M. Johnson, Ham Mills, Johnnie Hurley, Frank Baker, several ranchers still living in that country, and two or three Mexicans. All these rode across the mountains to the Ruidoso valley on their way to the Rio Feliz. They met, coming from the Tunstall ranch, Tunstall himself in company with his foreman, d.i.c.k Brewer, John Middleton and Billy the Kid. When the Murphy posse came up with Tunstall, he was alone. His men were at the time chasing a flock of wild turkeys along a distant hillside. When called upon to halt, Tunstall did so, and then came up toward the posse. "You wouldn't hurt me, boys, would you?" he said, as he approached leading his horse. When within a few yards, Tom Hill said to him, "Why, h.e.l.lo, Tunstall, is that you?" and almost with the words fired upon him with his six-shooter and shot him down. Some say that Hill shot Tunstall again, and a young Mexican boy called Pantilon beat in his skull with a rock. They put Tunstall's hat under his head and left him lying there beside his horse, which was also killed. His folded coat was found under the horse's head. His body, lashed on a burro's back, was brought over the mountains by his friends that night into Lincoln, twenty miles distant. Fifty men took up the McSween fight that night; for, in truth, the killing of Tunstall was murder and without justification.

That was the beginning of the actual Lincoln County War. d.i.c.k Brewer, Tunstall's foreman, was now leader of the McSween fighting men. McSween, of course, supplied him with color of "legal" authority. He was appointed "special constable." Neither party had difficulty in obtaining all the legal papers required. Each party was presently to have a sheriff of its own. Meantime, there was at Lincoln an accommodating justice of the peace, John P. Wilson, who was ready to give either faction any sort of legal paper it demanded. d.i.c.k Brewer, Billy the Kid, and nearly a dozen others of the first McSween posse started to the lower country, where lived a good many of Murphy's friends, small cow men and others. On the Rio Penasco, about six miles from the Pecos, they came across a party of five men, two of whom, Billy Morton and Frank Baker, had been present at the killing of Tunstall. Baker and Morton surrendered under promise of safekeeping, and were held for a time at Roswell. On the trail from Roswell to Lincoln, at a point near the Agua Negra, both these men, while kneeling and pleading for their lives, were deliberately shot and killed by Billy the Kid. There was with the Brewer posse a buffalo-hunter by the name of McClosky, who had promised to take care of these prisoners. Joe McNab, of the posse, shot and killed McClosky in cold blood. In this McSween posse were "Doc"

Skurlock, Charlie Bowdre, Billy the Kid, Hendry Brown, Jim French, John Middleton, with McNab, Wait and Smith, besides McClosky, who seems not to have been loyal enough to them to sanction cold blooded murder. These victims were killed March 7th, 1878.

There had now been deliberate murder committed upon the one side and upon the other. There were many men implicated on each side. These men, in self-interest, now drew apart together. The factions, of necessity, became more firmly established. It may be seen that there was very little principle at stake on either side. The country was now simply going wild again. It meant to take the law into its own hands; and the population was divided into these two factions, to one or the other of which every resident must perforce belong. A choice, and sometimes a quick one, was an imperative necessity.

The next killing was that of Buckshot Roberts, at Blazer's Mill, near the Mescalero Reservation buildings, an affair described in a later chapter. Thirteen men, later of the Kid's gang, led by d.i.c.k Brewer, attacked Roberts, who killed d.i.c.k Brewer before he himself died. The death of the latter left the Kid chief of the McSween forces.

A great blood l.u.s.t now possessed all the population. It wanted no law.

There is no doubt about the intention to make away with Judge Warren Bristol of the circuit court. The latter, knowing of these turbulent times in Lincoln, decided not to hold court. He sent word to Sheriff William Brady to open court and then at once to adjourn it. This was on April 1, 1878.

