THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER
Life was never dull in Grant County, New Mexico, in the early eighties.
There was always something doing--usually something the average
law-abiding, peace-loving citizen would have been glad enough to dispense
with. To say that life then and there was insecure is to describe
altogether too feebly a state of society and an environment wherein
Death, in one violent form or another, was ever abroad, seldom long idle,
always alert for victims.
When the San Carlos Apaches, under Victoria, Ju, or Geronimo, were not
out gunning for the whites, the whites were usually out gunning for one
another over some trivial difference. Everybody carried a gun and was
more or less handy with it. Indeed, it was a downright bad plan to carry
one unless you were handy. For with gunning--the game most played, if
not precisely the most popular--every one was supposed to be familiar
with the rules and to know how to play; and in a game where every hand is
sure to be "called," no one ever suspected another of being out on a
sheer "bluff." Thus the coroner invariably declared it a case of suicide
where one man drew a gun on another and failed to use it.
This highly explosive state of society was not due to the fact that there
were few peaceable men in the country for there were many of them, men of
character and education, honest, and as law-abiding as their peculiar
environment would permit. Moreover, the percentage of professional "bad
men"--and this was a profession then--was comparatively small. It was
due rather to the fact that every one, no matter how peaceable his
inclinations, was compelled to carry arms habitually for self-defence,
for the Apaches were constantly raiding outside the towns, and white
outlaws inside. And with any class of men who constantly carry arms, it
always falls out that a weapon is the arbiter of even those minor
personal differences which in the older and more effete civilization of
the East are settled with fists or in a petty court.
The prevailing local contempt for any man who was too timid to "put up a
gun fight" when the etiquette of a situation demanded it, was expressed
locally in the phrase that one "could take a corncob and a lightning bug
and make him run himself to death trying to get away." It is clearly
unnecessary to explain why the few men of this sort in the community did
not occupy positions of any particular prominence. Their opinions did
not seem to carry as much weight as those of other gentlemen who were
known to be notably quick to draw and shoot.
I even recall many instances where the pistol entered into the pastimes
of the community. One instance will stand telling:
A game of poker (rather a stiff one) had been going on for about a
fortnight in the Red Light Saloon. The same group of men, five or six
old friends, made up the game every day. All had varying success but
one, who lost every day. And, come to think of it, his luck varied too,
for some days he lost more than others. While he did not say much about
his losings, it was observed that temper was not improving.
This sort of thing went on for thirteen days. The thirteenth day the
loser happened to come in a little late, after the game was started. It
also happened that on this particular day one of the players had brought
in a friend, a stranger in the town, to join the game, When the loser
came in, therefore, he was introduced to the stranger and sat down. A
hand was dealt him. He started to play it, stopped, rapped on the table
attention, and said:
"Boys, I want to make a personal explanation to this yere stranger.
Stranger, this yere game is sure a tight wad for a smoothbore. I'm loser
in it, an' a heavy one, for exactly thirteen days, and these boys all
understand that the first son of a gun I find I can beat, I'm going to
take a six-shooter an' make him play with me a week. Now, if you has no
objections to my rules, you can draw cards."
Luckily for the stranger, perhaps, the thirteenth was as bad for the
loser as its predecessors.
Outside the towns there were only three occupations in Grant County in
those years, cattle ranching, mining and fighting Apaches, all of a sort
to attract and hold none but the sturdiest types of real manhood, men
inured to danger and reckless of it. In the early eighties no
faint-heart came to Grant County unless he blundered in--and any such
were soon burning the shortest trail out. These men were never better
described in a line than when, years ago, at a banquet of California
Forty-niners, Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, speaking of the
splendid types the men of forty-nine represented, said:
"The cowards never started, and all the weak died on the road!"
Within the towns, also, there were only three occupations: first,
supplying the cowmen and miners whatever they needed, merchandise wet and
dry, law mundane and spiritual, for although neither court nor churches
were working overtime, they were available for the few who had any use
for them; second, gambling, at monte, poker, or faro; and, third,
figuring how to slip through the next twenty-four hours without getting a
heavier load of lead in one's system than could be conveniently carried,
or how to stay happily half shot and yet avoid coming home on a shutter,
unhappily shot, or, having an active enemy on hand, how best to "get" him.
