She glanced down at his cocked revolver; its muzzle was moving, to
follow the enshadowed figure in the saddle less than ten feet away.
She raised her eyes; the horseman had lowered his weapon and was
wheeling his pony off into the night.
"Knew his bronco as soon as I saw that blazed face show," John
Slaughter said in explanation of his quick draw.
That same vigilance, which had grown to be second nature with him,
combined with an almost uncanny swiftness in putting two and two
together, which latter had come to him during the years when guarding
his life was a part of his trade, kept the cow-man a step ahead of his
enemies on every occasion. These things were instinctive from long
habit; he prepared himself to meet a situation just as an expert
gunman draws his forty-five--just as a scientific boxer blocks a
blow--without wasting an instant in thinking.
It was thus with him when Ed Lyle and Cap Stilwell waylaid him on the
road to the Empire ranch over near Port Huachuca. These two, who had
endured humiliation under the muzzle of the Texan's pistol on the
Pecos trail, brought four others along with them and planned to do
the murder in the night. Three took their stations on one side of the
wagon track and three on the other, all well armed. They had spotted
the victim's buckboard several miles back.
Now when it came on to the spot which they had selected, the two trios
galloped up to do the killing--and found John Slaughter leveling a
double-barreled shotgun while his wife held the reins. One glimpse of
that weapon at the cattle-buyer's shoulder was enough; they did not
wait for him to pull the trigger but fled.
John Slaughter was wearying of this sort of thing. Lyle and Stilwell
were men of parts; good men of whom to make examples. He sought the
former out in Charleston. They met in front of a saloon on the main
street. John Slaughter drew and, as he threw down--
"I've got no gun," Lyle cried.
"If you were armed," the cow-man said, "I'd kill you now. But if I
ever see you in this country again, I'll kill you anyhow."
Lyle left and Cap Stilwell, receiving his sentence of banishment in
the same manner, departed within a week. From that time the bad men
let John Slaughter alone; he was too big for them. He took his family
to his new San Bernardino ranch and it was beginning to seem as if the
days of constant warfare were over. He was settling down to enjoy
peace in his home, when a call for help made him forsake the security
which had been so hard to earn.
That security was unknown elsewhere in Cochise County. The strong men
who had seized the reins in Tombstone, wielding their power for their
own selfish ends, were gone; they had ridden away with warrants out
against them. The outlaw leaders were dead: John Ringo, Curly Bill,
the Clantons, and others who had swaggered where they willed, had met
violent ends.
With their passing the courts were trying to administer the statutes,
but the courts were impotent. The statutes were mere printed words.
For the rank and file of the bad men were raiding and murdering under
the guidance of new leaders who furnished them with food and
ammunition, notified them of the movements of the officers, procured
perjured witnesses to take the stand in their behalf, and bribed
jurymen.
Money and influence were taking the place of deadly weapons to uphold
a dynasty whose members reigned unseen and under cover, whose henchmen
looted express-cars, stole cattle, and murdered men on the highways,
until things had come to such a pass that President Arthur had issued
a proclamation threatening martial law in Southeastern Arizona.
And now the people of Tombstone, grown sick with blood and much
violence, called to John Slaughter to take the office of sheriff and
bring the law to them. It meant the abandonment of his herds just as
he was getting them well started, the putting aside of plans which he
had cherished through the years. But he answered the call and forsook
the San Bernardino ranch for the dingy little room beside the
court-house entrance. Before he had got fairly acquainted with the new
quarters war was on.
Cochise County was being used as a haven by bandits throughout the
Southwest. Four train-robbers fled hither from Mexico, where they had
looted an express-car and killed the messenger, soon after John
Slaughter's term began. He took his chief deputy, Bert Alvord, and
two others and followed their trail high into the Whetstone Mountains.
In the night-time the posse crawled through the brush and rocks to the
place where they had located the camp of the fugitives.
A man must leave many things to chance when it comes to choosing his
position in the dark, and it so happened that when dawn came the
sheriff and his deputy found themselves right under the nook where the
bandits were ensconced; the other members of their party had become
separated from them.
They had the enemy nicely cornered, with a cliff to cut off escape to
the rear, but they were themselves in the open; two men against four
and the four entrenched behind outcroppings of the living rock.
A small space of time was jammed with many large incidents immediately
after this discovery. Men attaining supreme exaltation died in the
instant of that attainment; pulses that leaped with the joy that comes
when sight lines with bead, bead with living target and the
trigger-finger begins to move, ceased their beating more abruptly than
a machine stops when the power is turned off.
The leaden slugs snarled as thick as angry wasps when the nest has
been disturbed; the crackling of the rifles was as a long roll; little
geysers of dust spouted among the rocks; the smoke of black powder
arose in a thin blue haze.
A bullet clipped away a little portion from John Slaughter's ear. He
called to Alvord:
"Bert; you're shooting too high; pull down; I see you raising dust
behind 'em every time."