Sheriff Brady, in walking down the street toward the dwelling-house in which court sessions were then held, was obliged to pa.s.s the McSween store and residence. Behind the corral wall, there lay ambushed Billy the Kid and at least five others of his gang. Brady was accompanied by Billy Matthews (J. B. Matthews, now dead; postmaster of Roswell, New Mexico, in 1904), by George Hindman, his deputy, and Dad Peppin, later sheriff of Lincoln county. The Kid and his men waited until the victims had gone by. Then a volley was fired. Sheriff Brady, shot in the back, slowly sank down, his knees weakening under him. "My G.o.d! My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" he exclaimed, as he gradually dropped. He had been struck in the back by five b.a.l.l.s. As he sank down, he turned his head to see his murderers, and as he did so received a ball in the eye, and so fell dead. George Hindman, the deputy, also shot in the back, ran down the street about one hundred and fifty yards before he fell. He lay in the street and few dared to go out to him. A saloon-keeper, Ike Stockton (himself a bad man, and later killed at Durango, Colorado), offered him a drink of water, which he brought in his hat, and Hindman, accepting it, fell back dead.

The murder of Sheriff Brady left the country without even the semblance of law; but each party now took steps to set up a legal machinery of its own, as cover for its own acts. The old justice of the peace, John P.

Wilson, would issue a warrant on any pretext for any person; but there must be some one with authority to serve the process. In a quasi-election, the McSween faction inst.i.tuted John Copeland as their sheriff. The Murphy faction held that Copeland never qualified as sheriff. He lived with McSween part of the time. It was understood that he was sheriff for the purpose of bothering n.o.body but the Murphy people.

Meantime, the other party were not thus to be surpa.s.sed. In June, 1878, Governor Axtell appointed George W. Peppin as sheriff of Lincoln county.

Peppin qualified at Mesilla, came back to Lincoln, and demanded of Copeland the warrants in his possession. He had, on his part, twelve warrants for the arrest of members of the McSween gang. Little lacked now to add confusion in this b.l.o.o.d.y coil. The country was split into two factions. Each had a sheriff as a figurehead! What and where was the law?

Peppin had to get fighting men to serve his warrants, and he could not always be particular about the social standing of his posses. He had a thankless and dangerous position as the "Murphy sheriff." Most of his posses were recruited from among the small ranchers and cow boys of the lower Pecos. Peppin was sheriff only a few months, and threw up the job $2,800 in debt.

The men of both parties were now scouting about for each other here and there over a district more than a hundred miles square; but presently the war was to take on the dignity of a pitched battle. Early in July, 1878, the Kid and his gang rounded up at the McSween house. There were a dozen white desperadoes in their party. There were about forty Mexicans also identified with the McSween faction. These were quartered in the Montana and Ellis residences, well down the street.

The Murphy forces now surrounded the McSween house, and at once a pitched battle began. The McSween men started the firing from the windows and loopholes of their fortress. The Peppin men replied. The town, divided against itself, held under cover. For three days the two little armies lay here, separated by the distance of the street, perhaps sixty men in all on the McSween side, perhaps thirty or forty in all on the Murphy-Peppin side, of whom nineteen were Americans.

To keep the McSween men inside their fortifications, Peppin had three men posted on the mountain side, whence they could look down directly upon the top of the houses, as the mountain here rises up sharply back of the narrow line of adobe buildings. These pickets were Charlie Crawford, Lucillo Montoye, and another Mexican, and with their long-range buffalo guns they threw a good many heavy slugs of lead into the McSween house. At last, one Fernando Herrera, a McSween Mexican, standing in the back door of the Montana house, fired, at a distance of about nine hundred yards, at Charlie Crawford. The shot cut Crawford down, and he lay, with his back broken, behind a rock on the mountain side in the hot sun nearly all day. Crawford was later brought down to the street. Medical attendance there was none, and few dared to offer sympathy, but Captain Saturnino Baca[H] carried Crawford a drink of water.

[Footnote H: Captain Saturnino Baca was a friend of Kit Carson, an officer in the New Mexican Volunteers, and the second commanding officer of Fort Stanton. He came to Lincoln in 1865, and purchased of J.

Trujillo the old stone tower, as part of what was then the Baca property, near the McSween residence. The Bacas were recognized as non-combatants, but were friendly to Major Murphy. Mrs. McSween and Mrs.

Baca were bitter enemies, and it was commonly said that, as each side had a sheriff, each side had a woman. Bonifacio J. Baca, son of Captain and Mrs. Baca, was a protege of Major Murphy, who sent him to Notre Dame University, Indiana, to be educated. "Bonnie" Baca was at different times clerk of the probate court, county a.s.sessor, deputy sheriff, etc., and was court interpreter under Judge Warren H. Bristol. He was teaching school at the time Sheriff Brady was shot, and from his refuge in the "round tower," a few feet distant, saw Brady fall. Captain Baca, wife and son, were after that closely watched by the men of the McSween faction, but managed to remain neutral and never became involved in the fighting, though Billy the Kid more than once threatened to kill young Baca.]