Thus, while plainly the occupations of Grant County folk were somewhat
limited in variety, in the matter of interest and excitement their games
were wide open and the roof off.
Nor did all the perils to life in Grant County lurk within the burnished
grooves of a gun barrel, according to certain local points of view, for
always it is the most unusual that most alarms, as when one of my cowboys
"allowed he'd go to town for a week," and was back on the ranch the
evening of the second day. Asked why he was back so soon, he replied:
"Well, fellers, one o' them big depot water tanks burnt plumb up this
mawnin', an' reckonin' whar that'd happen a feller might ketch fire
anywhere in them little old town trails, I jes' nachally pulled my
freight for camp!"
But a cowboy is the subject of this story--Kit Joy. His genus, and
striking types of the genus, have been cleverly described, especially by
Lewis and by Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need say little
of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's most notable and most admirable
traits has not been emphasized so much as it deserves: I mean his
downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No real cowboy ever
wilfully insulted any woman, or lost a chance to resent any insult
offered by another. Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never
broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that when one day a cowboy,
in a crowded car of a train held up by bandits, was appealed to by an
Eastern lady in the next seat,--
"Heavens! I have four hundred dollars in my purse which I cannot afford
to lose; please, sir, tell me how I can hide it."
Instantly came the answer:
"Shucks! miss, stick it in yer sock; them fellers has nerve enough to
hold up a train an' kill any feller that puts up a fight, but nary one o'
them has nerve enough to go into a woman's sock after her bank roll!"
Kit Joy was a cowboy working on the X ranch on the Gila. He was a
youngster little over twenty. It was said of him that he had left behind
him in Texas more or less history not best written in black ink, but
whether this was true or not I do not know. Certain it is that he was a
reckless dare-devil, always foremost in the little amenities cowboys
loved to indulge in when they came to town such as shooting out the
lights in saloons and generally "shelling up the settlement,"--which
meant taking a friendly shot at about everything that showed up on the
streets. Nevertheless, Kit in the main was thoroughly good-natured and
amiable.
Early in his career in Silver City it was observed that perhaps his most
distinguishing trait was curiosity. Ultimately his curiosity got him
into trouble, as it does most people who indulge it. His first display
of curiosity in Silver was a very great surprise, even to those who knew
him best. It was also a disappointment.
A tenderfoot, newly arrived, appeared on the streets one day in
knickerbockers and stockings. Kit was in town and was observed watching
the tenderfoot. To the average cowboy a silk top hat was like a red flag
to a bull, so much like it in fact that the hat was usually lucky to
escape with less than half a dozen holes through it. But here in these
knee-breeches and stockings was something much more bizarre and
exasperating than a top hat, from a cowboy's point of view. The effect
on Kit was therefore closely watched by the bystanders.
No one fancied for a moment that Kit would do less than undertake to
teach the tenderfoot "the cowboy's hornpipe," not a particularly graceful
but a very quick step, which is danced most artistically when a bystander
is shooting at the dancer's toes. Indeed, the ball was expected to open
early. To every one's surprise and disappointment, it did not. Instead,
Kit dropped in behind the tenderfoot and began to follow him about
town--followed him for at least an hour. Every one thought he was
studying up some more unique penalty for the tenderfoot. But they were
wrong, all wrong.
As a matter of fact. Kit was so far consumed with curiosity that he
forgot everything else, forgot even to be angry. At last, when he could
stand it no longer, he walked up to the tenderfoot, detained him gently
by the sleeve and asked in a tone of real sympathy and concern: "Say,
mistah! 'Fo' God, won't yo' mah let yo' wear long pants?"
Naturally the tenderfoot's indignation was aroused and expressed, but
Kit's sympathies for a man condemned to such a juvenile costume were so
far stirred that he took no notice of it.
Kit was a typical cowboy, industrious, faithful, uncomplaining, of the
good old Southern Texas breed. In the saddle from daylight till dark,
riding completely down to the last jump in them two or three horses a
day, it never occurred to him even to growl when a stormy night, with
thunder and lightning, prolonged his customary three-hour's turn at night
guard round the herd to an all-night's vigil. He took it as a matter of
course. And his rope and running iron were ever ready, and his weather
eye alert for a chance to catch and decorate with the X brand any stray
cattle that ventured within his range. This was a peculiar phase of
cowboy character. While not himself profiting a penny by these inroads
on neighboring herds, he was never quite so happy as when he had added
another maverick to the herd bearing his employer's brand, an increase
always obtained at the expense of some of the neighbors.
