Home : Gunfighters :

The Gunfighters

John O'Rourke ("Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce")

O'Rourke was a young gambler who, according to legend, was saved from lynching by Wyatt Earp. That incident was blown out of proportion, and the rest of his story is somewhat hazy. Earp, always a questionable source, repeated the rumor that O'Rourke was responsible for the death of Johnny Ringo in July, 1882, and that a friend of Ringo's called Pony Deal quickly chased the gambler and killed him in revenge.

Baz Outlaw ("Bass")

Reared in a good family in Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas, Outlaw was well educated and had fine manners but was feisty and a problem drinker. Reputedly he killed a man and then ran away to Texas. In 1885, Outlaw enlisted in the Texas Rangers and won rapid promotion to sergeant, but in Alpine he was discovered drunk on duty, and he was forced to resign. After a time he secured an appointment as a deputy U.S. marshal, although he was constantly warned to curb his drinking. He was killed during a wild gunfight in El Paso in 1894.

Commodore Perry Owens

Named after the War of 1812 hero of Lake Erie, Commodore Perry Owens was reared in Tennessee. As a youth he left home and spent a decade as a cowboy. He then drifted into Arizona as a stage station employee, also earning a reputation as a dead shot against Indians.

Owens began a horse ranch at Navajo Springs and later became sheriff of Apache County. After mowing down four opponents in an 1887 gunfight, Owens, who sported long hair, a brace of .45's, and two rifles, cut his mane and settled down to the peaceful occupation of rearing a family. After three years as sheriff, he became a detective for the Santa Fe Railroad and an express messenger for Wells, Fargo. He then became a businessman in Seligman, where he died in 1918.

Lewis Peacock

An influential landowner near Pilot Grove (also known as Lick Skillet), Texas, Peacock led a faction of local toughs in a post-Civil War feud in North Texas. Peacock wore the uniform of the Reconstruction Union League, an organization designed to help former slaves, and the conflict had racial overtones. The feud erupted in 1867 and lasted for four years, during which time the leaders of both sides (Peacock's opposition led by Bob Lee) were killed.

Tom Pickett

Reared in Decatur, Texas, Pickett got into trouble at the age of seventeen for stealing cattle. His father, a member of the state legislature and a former Confederate officer, mortgaged the family home and paid the heavy fine. Pickett then served briefly with the Texas Rangers, trailed a cattle herd to Kansas, and became a gambler in the wide-open cowtowns. He met rustler Dave Rudabaugh and followed him to New Mexico. There Tom served as a peace officer for a short time in Las Vegas and in White Oaks before hiring on as a cowhand for Charlie Bowdre in the Fort Sumner area. He soon fell into rustling with Bowdre, Rudabaugh, Billy the Kid, Billy Wilson, and Tom O'Folliard.

In December, 1880, O'Folliard was killed by Pat Garrett's posse in Fort Sumner, and Pickett and the others galloped away in a panic. A few days later they were captured after a siege in an isolated rock cabin. Released on three hundred dollars' bail, Pickett hung around Las Vegas for a while before drifting into northern Arizona. There he caught on with the Hash Knife outfit and participated in the GrahamTewksbury feud.

After receiving a serious leg wound, Pickett returned to punching cattle. In 1888 he married Catherine Kelly, whose mother ran a boarding house in Holbrook, Arizona. A year later, however, his wife died in childbirth, along with the baby, and Pickett again began wandering.

Pickett gambled professionally, tended bar, prospected for gold, worked as a cowhand, and served as a deputy U.S. marshal during the Wilson administration. At last he was forced to have his leg amputated, and he returned to northern Arizona. He died at seventysix in Pinetop and was laid to rest in Winslow.

His chest perforated by bullets, Charlie Pierce reposes in a Guthrie funeral parlor.

Charley Pierce

After unsuccessfully racing horses in Pawnee, Oklahoma, Pierce became a member of the Dalton gang during the 1890's. After that band was decimated at Coffeyville, Kansas, he joined Bill Doolin's Oklahombres. He participated in several holdups, but in 1895 he was killed by bounty hunters in Oklahoma.

