Billy the Kid's Escape: 132 Years Later

April 28th, 2013.  It was on a Thursday, 132 years ago today that the outlaw, Billy the Kid, gunned down two Lincoln County deputies and escaped from his quarters in the Lincoln County Courthouse.  One-hundred and thirty-two years ago, and still Billy's legend lives on -- six times as long as Billy's own life span.

I have a special interest in Billy's last days.  It was on a 150-mile trail ride, just a few years ago, that I met my future husband.  It was he, a new acquaintance at the time, who gave me my first tour of that very Lincoln County Courthouse, and walked me through the stairway in which Billy killed Deputy Sheriff John W. Bell.  We had ridden from Fort Sumner to Lincoln, New Mexico, across the same ranch lands that Billy had ridden and fled through, and watched the same sunrises on horseback that Billy had watched.  For the record, we did the ride in sort of reverse:  Billy murdered Deputy Bell and Deputy Bob Olinger in Lincoln, and was himself killed in Fort Sumner, not quite three months later.  Our ride was but a week long, and didn't end in gunfire.

Accounts of Billy's initial escape vary, as "first-hand" accounts often do.  I know from two decades of police work that if you ask five eyewitnesses to recount an incident, you get seven different accounts.  Emotion, involvement, lighting, stress, and the usual human motives influence the accounts; none of us truly see factually, truth be told.  Frederick Nolan's excellent work, "The West of Billy the Kid," gives several versions within the same work:  he cites Billy's own side of the story as told to J.P. Meadows, as well as a contemporary account from the Las Vegas Gazette (Las Vegas, New Mexico, that is) of May 10, 1881, and additional theories advanced in retrospect.  He correctly points out that no one knows the truth.

The facts as they are known are these:  Billy was being held in anticipation of his scheduled execution date, planned for May 13, 1881.  His guards, Deputy Sheriffs J. W. Bell and Bob Olinger, were responsible for tending him in his room on the courthouse's second floor.  On the evening of April 28th, Bob Olinger took Billy's fellow prisoners across the street for their meal at the Wortley Hotel, and Bell remained behind to guard Billy.

At some point, Billy used a revolver of uncertain origin to kill Bell, who made it outside the courthouse before dying in the company of Godfrey Gauss.  Gauss alerted Olinger, who returned to the scene where Billy waited, armed with Olinger's own shotgun.  Billy shot Olinger with both barrels, and Olinger died immediately.  Billy then left town, and remained at large until July 14, 1881, when he was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett at Pete Maxwell's house in Fort Sumner.

The details regarding the escape, though, are wiggly.  How Billy managed to get the jump on the experienced officer, Bell; how he obtained the pistol; and his words as he watched Olinger die are all subject to years of debate and interpretation.  Some say that Billy yelled at Olinger, "You won't follow me any more with that gun," as he died, and others say that Billy shouted, "You damned sonofabitch!  You won't corral me with that again!"  No one is ever going to know for sure, but the lines are certain to continue to change with the retelling.

It surprises me to read the various accounts and see the righteous indignation of many of the Billy historians who apply their own interpretations to the events.  Nolan, for example, expresses skepticism that Olinger, upon hearing the shots from the courthouse, would have immediately concluded (as some accounts maintain) that Billy had attempted to escape and Bell had shot him.  Nolan states that it's "hard to understand" such a response.  For my part, it makes perfect sense:  why would Olinger think otherwise?  Why wouldn't he assume that his trusted, experienced colleague, who was armed while Billy was not, had shot the criminal as he tried to escape?

Historians, amateur and otherwise, have dissected the events of Billy's life -- particularly that evening, and the night that Billy was killed -- from their own armchairs for most of 132 years now.  Although the accounts vary widely, one thing seems constant:  they speak with great certainty and confidence that their interpretation is correct.  They take ownership of the events, and are astonished that others don't see them the same way.