One night on the Spring round-up, the day's work finished, supper eaten,
the night horses caught and saddled, the herd in hand driven into a close
circle and bedded down for the night in a little glade in the hills, Kit
was standing first relief. The day's drive had been a heavy one, the
herd was well grazed and watered in the late afternoon, the night was
fine; and so the twelve hundred or fifteen hundred cattle in the herd
were lying down quietly, giving no trouble to the night herders. Kit,
therefore, was jogging slowly round the herd, softly jingling his spurs
and humming some rude love song of the sultry sort cowboys never tire of
repeating. The stillness of the night superinduced reflection. With
naught to interrupt it, Kit's curiosity ran farther afield than usual.
Recently down at Lordsburg, with the outfit shipping a train load of
beeves, he had seen the Overland Express empty its load of passengers for
supper, a crowd of well-dressed men and women, the latter brilliant with
the bright colors cowboys love and with glittering gems. To-night he got
to thinking about them.
Wherever did they all come from? How ever did they get so much money?
Surely they must come from 'Frisco. No lesser place could possibly turn
out such magnificence. Then Kit let his fancy wander off into crude
cowboy visions of what 'Frisco might be like, for he had never seen a
city.
"What a buster of a town 'Frisco must be!" Kit soliloquized. "Must have
more'n a hundred saloons an' more slick gals than the X brand has
heifers. What a lot o' fun a feller could have out thar! Only I reckon
them gals wouldn't look at him more'n about onct unless he was well fixed
for dough. Reckon they don't drink nothin' but wine out thar, nor eat
nothin' but oysters. An' wine an' oysters costs money, oodles o' money!
That's the worst of it! S'pose it'd take more'n a month's pay to git a
feller out thar on the kiars, an' then about three months' pay to git to
stay a week. Reckon that's jes' a little too rich for Kit's blood. But,
jiminy! Wouldn't I like to have a good, big, fat bank roll an' go thar!"
Here was a crisis suddenly come in Kit's life, although he did not then
realize it. It is entirely improbable he had ever before felt the want
of money. His monthly pay of thirty-five dollars enabled him to sport a
pearl-handled six-shooter and silver-mounted bridle bit and spurs, kept
him well clothed, and gave him an occasional spree in town. What more
could any reasonable cowboy ask?
But to-night the very elements and all nature were against him. Even a
light dash of rain to rouse the sleeping herd, or a hungry cow straying
out into the darkness, would have been sufficient to divert and probably
save him; but nothing happened. The night continued fine. The herd
slept on. And Kit was thus left an easy prey, since covetousness had
come to aid curiosity in compassing his ruin.
"A bank roll! A big, fat, full-grown, long-horned, four-year-old roll!
_That's_ what a feller wants to do 'Frisco right. Nothin' less. But
whar's it comin' from, an' when? S'pose I brands a few mavericks an'
gits a start on my own? No use, Kit; that's too slow! Time you got a
proper roll you'd be so old the skeeters wouldn't even bite you, to say
nothin' of a gal a-kissin' of you. 'Pears like you ain't liable to git
thar very quick, Kit, 'less you rustles mighty peart somewhar. Talkin'
of rustlin', what's the matter with that anyway?"
A cold glitter came in Kit's light blue eyes. The muscles of his lean,
square jaws worked nervously. His right hand dropped caressingly on the
handle of his pistol.
"That's the proper caper, Kit. Why didn't you think of it before?
Rustle, damn you, an', ef you're any good, mebbe so you can git to
'Frisco afore frost comes, or anywhere else you likes. Rustle! By
jiminy, I've got it; I'll jes' stand up that thar Overland Express. Them
fellers what rides on it's got more'n they've got any sort o' use for.
What's the matter with makin' 'em whack up with a feller! 'Course
they'll kick, an' thar'll be a whole passle o' marshals an' sheriffs out
after you, but what o' that? Reckon Old Blue'll carry you out o' range.