Norrato Ponce

The leader of a group of bandits from 1860-65, Noratto Ponce gunned down a man at Governor's Saloon in the town of Hayward, Calif., on Oct. 3 1865. The killing occurred following a heated argument during a poker game. Ponce shot the man and rode away unmolested. Sheriff Harry Morse and a deputy caught up with Ponce a few days later. The lawmen and outlaw exchanged gunfire and though Ponce was severely wounded and his horse was shot out from under him, the bandit escaped. In November Morse heard that Ponce was at the home of Jose Rojos in Contra Costa County, recovering from his wounds. When Morse arrived at the house, he saw Ponce steal into the surrounding brush. Both men opened fire simultaneously, and Morse shot and killed Ponce.

Sylvester Powell

Powell was a man of normally quiet demeanor who was rash and deadly, "a perfect demon," when drinking. Wichita policemen and saloon keepers were well aware of this trait, and Powell was widely rumored to have killed two men - one by brutally employing brass knuckles - before coming to the cattle town. While in Wichita, Powell was hired as a city bus driver by the Southwestern Stage Company. He was killed after a vicious exchange of gunfire with Marshal Mike Meagher in 1877.

Charlie Reed

Reed was a drifter on the cattle frontier who was known as something of a hard case. In the mid1870's he became involved with the rustling ring operated by John Selman and John Larn in the vicinity of Fort Griffin, Texas. After a shootout in Fort Griffin, he wandered to Nebraska, where he was eventually killed.

Jim Reed

Reed was born eight miles from the Missouri hamlet of Rich Hill, where his father was a large landholder. When Jim was seventeen his family moved to Carthage, where he met a thirteen- year-old girl named Myra Belle Shirley, later to be known as Belle Starr. The two adolescents courted, and after a clash with her father, Reed had a bloodless shootout with John Shirley. By this time the Civil War had broken out, and Reed joined a group of guerrilla raiders. This taste of lawless plunder set the tone for the remainder of his life.

After the war Reed became embroiled in a Missouri feud and killed two men. He fled the state and went to Texas. where he again encountered Myra Belle. Her family had moved to Scyene, near Dallas, and she became his concubine. She already had a daughter named Pearl, whom she claimed was sired by Cole Younger.

Reed, Belle, and Pearl now migrated to Dallas, and the lovers soon produced a son they christened Eddie. After pulling a couple of holdups out of the state, Reed and his "family" returned to Texas, where he bought a farm near Scyene. On November 30, 1873, Reed, Belle, Dan Evans, and another thief ventured into Oklahoma and went to the cabin of Watt Grayson on the North Canadian River. Grayson was a Creek Indian chief who handled government subsidies for his tribe, and Reed's gang tor- tured him until he revealed where they could find thirty thousand dollars.

For this and a variety of other misdeeds Reed soon was hotly pressed by the law, and he was forced to leave Belle. On April 7, 1874, Reed and two other holdup men robbed a stagecoach near Blanco, Texas, and rewards totaling four thousand dollars were posted for him. Within a few months a close acquaintance killed him for the bounty on his head.

Barney Riggs

A West Texan, Riggs frequently became involved in altercations and seemed never reluctant to use a gun. Following one fatal fray in Arizona (cowboy Riggs killed his employer over a mutual sweetheart), he was sentenced to life in Yuma Territorial Prison. But he saved the warden's life during an attempted escape and won a pardon. Riggs then returned to Texas, where he began ranching near Toyah, married a sister of Bud Frazer, and became involved in the feud between Sheriff Frazer and Killin' Jim Miller. Riggs killed two of Miller's men in a saloon fight, but eluded further trouble until he was killed by his step-grandson in Fort Stockton.

Jim Riley

Virtually nothing is known about Riley aside from his lethal activities during the bloody gunfight known as Newton's General Massacre. But his participation in one of the West's most remarkable shooting scrapes places him in any broad listing of frontier killers.

At the age of eighteen Riley appeared in Newton, which, in 1871, was a tough Kansas railhead and booming cowtown. Riley was a frail consumptive who attached himself to big Mike McCluskie, a brawling railroad crew foreman. McCluskie killed a Texas gambler and ten days later was threatened by several cowboys from the Lone Star state. Riley alertly was on the scene when the Texans attacked McCluskie, and within a few moments he earned himself a small share of notoriety in western history.

Andrew L. Roberts ("Buckshot")

A native of the South, Roberts had a widespread but rather vague reputation as a desperado and gunman. He was rumored to have been an army deserter, a convict, a Texas Ranger, and an enemy of Texas Rangers. Supposedly he had come to New Mexico after having a shootout with the rangers, and his body movements were permanently impaired because he had been severely wounded in some obscure gun battle. He was lame and fired his rifle from the hip because he was unable to raise it above waist level.