It is only natural that we foist our own experiences, personality traits, and values on historical figures.  If we are cowardly, we believe those we are reading about act from a position of fear.  If we are compassionate, we're sure Billy felt badly at killing Bell; and if we've ever been bullied, we're just as sure Billy felt vindicated at murdering Olinger, who had apparently taunted him and treated him with contempt.  It doesn't change the facts, though.  Nolan suggests (by way of a rhetorical question) that Olinger is vexed at not having shot Billy himself.  Those types of innuendo taint our understanding of the actual incident as it played out, just as asking someone, "Are you still beating your wife, Mr. Smith?" immediately implies that Smith has, in fact, beaten his wife.

Be cautious in your reading, and critical in your assessment of historical events.  Writers, like the irascible fellow downing a beer at the local saloon, don't like to let facts get in the way of a good story; and historians, like the typical court-room attorney, are going to confidently and unwaveringly tell the facts as they see them.

The problem is:  who among us has truly seen what occurred, and if we did -- through what filmy vision, influenced by what factors in our own life?

The State of Deseret: A Historical Footnote

In recently revisiting the textbook used in my high-school Arizona history class, I was surprised to see no mention of the once-proposed "State of Deseret," that would have bound much of the southwestern United States together into a vast Mormon state.  The influence of the Mormon church and its people is widely covered in most Arizona historical texts, but rarely is the planned State of Deseret cited.  Instead, ink has largely been reserved for the role of the Mormons in settling communities across the west -- and, in some chronicles, for the tragic event known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.  The 1849 proposal by the Mormon church is, nonetheless, quite an interesting bit of trivia despite being relegated to the more obscure annals of history.

The name "Deseret" comes from the word for "honeybee" in the Book of Mormon. The bee is a symbol of industry inspired by the constant work and production level of that busy creature.  You'll often see the word "Deseret" and images of bee hives associated with the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

Known for their own industrious colonization, the Mormon pioneers had only left Illinois in 1847 on their westward trek.  It was less than two years later that the church drafted the "Provisional Government of the State of Deseret."  Most people can barely plan a wedding in so short a time!  Yet the busy Mormons had already made plans for a Mormon-controlled state covering nearly all of the region that is called the "Great Basin" as well as a tract of land that carried the proposed state all the way to the coast.  This chunk of desirable, but arid, real estate extended from mid-Wyoming and southern Idaho down to the Mexican border (this was pre-Gadsden purchase, mind you) and included a significant stretch of California coastline, all of Utah, Arizona and Nevada, and a great deal of western New Mexico and Colorado.

This bold proposal didn't impress Congress, but in a compromise intended to settle the ongoing Mormon conflict, the Utah Territory was created in 1850 to include Utah, Nevada, and significant portions of Wyoming and Colorado.  To the dismay of Brigham Young and the Mormons, the territory did not have the political sway that statehood would have offered.  To placate them, Brigham Young was named the territorial governor.  Young himself would not be so easily bought:  he began to visualize a Mormon nation, rather than just a Mormon state.

As these political and geographical boundaries were defined, the 10,000 or so Mormons in the Great Basin immediately began to work in over-drive to colonize the region.  These colonies were placed in important locations so as to exert control over key locations along roads, trails, and rivers.  Mormons continued to call their much-coveted region "Deseret."  In late 1856, church leaders again considered petition for statehood.  Due to the animosity they received from Congress and the rest of the country as a result of constant conflict (much of it bloody) in Utah Territory, the petition ended up being dropped.

Despite the Utah territorial supreme court's 1856 ruling that common law, based on the English system, was the law of the land, Governor Young's leadership supported the law of the church -- which  included polygamy, blood atonement, the Law of Consecration, and the practice of "lying for the lord."

In early 1857, the conflicts between the Mormon leadership and the federal officials in the territory were so severe that all the federal officers pulled completely out of the land, fearing for their safety.  The federal government, tiring of the subversive activities of the church, began to prepare a military response while Brigham Young planned a militia to counter the federal defense.  By July, President James Buchanan had selected a replacement for the troublesome governor Young.  In preparation he sent 2,500 troops to the contentious territory, along with the well-wishes of much of the rest of the nation.

Within days of the issuance of the troops, Brigham Young convened a great assembly in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  He announced to his followers that they were henceforth no longer part of Utah Territory, but were now an independent Mormon state of Deseret -- and that they must tolerate no further oppression or abuse by the United States.  In August, Young proclaimed that he would in no way allow U.S. soldiers to reach Salt Lake, and further prepared his people for war.