He's the longest-winded chunk o' horse meat in these parts. Then you'll
have to stay out strictly on the scout fer a few weeks, till they gits
tired o' huntin' of you, so you can slip out o' this yere neck o' woods
'thout leavin' a trail.
"An' Lord! but won't it be fun! 'Bout as much fun, I reckon, as doin'
'Frisco. Won't them tenderfeet beller when they hears the guns
a-crackin' an' the boys a-yellin'! Le' see; wonder who I'd better take
along?"
Scruples? Kit had none. Bred and raised a merry freebooter on the
unbranded spoils of the cattle range, it was no long step from stealing a
maverick to holding up a train.
With a man of perhaps any other class, a plan to engage in a new business
enterprise of so much greater magnitude than any of those he had been
accustomed to would have been made the subject of long consideration.
Not so with Kit. Cowboy life compels a man to think quickly, and often
to act quicker than he finds it convenient to think. The hand skilled to
catch the one possible instant when the wide, circling loop of the lariat
may be successfully thrown, and the eye and finger trained to accurate
snap-shooting, do not well go with a mind likely to be long in reaching a
resolution or slow to execute one.
So Kit at once began to cast about for two or three of the right sort of
boys to join him. Three were quickly chosen out of his own and a
neighboring outfit. They were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cowboys
of his own type and temper, and George Cleveland, a negro, known as a
desperate fellow, game for anything. It needed no great argument to
secure the co-operation of these men. A mere tip of the lark and the
loot to be had was enough.
The boys saw their respective bosses. They "allowed they'd lay off for a
few days and go to town." So they were paid off, slung their Winchesters
on their saddles, mounted their favorite horses, and rode away. They met
in Silver City, coming in singly. There they purchased a few provisions.
Then they separated and rode singly out of town, to rendezvous at a
certain point on the Miembres River.
The point of attack chosen was the little station of Gage (tended by a
lone operator), on the Southern Pacific Railway west of Deming, a point
then reached by the west-bound express at twilight. The evening of the
second day after leaving the Gila, Kit and his three compadres rode into
Gage. One or two significant passes with a six-shooter hypnotized the
station agent into a docile tool. A dim red light glimmered away off in
the east. As the minutes passed, it grew and brightened fast. Then a
faint, confused murmur came singing over the rails to the ears of the
waiting bandits. The light brightened and grew until it looked like a
great dull red sun, and then the thunder of the train was heard.
Time for action had come!
The agent was made to signal the engineer to stop. With lever reversed
and air brakes on, the train was nearly stopped when the engine reached
the station. But seeing the agent surrounded by a group of armed men,
the engineer shut off the air and sought to throw his throttle open. His
purpose discovered, a quick snapshot from Mitch Lee laid him dead, and,
springing into the cab, Mitch soon persuaded the fireman to stop the
train.
Instantly a fusillade of pistol shots and a mad chorus of shrill cowboy
yells broke out, that terrorized train crew and passengers into docility.
Within fifteen minutes the express car was sacked, the postal car gutted,
the passengers were laid under unwilling contribution, and Kit and his
pals were riding northward into the night, heavily loaded with loot.
Riding at great speed due north, the party soon reached the main
travelled road up the Miembres, in whose loose drifting sands they knew
their trail could not be picked up. Still forcing the pace, they reached
the rough hill-country east of Silver early in the night, _cached_ their
plunder safely, and a little after midnight were carelessly bucking a
monte game in a Silver City saloon. The next afternoon they quietly rode
out of town and joined their respective outfits, to wait until the
excitement should blow over.
Of course the telegraph soon started the hue and cry. Officers from
Silver, Deming, and Lordsburg were soon on the ground, led by Harvey
Whitehill, the famous old sheriff of Grant County. But of clue there was
none. Naturally the station agent had come safely out of his trance, but
with that absence of memory of what had happened characteristic of the
hypnotized. The trail disappeared in the sands of the Miembres road.
Shrewd old Harvey Whitehill was at his wits' end.
Many days passed in fruitless search. At last, riding one day across the
plain at some distance from the line of flight north from Gage, Whitehill
found a fragment of a Kansas newspaper. As soon as he saw it he
remembered that a certain merchant of Silver came from the Kansas town
where this paper was published. Hurrying back to Silver, Whitehill saw
the merchant, who identified the paper and said that he undoubtedly was
its only subscriber in Silver. Asked if he had given a copy to any one,
he finally recalled that some time before, about the period of the
robbery, he had wrapped in a piece this newspaper some provisions he had
sold to a negro named Cleveland and a white man he did not know.
