In the early days of Tombstone when miners and merchants and cow-men
and faro-dealers and outlaws were drifting into Cochise County from
all over the West, a young fellow by the name of William C.
Breckenbridge came down from Colorado to the new camp. He was, so the
old-timers say, one of those smallish men who can wear a flannel shirt
and broad-brimmed hat so jauntily that, although their breeches be
tucked into their boot-tops, they still look marvelously neat; but
while he could come through a hard day's ride still suggesting a
bandbox, there was nothing of the dandy about him.
His people had staked him to go out West and at their suggestion he
had hunted up an older brother in Colorado. But two years in the wide
reaches of the Platte country, where the monotony of teaming was
varied by occasional brushes with the Indians, failed to satisfy his
spirit. And so he came riding down into the flaring valleys of the
Southwestern border along with the first influx of adventurers.
He was still in his early twenties and the world looked good to him;
one of those quiet youths who preface most remarks with a smile
because, all other things being equal, they like their fellow-men.
He knocked about the camp, trying this thing and that, and was
starting in at mining engineering with an old marine compass as his
only instrument when Johnny Behan, who was newly appointed sheriff by
the governor, gave him a job as a deputy. Then straightaway the eyes
of men were turned upon him, and the query arose:
"How's he going to stack up when it comes to a show-down?"
Those were the days, you understand, when--to indulge in a Scriptural
figure--he who took up the sword must be prepared to perish by the
sword. If you buckled on a gun you must be ready to draw it, and once
you started to draw it, heaven help you if you did not reckon on going
through with the play.
A man could get by, as the saying has it, if he played the part of a
neutral; but if, on the one hand, you started in at stealing cattle or
if, on the other hand, you pinned on a star--why then, sooner or
later, the big issue was going to come to a head; you were going to
find yourself faced by a foe or foes, armed like yourself, and like
yourself prepared to shoot it out. Then when the show-down came you
would comport yourself according to the stuff that you were made
of--the material which was hidden away deep down under your skin--and
according to your conduct the world would judge you.
So naturally enough in those days men asked this question and waited
for events to bring its answer. And those among them who were not
gifted with the faculty of reading character but needed to see a man
for themselves when the guns were blazing--those individuals had to
wait a long time.
As for the others, what they said to themselves as one adventure
followed another now in the career of Billy Breckenbridge you who read
these words can judge, if you be blessed with ordinary perspicacity.
For many things took place and many months went by before he reached
down along his lean right thigh toward the butt of his forty-five
single-action revolver.
It is quite likely that Johnny Behan was among those who wanted the
new deputy to give a demonstration of the stuff he was made of.
Perhaps that was the reason the sheriff sent young Breckenbridge over
into the eastern end of the county to collect the taxes before the
latter had worn his star long enough to get used to it.
In those days the sheriff's office levied assessments and did the
collecting on personal property at the same time. Payments were made
in cash; bank-checks were virtually unknown in Cochise County. And
thus far the country east of the Dragoon Mountains had yielded no
revenues for the simple reason that it looked as if nothing short of a
troop of cavalry could go forth into that region and return again with
the money.
Beyond those rocky peaks which frowned across the mesquite flat at
Tombstone lay other ragged mountain ranges; the Chiracahuas, the Dos
Cabezas, the Swiss-helms, and the Grahams. Between their towering
walls the valleys of the Sulphur Springs and the San Simon stretched
away and away southward across the Mexican border great tawny plains
pulsating under the hot sun.
Upon their level floors the heat-devils danced all the long days like
armies of phantom dervishes gone mad with their interminable leapings
and whirlings. And strange grotesque mirages climbed up into the
glaring heavens. A savage land wherein savage men rode, as packs of
gray wolves range in the wintertime when meat is scarce, searching the
distant sky-line for some sign of life on which to prey.
For this was no-man's-land. Bands of renegade Apaches lurked among its
empurpled peaks. Companies of Mexican smugglers came northward through
its steep-walled border canyons driving their laden burros to lonely
rendezvous where hard-eyed traders awaited them with pack-mules loaded
down with dobie dollars. A few lonely ranch-houses where there was
water in the lowlands; in the mountains a sawmill or two and some
far-flung mines; here the habitations were like arsenals. Honest men
must go armed to work and sleep with arms by their bedsides, and even
then it was advisable for them to ask no questions of those who rode
up to their cabins.
And it was best for them to make no protests at what such guests did
unto their own or the property of others. For since the days when the
first semblances of law had come to Tombstone this region had been the
sanctuary of the bad men.
When you crossed the summits of the Dragoon Mountains you were beyond
the pale. Hither the stage-robber came, riding hard when the list of
his crimes had grown too long. The murderer, the rustler, and the
outlaw spurred their ponies on eastward when the valley of the San
Pedro was too hot for them and took refuge here among their kind. On
occasion the bolder ones among them ventured back to show themselves
on Tombstone's streets or swagger into Charleston's dance-halls; but
never for long and never unless they were traveling in formidable
groups.