On September 11, 1857, a hand-picked party of Mormons led by John D. Lee, in league with their Paiute allies, slaughtered 123 members of an Arkansas wagon train known as the Fancher Party at  Mountain Meadows.  The victims included an infant, women, and children.   Not until March of 1859 were the seventeen orphaned children who'd survived the massacre finally rescued by federal officials.   It had taken less time for the Mormons to colonize much of the strategic geographic points of the Great Basin.

Thanks to federal military pressure, the efforts of mountaineers who'd settled in the territory, and attacks by Indian tribes who had turned squarely against the Mormons, the Mormon rebellion was finally quelled in 1858.

In 1877, John D. Lee, a scapegoat for the church and for the other participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, was executed at Mountain Meadows after his conviction for the crimes that occurred there.  Lee's Ferry, Arizona, is named after Lee.  It had been his long-time home, and a place my own father considered a favorite fishing hole.  I grew up hearing Dad's fond remarks about his affection for the place.

It was not until 1990 that a memorial to the murdered members of the Fancher Party was erected, and even then it did not mention who'd killed them.  It strikes me as tragically ironic that we enthusiasts of western history spend an inordinate amount of time reading blood and thunder stories of gunfighters who'd killed three or four rivals, yet the wholesale slaughter of nearly 125 would-be settlers is barely a scribble on the pages of our  history books.  The grandiose plans of Brigham Young to secede from the United States and colonize an area that is 1/6th the size of the nation as a Mormon nation are not so much as a doodle in the margin of those same books.

I have relied primarily on Will Bagley's remarkably well-researched book, Blood of the Prophets:  Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadow Massacre for much of the research in this post.  I highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the history of the American southwest.  Other sources include, but are not limited to, Walker and Bufkin's useful and illuminating Historical Atlas of Arizona, which initially prompted my curiosity about the proposed State of Deseret.  

Copyright (c) 2013 by MJ Miller.  All rights reserved.  No part of this article may be used without the permission of the author; however, links to this page may be freely shared.

Lungers and Consumption: How Tuberculosis Shaped the West

Any fan of blood-and-thunder novels (or the movie, Tombstone) can tell you that Doc Holliday was known as a "lunger" and was slowly wasting away due to consumption.  Most of them can even tell you what "consumption" is:  pulmonary tuberculosis, also known as "phthisis."  Few, though, recognize the sheer prevalence of tuberculosis on the newly-settled west, or the myriad ways TB influenced western history.

The way writers about Doc Holliday and his hacking, blood-producing cough would have you think, Doc was a rarity, known almost as much for his chronic TB as his violent tendencies.  They make a big deal about his condition, and use the word "lunger" (slang for patients with TB in the lungs) as if it was a unique term for himself and the few like him.  TB was, of course, a big deal to Doc himself:  highly contagious, often fatal, and rarely curable, it was a miserable and devastating disease.  It was so common, though, it was referred to as "the white plague" for the shocking numbers of casualties it produced.  It was the most common cause of death by disease during the 1700's and 1800's, and well into the 20th century was a leading cause of death.

Was the west really that much different from the rest of the world in having to contend with virulent TB?  No.  What was different was that during the sanitarium movement beginning in the 1800's, doctors urged patients to seek temperate climates with fresh and freely-circulating air, where the patient could sleep outdoors.  Although sanitariums were opened throughout the United States (and beyond), TB sufferers were drawn to the open air and warm climate.  It didn't take long before enterprising individuals in the west capitalized on the trend, and began marketing efforts aimed specifically at the consumption patient.

Although tuberculosis had been a major cause of human death for thousands of years, it wasn't until the 19th century that people began to recognize that it was an infectious disease rather than of congenital origin.  They originally believed that people were born with the trait, and would eventually show symptoms.  That, of course, encouraged the spread, as preventative methods weren't adopted during exposure to patients.  Not  until 1882 did a German bacteriologist, Dr. Robert Koch, identify the rod-like bacillus that caused the tubercles to form in various parts of the body.  In addition to the lungs, tuberculosis could invade the bones, the skin, and the lymph nodes -- the now rarely-heard term "scrofula" refers to the latter case.