Here was the clue, and Whitehill was quick to follow it. Meeting a negro
on the street, he pretended to want to hire a cook. The negro had a job.
Well, did he not know some one else? By the way, where was George
Cleveland?
"Oh, boss, he done left de Gila dis week an' gone ober to Socorro," was
the answer.
Two days later Whitehill found Cleveland in a Socorro restaurant, got the
"drop" on him, told him his pals were arrested and had confessed that
they were in the robbery, but that he, Cleveland, had killed Engineer
Webster. This brought the whole story.
"'Foh God, boss, I nebber killed dat engineer. Mitch Lee done it, an'
him an' Taggart an' Kit Joy, dey done lied to you outrageous."
Within a few days, caught singly, in ignorance of Cleveland's arrest, and
taken completely by surprise, Joy, Taggart, and Lee were captured on the
Gila and jailed, along with Cleveland, at Silver City, held to await the
action of the next grand jury.
But strong walls did not a prison make adequate hold these men. Before
many weeks passed, an escape was planned and executed. Two other
prisoners, one a man wanted in Arizona, and the other a Mexican
horse-thief, were allowed to participate in the outbreak.
Taken unawares, their guard was seized and bound with little difficulty.
Quickly arming themselves in the jail office, these six desperate men
dashed out of the jail and into a neighboring livery stable, seized
horses, mounted, and rode madly out of town, firing at every one in
sight. In Silver in those days no gentleman's trousers fitted
comfortably without a pistol stuck in the waistband. Therefore, the
flying desperadoes received as hot a fire as they sent. By this fire
Cleveland's horse was killed before they got out of town, but one of his
pals stopped and picked him up.
Instantly the town was in an uproar of excitement. Every one knew that
the capture of these men meant a fight to the death. As usual in such
emergencies, there were more talkers than fighters. Nevertheless, six
men were in pursuit as soon as they could saddle and mount. The first to
start was the driver of an express wagon, a man named Jackson, who cut
his horse loose from the traces, mounted bareback, and flew out of town
only a few hundred yards behind the prisoners. Six others, led by
Charlie Shannon and La Fer, were not far behind Jackson. The men of this
party were greatly surprised to find that a Boston boy of twenty, a
tenderfoot lately come to town, who had scarcely ever ridden a horse or
fired a rifle, was among their number, well mounted and armed--a man with
a line of ancestry worth while, and himself a worthy survival of the best
of it.
The chase was hot. Jackson was well in advance, engaging the fugitives
with his pistol, while the fugitives were returning the fire and throwing
up puffs of dust all about Jackson. Behind spurred Shannon and his party.
At length the pursuit gained. Five miles out of Silver, in the Piñon
Hills to the northwest, too close pressed to run farther, the fugitives
sprang from their horses and ran into a low post oak thicket covering
about two acres, where, crouching, they could not be seen. The six
pursuers sent back a man to guide the sheriff's party and hasten
reinforcements, and began shelling the thicket and surrounding it. A few
minutes later Whitehill rode up with seven more men, and the thicket was
effectually surrounded. To the surprise of every one, a hot fire poured
into the thicket failed to bring a single answering shot. Whitehill was
no man to waste ammunition on such chance firing, so he ordered a charge.
His little command rode into and through the thicket at full speed, only
to find their quarry gone, gone all save one. The Mexican lay dead, shot
through the head! Kit's party had dashed through the thicket without
stopping, on to another, and their trail was shortly found leading up a
rugged cañon of the Pinos Altos Range.
Whitehill divided his party. Three men followed up the bottom of the
cañon on foot, five mounted flankers were thrown out on either side. At
last, high up the cañon, Kit's party was found at bay, lying in some
thick underbrush. It was a desperate position to attack, but the
pursuers did not hesitate. Dismounting, they advanced on foot with
rifles cocked, but with all the caution of a hunter trailing a wounded
grizzly. The negro opened the ball at barely twenty yards' range with a
shot that drove a hole through the Boston boy's hat. Dropping at first
with surprise, for he had not seen the negro till the instant he rose to
fire, the Boston boy returned a quick shot that happened to hit the negro
just above the centre of the forehead and rolled him over dead.