Roberts acquired his sobriquet because he like to use a shotgun, because he carried a load of buckshot in his body, or because he had left Texas with shotguns blazing at his fleeing figure. He was a member of the Lincoln County posse which assassinated rancher John Tunstall, and a short time later he was himself shot to death by another posse in a bloody shootout at Blazer's Mill.

Jim Roberts

Roberts first appeared in western history as a gunfighter for the Tewksbury clan in Arizona's Pleasant Valley War. He was one of the suspects in killing the senior member of the Graham family, and he was a known participant in subsequent shooting scrapes. Following the feud, he was cleared of legal charges, whereupon he pinned on a badge which he wore until his death.

Roberts was a law officer in several mining towns, including Jerome, Arizona, where he was marshal for a number of years. At the age of seventy he shot it out with bank robbers in Clarkdale. where he spent the last years of his life as a special officer for the United Verde Copper Company. He died of a heart attack in the streets of Clarkdale in 1934.

Judd Roberts

Roberts first achieved notoriety in 1885 when he led a gang of four men in robbing and killing a rancher named Brautigen in Fredericksburg. Texas. Texas Rangers captured Roberts and one of his confederates, and since lynching fever was high in Fredericksburg, the two outlaws were transferred to the new, "escape-proof" jail in San Antonio. (Indeed, a short time later a Fredericksburg posse captured a third member of Roberts' gang, and the local jail "immediately and mysteriously" burned down, roasting the desperado alive.)

After four months Roberts and his cohort escaped from the San Antonio jail, and Roberts soon was stealing horses in the Texas Panhandle. He periodically visited Williamson County to see relatives and friends, and Texas Ranger Ira Aten was dispatched to intercept him. After several clashes and near misses, Aten and future Ranger John Hughes killed Roberts in the Panhandle.

Ben F. Robertson ("Ben Wheeler")

Robertson was the son of a respected Texas family, and his brother became the general land agent for the state. Ben made nothing of himself, however, and following a shooting scrape, he deserted his wife and four children and went to Cheyenne. He worked as a cowboy for a few years, then drifted to Indianola, Nebraska.

There Robertson married Alice Wheeler in November, 1881, using the name Ben F. Burton. They lived with her parents until the next spring, when he deserted her and went to Caldwell, Kansas, where Marshal Henry Brown appointed him deputy in December, 1882. His second wife found him there, but he sent her back to Indianola, telling her that if she would stay at home he would send money to her and their child. After one and one-half years as an efficient peace officer, "Wheeler" (the alias he used in Kansas) was lynched because of his participation in one of the West's most notorious bank robberies.

David Rudabaugh

Dave Rudabaugh was a thorough scoundrel whose first notoriety came in the late 1870's as leader of a gang of thieves and rustlers in Texas. By 1878 he had shifted his activities to Kansas, where he led four men in a train holdup at Kinsley on Sunday, January 27. But a few days later Rudabaugh and Edgar West were caught in camp by Bat Masterson and a posse; Dave went for his gun, but was forced to surrender when John Joshua Webb threw down on him. Later, two of Dave's other accomplices were arrested, but Rudabaugh won release by giving evidence against his fellow thieves.

Rudabaugh piously pledged "to earn his living on the square," but he soon drifted to New Mexico and resumed his customary activities. In 1879 he was involved in stagecoach and train robberies in the vicinity of Las Vegas. In Las Vegas he was reunited with several Kansas associates who plagued the town for six months with thievery and confidence games. This "Dodge City gang" was supported by City Marshal John Joshua Webb, but when the marshal was arrested for murder in March, 1880, the gang dispersed.

Rudabaugh, who obviously had forgiven Webb for arresting him two years earlier, attempted to break the wayward lawman out of jail. Rudabaugh suc- ceeded only in killing a peace officer, however, and he then fled and joined Billy the Kid's band of outlaws. With the Kid he was involved in rustling and shooting scrapes. Following a dogged pursuit by Pat Garrett, Rudabaugh surrendered with the Kid in December, 1880. Convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged, he was incarcerated in Las Vegas, where John Joshua Webb was serving time.

Rudabaugh, Webb, and two others tried to shoot their way out of jail in September, 1881, and two months later Rudabaugh, Webb, and five other prisoners successfully escaped by digging through the walls. Rudabaugh and Webb went to Texas and on to Mexico, where Webb disappeared. Rudabaugh became foreman of a ranch owned by the governor of Chihuahua, but following rustling difficulties he fled to Parral, where, after robbing and shooting incidents, he was beheaded in 1886.