Once it was suspected that the dreaded disease was communicable, three things happened:  sanitariums became quite popular; sufferers were urged to move to amenable locations; and communities began to react to the threat of contagion.  A 1933 copy of the World Book Encyclopedia states "Many cures have been effected by removal of the patient to a dry, bracing climate, where the temperature is even and sunny days are numerous.  Much emphasis is placed by modern authorities on the value of sleeping and living in the open, and of eating nourishing food.  The ideal place for a tubercular victim is a sanitarium in a healthful locality."

Thus enters the significance of the U.S. west.  Chronic TB sufferers (as opposed to those afflicted by acute forms, known as "galloping" consumption, and who were dead within weeks) packed themselves into trains and stagecoaches and made their way to the southwestern states.  Remote locations such as Castle Hot Springs, Cave Creek, and Indian Hot Springs, Arizona; Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado; and many others began catering to the "health seeker," as they were often called.  For those who had money, the accommodations were comfortable, if not luxurious.  Sleeping porches became quite common; I wonder if the screened "Arizona room" so common when I was a child actually had its origin in the threat (or reality) of TB.

At one time, one in three people in Colorado suffered TB, and 25% of Coloradans died of it.  Phoenix, Arizona, became a popular landing place for health seekers, and promoted itself as such.  Referred to as a "natural sanatorium," it began to attract not just TB sufferers, but people with asthma and other debilitating respiratory disease.  My own mother, who barely knew one of her brothers during childhood because he was in a TB sanitarium in Canada, came to Arizona as a young adult for her asthma:  these diseases touched everyone in some way, and just as they drove some people apart, they brought others together.  According to Lee Olson in "Marmalade and Whiskey:  British Remittance Men in the West," the Rocky Mountain region was the "most British" part of the United States for a time, thanks to so many remittance men and TB sufferers flooding the area.

Just as one influential physician in Arizona, Dr. E. Payne Palmer, came to the valley for the betterment of his TB, so did a kindred spirit, Dr. S. Edwin Solly, move to Colorado Springs for his own affliction.  Dr. Solly opened a sanitarium to treat affluent patients, and used much of the profits to provide care for sufferers who couldn't afford to pay.

As for the latter, many locales were soon overwhelmed by the pilgrimage of patients who could not afford to support themselves.  According to Bradford Luckingham's "Phoenix:  The History of a Southwestern Metropolis," the Phoenix and Salt River Valley Immigration Commission specifically reminded potential health seekers to bring money.  They very bluntly warned that the valley did not "offer an asylum for indigent people who wish to regain health."  Those who could not afford accommodations erected tents for their own tubercular colony of sorts, and Phoenix responded with a 1903 ordinance against urban camping.  Many of the early residents in Sunnyslope (then, just outside city limits) were, according to Luckingham, poor, tubercular tent-occupants.

Other potential discouragements to lungers surfaced.  According to Lee Olson, Colorado at one time considered passing a law requiring tuberculosis patients to wear bells to warn others of potential contagion.  Meanwhile, as some resorts recruited wealthy consumptives, other resorts turned away anyone with symptoms.  A typical Chamber of Commerce statement (this one, from Tombstone, Arizona) would read "Relief is afforded many afflicted with asthma and bronchial trouble.  Here is where nature offers her best gift of pure and invigorating air which together with good water, the inspiration of the scenery and tonic effect of sunshine is beneficial to the sufferer."  Meanwhile, the posh Ingleside Inn prominently stated that it wasn't a sanitarium, and would not accept anyone with a communicable disease.

Around the southwest, "tubercular cabins," were built.  Patients could avail themselves of the curative fresh air while remaining somewhat isolated.  Today, the Cave Creek Museum in Cave Creek, Arizona, boasts an intact original tubercular cabin -- the last one standing.

Lungers were ubiquitous.  Hattie Josephine ("Jo") Williams Goldwater, better known as the mother of influential senator Barry Goldwater, came to Arizona in 1903 due to her own tuberculosis diagnosis.  Apparently the curative air of Phoenix worked:  Jo lived past her 90th birthday.