Approaching from another direction, Shannon was first to draw Taggart's
file. Taggart was lying hidden in the brush; Shannon standing out in the
open. Shot after shot they exchanged, until presently a ball struck the
earth in front of Taggart's face and filled his eyes full of gravel and
sand. Blinded for the time, he called for quarter, and came out of the
brush with his hands up and another man with him. Asked for his pistol,
Taggart replied:
"Damn you, that's empty, or I'd be shooting yet."
Meantime, Whitehill was engaging Mitch Lee. In a few minutes, shot
through and helpless, Lee surrendered.
It was quick, hot work!
All but Kit were now killed or captured. He had been separated from his
party, and La Fer was seen trailing him on a neighboring hillside.
At this juncture the sheriff detailed Shannon to return to town and get a
wagon to bring in the dead and wounded, while he started to join La Fer
in pursuit of Kit.
An hour later, as Shannon was leaving town with a wagon to return to the
scene of the fight, a mob of men, led by a shyster lawyer, joined him and
swore they proposed to lynch the prisoners. This was too much for
Shannon's sense of frontier proprieties. So, rising in his wagon, he
made a brief but effective speech.
"Boys, none of our men are hurt, although it is no fault of our
prisoners. A dozen of us have gone out and risked our lives to capture
these men. You men have not seen fit, for what motives we will not
discuss, to help us. Now, I tell you right here that any who want can
come, but the first man to raise a hand against a prisoner I'll kill."
Shannon's return escort was small.
But once more back in the hills of the Pinos Altos, Shannon found a storm
raised he could not quell, even if his own sympathies had not drifted
with it when he learned its cause. His friend La Fer lay dead, filled
full of buckshot by Kit before Whitehill's reinforcements had reached
him, while Kit had slipped away through the underbrush, over rocks that
left no trail.
La Fer's death maddened his friends. There was little discussion. Only
one opinion prevailed. Taggart and Lee must die.
Nothing was known of the prisoner wanted in Arizona, so he was spared.
Taggart and Lee were put in the wagon, the former tightly bound, the
latter helpless from his wound. Short rope halters barely five feet long
were stripped from the horses, knotted round the prisoners' necks, and
fastened to the limb of a juniper tree. Taggart climbed to the high
wagon seat, took a header and broke his neck. The wagon was then pulled
away and Lee strangled.
With Cleveland, Lee, and Taggart dead, Engineer Webster and La Fer were
fairly well avenged. But Kit was still out, known as the leader and the
man who shot La Fer, and for days the hills were full of men hunting him.
Hiding in the rugged, thickly timbered hills of the Gila, taking needed
food at night, at the muzzle of his gun, from some isolated ranch, he was
hard to capture.
Had Kit chosen to mount himself and ride out of the country, he might
have escaped for good. But this he would not do. Dominated still by the
fatal curiosity and covetousness that first possessed him, later mastered
him, and then drove him into crime, bound to repossess himself of his
hidden treasure and go out to see the world, Kit would not leave the
Gila. He was alone, unaided, with no man left his friend, with all men
on the alert to capture or to kill him, the unequal contest nevertheless
lasted for many weeks.
There was only one man Kit at all trusted, a "nester" (small ranchman)
named Racketty Smith. One day, looking out from a leafy thicket in which
he lay hid, saw Racketty going along the road. A lonely outcast, craving
the sound of a human voice, believing Racketty at least neutral, Kit
hailed him and approached. As he drew near, Racketty covered him with
his rifle and ordered him to surrender. Surprised, taken entirely
unawares, Kit started to jump for cover, when Racketty fired, shattered
his right leg and brought him to earth. To spring upon and disarm Kit
was the work of an instant.
Kit was sentenced to imprisonment at Santa Fe. A few years ago, having
gained three years by good behavior, Kit was released, after having
served fourteen years.
However Kit may still hanker for "a big, fat, four-year-old, long-horned
bank roll," and whatever may be his curiosity to "do 'Frisco proper," it
is not likely he will make any more history as a train robber, for at
heart Kit was always a better "good man" than "bad man."