The death of Crawford ended the second day's fighting. Peppin's party now numbered sixteen men from the Seven Rivers country, or twenty-eight in all. The McSween men besieged in the adobe were Billy the Kid, Harvey Norris (killed), Tom O'Folliard, Ighenio Salazar (wounded and left for dead), Ignacio Gonzales, Jose Semora (killed), Francisco Romero (killed), and Alexander A. McSween, leader of the faction (killed). Doc Skurlock, Jack Middleton, and Charlie Bowdre were in the adjoining store building.

At about noon of the third day, old Andy Boyle, ex-soldier of the British army, said, "We'll have to get a cannon and blow in the doors.

I'll go up to the fort and steal a cannon." Half-way up to the fort, he found his cannon--two Gatling guns and a troop of colored cavalry--already on the road to stop what had been reported as firing on women and children. The detachment was under charge of the commanding officer of Fort Stanton, Colonel Dudley, who marched his men past the beleaguered house and drew them up below the place. Colonel Dudley was besought by Mrs. McSween, who came out under fire, to save her husband's life; but he refused to interfere or take side in the matter, saying that the sheriff of the county was there and in charge of his own posse.

Mrs. McSween refused to accept protection and go up to the post, but returned to her husband for what she knew must soon be the end.

McSween, ex-minister, lawyer, honest or dishonest instigator, innocent or malicious cause--and one may choose his adjectives in this matter--of all these b.l.o.o.d.y scenes, now sat in the house, his head bowed in his hands, the picture of foreboding despair. His nerve was absolutely gone.

No one paid any attention to him. His wife, the actual leader, was far braver than he. The Kid was the commander. "They'd kill us all if we surrendered," he said. "We'll shoot it out!"

Old Andy Boyle got some sticks and some coal oil, and, under protection of rifles, started a fire against a street door of the house. Jack Long and two others also fired the house in the rear. A keg of powder had been concealed under the floor. The flames reached this powder, and there was an explosion which did more than anything else toward ending the siege.

At about dusk, Bob Beckwith, old man Pierce, and one other man, ran around toward the rear of the house. Beckwith called out to the inmates to surrender. They demanded that the sheriff come for a parley. "I'm a deputy sheriff," replied Beckwith. It was dark or nearly so. Several figures burst out of the rear door of the burning house, among these the unfortunate McSween. Around him, and ahead of him, ran Billy the Kid, Skurlock, French, O'Folliard, Bowdre, and a few others. The flashing of six-shooters at close range ended the three days' battle. McSween, still unarmed, dropped dead. He was found, half sitting, leaning against the corral wall. Bob Beckwith, of the Peppin forces, fell almost at the same time, killed by Billy the Kid. Near McSween's body lay those of Romero and Semora and of Harvey Norris. The latter was a young Kansan, newly arrived in that country, of whom little was known.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. IGHENIO SALAZAR 2. ALEX. A. McSWEEN 3. CAPT. S. BACA (1) Shot and left for dead, in the Lincoln County War. (2) Leader of a faction in the Lincoln County War. (3) Friend of Kit Carson; the man who carried the news of the big street fight to Ft. Stanton]

With the McSween party, there was one game Mexican, Ighenio Salazar, who is alive to-day, by miracle. In the rush from the house, Salazar was shot down, being struck by two bullets. He feigned death. Old Andy Boyle stood over him with his gun c.o.c.ked. "I guess he's dead," said Andy. "If I thought he wasn't, I shoot him some more." They then jumped on Salazar's body to a.s.sure themselves. In the darkness, Salazar rolled over into a ditch, later made his escape, stopped his wounds with some corn husks, and found concealment in a Mexican house until he subsequently recovered.

This fight cost McSween his life just at the point when he thought he had attained success. Four days before he was killed, he had word from the United States Government's commissioner, Angell, that the President had deposed Governor Axtell of New Mexico, on account of his appointment of Dad Peppin as sheriff, and on charges that Axtell was favoring the Murphy faction. General Lew Wallace was now sent out as Governor of New Mexico, invested with "extraordinary powers." He needed them. President Hayes had issued governmental proclamation calling upon these desperate fighting men to lay down their arms, but it was not certain they would easily be persuaded. It was a long way to Washington, and a short way to a six-shooter.