Doc Holliday certainly wasn't the only gunfighter to live by the gun but die by the lung.  Doc died in 1887 in a hotel in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where he'd moved for the benefit of his lungs.  A year later, Jim Tewksbury, who managed to survive his participation in Arizona's 1887 Pleasant Valley War, died of TB.   Bat Masterson's younger brother, James, died in 1895 of "galloping consumption," in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  It was indeed a common cause of death and a powerful influence on the American west -- economically, demographically, developmentally, and -- most tragically -- personally.

Image adapted from an original photo by Fred Dupper, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Tom Mix: A White Hat, a Silent Cowboy

I was always vaguely aware of Tom Mix.  I'd grown up hearing his name, now and then, and I knew he was a movie cowboy.  I'd  heard Dad talk of the monument on the backroad to Tucson, where Mix lost his life in a car wreck.  I stopped there, once, on the way back to the U of A.  I could call up an image in my mind of a handsome man in a distinctive white hat (meaning, of course, that he was a good guy) who had an essence of tough good-naturedness -- much like my Dad.  And, of course, I knew that Tom's horse was a flashy tall horse with a lot of chrome, and his name was Tony.

That pretty much summed it up, though.  I grew up with Dad's favorite black-and-white B-grade westerns perpetually on in the background, but I never saw the silent westerns that Tom dominated.  My childhood cowboys, on the occasions they were chosen from film rather than reality, were John Wayne, James Stewart, and Gary Cooper, not the previous generations.  Mix's career began in 1909 and ended in the mid-1930's, a period when most of "my" cowboys were still in short-pants.  I hadn't sung along with Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, or memorized the cowboy code until adulthood.

A couple of weeks ago, just days after the anniversary of Tom's 1940 death, I revisited the memorial for the first time since the 1980's.  Not much has changed in that particular site since then; it's still, for the time being, free of surrounding tract homes and strip malls.  It remains a wonderfully lonely road.  One or two cars passed while we took a leisurely break from our drive; no one else slowed.  The Tom Mix memorial isn't high on the list of travel destinations.

There's a cairn of locally-gathered stone, topped by a bullet-riddled metal silhouette of Tom's horse, his head lowered in mourning; a shaded picnic table; and a small pull-out for parking while enjoying a roadside meal.  Tom's death site is just yards away, in the wash where his yellow Cord Phaeton convertible came to rest after a high-speed roll-over.  The wash is now called "Tom Mix Wash."  (That brings back a couple of memories of riding in the prairies of New Mexico, where it seems every wash was named after a cowboy who'd died while riding his horse there.  Sometimes while riding, I think of that and hope I don't get a wash named after me.)

I never wanted to write about movie cowboys; that's what True West magazine is apparently for.  But there's something about Tom Mix that stands for the westerner, if not the west.  Tom's career ended as the silent movies faded to black; he was one of many great stars who didn't transition to talkies.  What's more evocative of the western spirit than the old cowboy, challenged to keep up with a changing world and new technology that threatens the old way of doing things?  And Tom was a cowboy.  Unlike John Wayne, who thought horses were big, dumb animals and preferred shopping to riding the range, Tom loved horses.  The Tom Mix Museum in Dewey, Oklahoma, has a collection of photos that includes one of Tom with his horse, Old Blue, a rangy, spraddle-legged blue roan.  Tom inscribed on the photo, "In Memory of Old Blue -- the best horse I ever rode, born July 14, 1897, killed Jan. 29, 1919 -- We grew old together."  

Tom, born in 1880 in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, grew up around horses, understood them, and worked on a ranch.  He knew how to cowboy, and not just for the film.  Tom could bulldog steers, rope, and ride.  Even his third wife, Olive, could rope and tie (and although I don't know if the others could, but it wouldn't surprise me).  Tom did his own stunts, which, although common to the actors of his time, was something to set him apart from today's movie cowboy.  He earned the roles he played.