Thomas H. Rynning

Orphaned by the time he was twelve, Tom Rynning drifted west as a teenager, working as a teamster and cowboy in Texas. In 1885 he enlisted in the Eighth U.S. Cavalry, and was soon transferred from Texas to Arizona, where he saw action in the final campaign against Geronimo. In 1891 he left the army, performed in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and then rode with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. After his discharge Rynning married and settled in Arizona Territory. In 1902 he was appointed captain of the Arizona Rangers, serving for five years until his appointment as superintendent of the Territorial Prison at Yuma. He died in 1941 at the age of seventy-five.

Ernest St. Leon ("Diamond Dick")

Reared in San Antonio, Ernest St. Leon was the son of a refugee Frenchman. As a youth he abandoned the study of law to join the U.S. Cavalry, and after several Indian campaigns he attained the rank of sergeant. On one occasion he was reputed to have gunned down three Indians who had killed one of his men.

In the 1880's St. Leon left the army and soon joined Company D of the Texas Rangers. Nicknamed "Diamond Dick" because he adorned himself with large diamonds, St. Leon developed a drinking problem and was dismissed from the rangers. Corporal John Hughes entrusted him with an undercover mission, however, and St. Leon performed so well that he was reinstated and handed further undercover assignments. A year and onc half later. unfortunately, he was killed in a saloon fight.

Yginio Salazar

Salazar's primary notoriety as a gunfighter stems from his participation in the Lincoln County War. Although just fifteen years of age, he signed on with the Alexander McSween faction, which was enlisting anyone willing to brandish a gun. He was in only one fight - the climactic battle in Lincoln in which he enjoyed a miraculous escape from death. After recovering from his wounds, he joined Governor Lew Wallace's "Lincoln County Riflemen," which existed briefly to assist the authorities in restoring order.

At about that time Salazar furnished Billy the Kid with a file and other tools which the outlaw used to free himself from his shackles just before he shot his way out of custody in Lincoln. When the hostilities finally ceased, Salazar remained in Lincoln for the rest of a long and peaceful existence.

George W. Scarborough

Scarborough was a Baptist preacher's son who became a Texas cowboy. After a sojourn in rugged Fort Griffin, he served as sheriff of Jones County and as a deputy U.S. marshal in the El Paso area during the 1890's. While in El Paso he had dealings with such gunmen as John Selman, Wes Hardin, and Jeff Milton. His acquaintance with Selman went back a number of years, but in El Paso the two men clashed, and in 1896 Scarborough shot Selman to death.

Scarborough resigned his deputy's commission, but after he was acquitted he found work as a detective in Deming, New Mexico, for the Grant County Cattlemen's Association. It was in that capacity that he was killed while chasing cattle rustlers in 1900.

There are some historians that say that Doc Scurlock lived past the gunfight of 1882. This could be more of the Billy the Kid myth, but I did recieve the following email: I am a genealogist & writer and thought you might want to know that there are census records of Doc, very much alive, after 1900. I can email them to you if you need proof. Doc went straight and lived to be 90 or so. Have a photo of the old gent as well. You can make up your own mind.

Josiah G. Scurlock ("Doc")

After a killing in his native Tennessee, Scurlock fled to South America, then worked his way back toward the States through Mexico. Scurlock appeared in New Mexico during the 1870's as a cowhand on John Chisum's huge ranch. (The two men had known each other in Tennessee, and Chisum tried to have Scurlock cleared of murder charges.) In 1876 Scurlock was involved in the shooting of his friend Mike Harkins, but it was determined that the latter's death was accidental.

Scurlock married a native New Mexican and acquired a tiny spread of his own, but when the Lincoln County War erupted, he hired his gun to the McSween "Regulators." He was a member of the possee which killed Frank Baker and Billy Morton, and he was present at the battle at Blazer's Mill which resulted in the deaths of Dick Brewer and Buckshot Roberts. He was a participant in the big shootout in Lincoln, then joined Billy the Kid's band of fugitives and cattle rustlers. He seemed to realize the futility of this way of life, however, and he soon rejoined his family and found employment on Pete Maxwell's Fort Sumner ranch. But his reform proved to be temporary, and he was killed in a gunfight in 1882.

more »

---

top of page

back a page