And then sooner or later they would slip away again to the wild passes
and the long and lonely valley flats where there was no law excepting
that which a man carried in his pistol-holster. One after another
those who were "short" in other places had drifted before the winds of
public opinion to gather in this eastern end of Cochise County where
two whose qualities of deadliness surpassed those of all the rest were
recognized, because of that superior ability at killing, as the big
"He Wolves." These two were Curly Bill and John Ringo.
When they were not leading their followers in some raid against the
herds of border cattlemen, or lying in wait to ambush one of the armed
bands of smugglers, or standing up the stage, these two were usually
to be found in Galeyville. You will not see Galeyville named nowadays
on the map of Arizona and if you look ever so long through the San
Simon country, combing down the banks of Turkey Creek ever so closely,
you will not discover so much as a fragment of crumbling adobe wall to
show that the town ever existed.
But it did exist during the early eighties and its life was noisy
enough for any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut
down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the
honest members of the population went out of business; later the
Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and
the elements finished the business.
But when John Ringo and Curly Bill held forth in Galeyville there was
a cattle-buyer in the place who did a brisk business because he asked
no embarrassing questions concerning brands. Which brought many a
hard-eyed rustler thither and sent many a dollar spinning over the
battered bars.
Such were the eastern end of Cochise County and its metropolis when
Johnny Behan told young Billy Breckenbridge to cross the Dragoons and
collect taxes throughout that section. If he expected a protest he was
mistaken, for Breckenbridge took the bidding with his usual
good-natured smile. And if the sheriff looked for a request for a
posse he was disappointed. The new deputy saddled up his horse one
morning and rode forth alone, trim and neat as usual and, for all that
any one could see, without a care on his mind.
He rode up the wide main street which bisects Tombstone from end to
end, descended the hill and started his horse across the flatlands
toward the ragged pinnacles of Cochise's stronghold.
Eastward he rode through tall mesquite thickets, over rolling hills
where clumps of bear-grass grew among spiked yuccas and needle-pointed
tufts of Spanish bayonet, and climbed the pass beyond. From its summit
he looked down upon the wide reaches of the Sulphur Springs valley,
level as a floor, as tawny as a lion's skin.
Then he descended from the sky-lined pinnacles of granite to the
plain. Under the blazing heavens pony and rider showed upon that
glowing surface as a tiny dot; a dot that moved slowly on and on until
the yellow-brown carpet of the bunch-grass came to an end and was
replaced by a gleaming sheet of alkali. Before that crawling dot the
mirage wavered and undulated like a weirdly painted back-drop stirring
in the wind.
The dot crept on, took strange new shapes that changed phantasmally,
then vanished behind the curtain of which for a passing moment it had
been a part. Thus young Breckenbridge rode beyond the dominion of the
written law and was swallowed up by no-man's-land.
When he had started forth from Tombstone he merely knew his errand; he
owned no plan. Now as the splendid star-lit nights followed the long,
blazing days he began, to see a course of action and this led him on,
until one day he came down into the San Simon country and rode into
the town of Galeyville.
The enterprising citizen whose cattle-buying business helped to keep
dollars spinning across the bars of this outlaw metropolis was mildly
curious when young Breckenbridge introduced himself that afternoon.
The presence of a sheriff's deputy was enough to set any one to
thinking in those days.
His curiosity gave way to unspoken wonder as the caller unfolded his
mission and stated the name of the man whom he wanted to see. Anyhow,
this meeting promised to be worth while witnessing; the cattle-buyer
said as much.
"Reckon we'll find him up the street right now," he added, and led the
way to a near-by saloon.
There were a number of men in the place when the pair entered; a
quintet playing cards, and as many others scattered about a quiet
pool-game. And one burly fellow was lying on a poker-table, curled up
for all the world like a sleeping dog. Now and then one of the
gamblers would lift his head to take a look at the new-comers, and for
a brief instant young Breckenbridge would find himself gazing into a
pair of hard, steady eyes. Then the eyes would be lowered and the
player would go on with the game.
It was during this uncomfortable interval of general sizing-up that
the proprietor entered, a red-faced man and short of stature. He had
been out to get a bucket of water; he set the pail down by the end of
the bar and filled a tin cup from it.
"Here's how, boys," he said with loud facetiousness, and lifted the
cup.
The burly man, who had apparently been awakened by the words, uncoiled
himself, came to crouch with one arm supporting his body on the
table-top and--all in the same lithe movement--drew his big-caliber
revolver from the holster.
"Don't drink that stuff. It's pizen," he shouted, and with the last
word his weapon flamed.
The tin cup flew from the saloon man's hand. A shout of laughter rose
from the crowd at the two games; then the pool-balls clicked again
and--
"Raise you ten," a poker-player said.
Breckenbridge's guide beckoned to the man who had done the shooting.
He came across the room, shoving his gun back into the holster, a
rather thickly built man but well-knit and there was a soft spring in
his slowest movements which suggested snake-like quickness. He was
dark-eyed, and his hair was a mat of close black curls. The
cattle-buyer nodded, to indicate the introduced one.
"This," he said, "is Mr. Breckenbridge, one of Johnny Behan's
deputies."