Alvord, fighting his first battle, clenched his teeth and lowered his
front sight. John Slaughter had prefaced his advice by killing one of
the bandits; he supplemented it by putting a bullet through a head
that bobbed above the rocks. And when the other two members of the
posse came to take part in the fight, there was only one train-robber
living. They found him breathing his last where he had crept away
among the cliffs.
But killing desperadoes would not eradicate the reign of lawlessness
unless a man slew the entire pack; and John Slaughter had no intention
of instituting a St. Bartholomew's eve in Cochise County. Thus far he
had managed to get along with less bloodshed than many a man who had
not accomplished nearly as much as he. So now he went on with his task
as he had gone about his business always and proceeded to smoke out
the men who were responsible for this state of affairs.
It was not so hard to learn their identity as it was to get the proof
of what they were doing. That was slow work. But he had hired Bert
Alvord as his deputy with just this end in view. For Alvord was
hail-fellow-well-met in every bar-room of the county; owner of a
multitude of friends, many of whom were shady characters. In later
years he gained his own dark fame as an outlaw, but that was long
after John Slaughter left the office of sheriff.
At present Alvord was working honestly and hard, getting such
information as he could concerning who was who among the desperadoes,
gathering data as to their movements. The facts began to accumulate: a
word dropped in a gambling-hall, a name spoken before a noisy bar, a
whispered confidence from a prisoner who felt his companions had not
done all they might in his behalf.
Gradually the evidence took the shape of a long finger pointing toward
Juan Soto, who was living in the little town of Contention, as the
leader who was handling matters in the San Pedro valley. About this
time John Slaughter began riding out of Tombstone under cover of the
night. The days went by; the sheriff came back to Tombstone morning
after morning, red-eyed with weariness, put up his pony, and went
about his business saying nothing as usual.
One day news came to the county seat that two cattle-buyers had been
robbed and murdered down near the Mexican line. John Slaughter saddled
up and rode over to Charleston that morning, and when Juan Soto came
into town he met the sheriff who addressed him over the barrel of a
leveled forty-five.
"I'll just take you along with me to-day," John Slaughter said.
It was a good tight case. Tombstone was startled by the news that Juan
Soto had been a member of a bandit band in California. The sheriff was
able to give some first-hand testimony concerning the defendant's
nocturnal habits. But the community's excitement slumped to sullen
anger when the jury brought in its verdict and Juan Soto smiled as he
departed from the court-house a free man.
Things had reached a pass where a vigilance committee appeared to be
the appropriate climax. But that was not John Slaughter's way; if any
one were going to take the power of the high justice he proposed to be
the man. He rode over to Contention and camped in front of Juan
Soto's house late in the evening. The night passed, and when the
bandit leader came riding home from Charleston with the dawn, he saw
the sheriff standing before his door.
Both men reached for their revolvers at the same moment, but John
Slaughter's hand was quicker. It was his chance to kill; according to
the ethics of the gun-play he had that right. But he chose a different
course.
"Leave the country," he said. "If you're here after ten days, I'll
kill you on sight."
Soon after Juan Soto departed on his exile, the town of Wilcox over in
Sulphur Springs valley was treated to a sensation, in the banishment
of Van Wyck Coster. Every one thought Coster had enough money and
influence to keep him immune from legal proceedings, but John
Slaughter wasted none of the county's money in arrest or trial.
"I've known what you were doing for a long time now," he announced,
holding his revolver leveled on his auditor while he spoke. There was
some debate, but the sheriff clinched his argument by going into
details, and when he had finished outlining the prosecution's case he
delivered his ultimatum: "Get out or I'll kill you."
Coster joined Juan Soto in exile. And then it became a simple matter
of hunting down outlaws and bringing them in for trial. The arm of the
law was limbered and justice functioned in the Tombstone court-house
as well as it does in any city of the land; far better than is the
case in some more pretentious communities. There was of course plenty
of work left. Tombstone is full of stories of John Slaughter's
exploits.
A desperado, seeking to kill him, threw down on him as he was entering
a saloon. Caught unawares for once, the sheriff flung up his hand and,
as he grasped the pistol, thrust his thumb under the descending
hammer. Meantime he drew his own weapon and placed the man under
arrest. Two train-robbers sought to lure him to Wilcox by a decoy
letter stating that his nephew had been killed. The instinct which had
saved him from other ambuscades made him investigate; and when he
learned that his nephew was living he summoned a friend who made the
journey with him. The spectacle of these two old-timers emerging from
opposite doors of the day coach, each with a double-barreled shotgun
under his arm, drove the conspirators from the station platform. Years
afterward one of them confessed the details of the plot.
John Slaughter served two terms as sheriff, and when he retired from
office Cochise County was as peaceable as any county in the whole
Southwest. The old-timers who witnessed the passing of events during
his regime invariably speak of him when they are telling of great
gunmen. Yet, from the time when he started up the Pecos with that herd
in the spring of 1876 until the day when he went to his San Bernardino
ranch to take up life as a peaceful cattleman, he slew fewer men than
some whose names are absolutely unknown. What he did he managed to
accomplish in most instances without pulling a trigger. That was his
way.