General Wallace a.s.sured Mrs. McSween of protection, but he found there was no such thing as getting to the bottom of the Lincoln County War. It would have been necessary to hang the entire population of the county to execute a formal justice. Almost none of the indictments "stuck," and one by one the cases were dismissed. The thing was too big for the law.

The only man ever actually indicted and brought to trial for a killing during the Lincoln County War was Billy the Kid, and there is many a resident of Lincoln to-day who declares that the Kid was made a scapegoat; and many a man even to-day charges Governor Wallace with bad faith. Governor Wallace met the Kid by appointment at the Ellis House in Lincoln. The Kid came in fully armed, and the old soldier was surprised to see in him a bright-faced and pleasant-talking boy. In the presence of two witnesses now living, Governor Wallace asked the Kid to come in and lay down his arms, and promised to pardon him if he would stand his trial and if he should be convicted in the courts. The Kid declined.

"There is no justice for me in the courts of this country now," said he.

"I've gone too far." And so he went back with his little gang of outlaws, to meet a dramatic end, after further incidents in a singular and blood-stained career.

The Lincoln County War now spread wider than even the boundaries of the United States. A United States deputy, Wiederman, had been employed by the father of the murdered J. H. Tunstall to take care of the Tunstall estates and to secure some kind of British revenge for his murder.

Wiederman falsely persuaded Tunstall _pere_ that he had helped kill Frank Baker and Billy Morton, and Tunstall _pere_ made him rich, Wiederman going to England, where it was safer. The British legation took up the matter of Tunstall's death, and the slow-moving governmental wheels at Washington began to revolve. A United States indemnity was paid for Tunstall's life.

Mrs. McSween, meantime, kept up her work in the local courts. Some time after her husband's death, she employed a lawyer by the name of Chapman, of Las Vegas, a one-armed man, to undertake the dangerous task of aiding her in her work of revenge. By this time, most of the fighters were disposed to lay down their arms. The whole society of the country had been ruined by the war. Murphy & Co. had long ago mortgaged everything they had, and a good many things which they did not have, _e. g._, some of John Chisum's cattle, to Tom Catron, of Sante Fe. A big peace talk was made in the town, and it was agreed that, as there was no longer any advantage of a financial nature in keeping up the war, all parties concerned might as well quit organized fighting, and engage in individual pillage instead. Murphy & Co. were ruined. Murphy and McSween were both dead. Chisum could be depended upon to pay some of the debts to the warriors through stolen cattle, if not through signed checks.

Why, then, should good, game men go on killing each other for nothing?

This was the argument used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. MRS. SATURNINO BACA (In early life) 2. MRS. SUSAN E.

BARBER 3. MRS. SATURNINO BACA (At sixty) The "women in the case" in the Lincoln County War. Mrs. Susan E. Barber was known as the "Cattle Queen of the West"]

In this conference there were, on the Murphy side, Jesse Evans, Jimmie Dolan and Bill Campbell. On the other side were Billy the Kid, Tom O'Folliard and the game Mexican, Salazar. Each of these men had a .45 Colt at his belt, and a c.o.c.ked Winchester in his hand. At last, however, the six men shook hands. They agreed to end the war. Then, frontier fashion, they set off for the nearest saloon.

The Las Vegas lawyer, Chapman, happened to cross the street as these desperate fighting men, used to killing, now well drunken, came out, all armed, and all swearing friendship.

"Halt, you, there!" cried Bill Campbell to Chapman; and the latter paused. "d.a.m.n you," said Campbell to Chapman; "you are the ---- ---- of a ---- that has come down here to stir up trouble among us fellows.

We're peaceful. It's all settled, and we're friends now. Now, d.a.m.n you, just to show you're peaceable too, you dance."

"I'm a gentleman," said Chapman, "and I'll dance for no ruffian." An instant later, shot through the heart by Campbell's six-shooter, as is alleged, he lay dead in the roadway. No one dared disturb his body. He was shot at such close range that some papers in his coat pocket took fire from the powder flash, and his body was partially consumed as it lay there in the road.