One subject any western historian grapples with is the sheer bulk of bad information about historical figures.  Recently, researching Johnny Ringo's life and death reminded me of how suspect even contemporary eyewitness accounts are.  I was surprised to find just about as much misinformation about Tom Mix, despite the relatively modern time of his life and death.  His Hollywood publicists certainly muddied the water with glowing accounts of his western birth and heroism in the war, none of which were true; even his death, which was witnessed by highway workers, was disputed.  It's commonly maintained that Tom survived the single-car wreck, but that when he climbed out of the sports car, a heavy trunk shifted and struck him, breaking his neck.  Other accounts say he died on impact.  Knowing the media's love for the bizarre and gruesome ways of dying, I'm reluctant to believe the "Suitcase of Death," story without further primary research.  

Last night, I read in one of my Arizona Almanacs that Tom died late at night.  In fact, he died mid-day, while the road was having construction work done on it.  He'd been up drinking with friends until about three that morning, and was doubtless tired -- not to mention being in a hurry and perhaps fighting that white-line fatigue from driving quiet highways.  He had a ranch in the area, and was familiar with the road.  He likely overestimated his skills at 80 miles an hour in a construction zone.

Some erroneous accounts even stated that Tom was hauling Tony (actually, that would have been Tony II) when the accident happened; I've read that Tony was killed at the same time.  He wasn't, but died a year later.  (Come on, folks, why would the memorial depict a grieving Tony if Tony was dead, too?)

Even Tom's film statistics are disputed.  I've read accounts that he was in 291 films, all of nine of which were silent.  Other sources credit him with nearly 400 films, or a vague "over 300."  At one time, he was the most highly-paid actor in Hollywood.  He and Tony earned over $7.5 million dollars together.  A capable businessman, he ran the Tom Mix Circus for a while; one of my favorite photos is of his daughter (with Olive), Ruth, on a flashy horse next to a Tom  Mix Circus van.  Tom provided glimpses of the vanishing west to his audience similar to the Miller 101 wild west show of the time.  Always classy in his "Boss of the Plains," style Stetson, western-cut sport coat and bow tie, Tom knew how to deliver.  His action-packed films elevated him to prominence over the saturnine William S. Hart, noted an article from 1923; his authenticity put him above Broncho Billy Anderson, whose claims to be a cowboy were disproven by his inability to ride.

Even if he WAS a movie star, you can bet on one fact:  Tom was a cowboy and rancher, and when he dogged a bull, it was the real deal.  That cuts him out of the herd, and in my book, gives him a place as a real westerner.  

Afoot at Johnny Ringo's Death Site

In the southeastern corner of Arizona, along the edge of the Chiricahua wilderness, a massive oak tree grows along the breathtakingly beautiful banks of Turkey Creek.  The tree distinguishes itself by having multiple trunks that form a wide crotch in which, at one time, a flattish stone had been placed as a seat.  One enormous trunk has split off and fallen to the ground, where it remains, slowly returning to the earth.  The tree flourishes in its idyllic setting:  water is plentiful, the air is clear, and the unique history of this specific tree ensures a rare human guardianship.  This is the tree where gunfighter Johnny Ringo was found shot to death 130 years ago.

As with most, if not all, gunfighters, ascertaining the truth about Ringo is an impossible task.  Even the first-hand accounts of those who knew him were called into question, slanted as they were.  The events of Ringo's life are as debatable as the events of his untimely death.  Shaped into a heroic character in books such as Walter Noble Burns' Tombstone, acerbically dismissed in Jack Burrows' deconsecration John Ringo:  The Gunfighter Who Never Was, the actual figure behind the stories assuredly lies somewhere between hero and merely a remarkably unremarkable citizen of the times.

It is certain that, for whatever reason, the memory of Ringo remains sacred to those living in the west today.  From the jeep-tour driver in Cave Creek who changed his own name to Johnny Ringo in homage, to the writer (Burrows) who apparently dedicated decades to research in order to reduce Ringo's legacy to myth, people even today remain fiercely devoted to their view of Ringo's persona.

We walked, this week, the yards from Turkey Creek Road to the huge oak tree where Ringo's body was found.  By the graciousness of the Sanders family who still own the ranch where the death occurred, visitors may quietly and reverently visit the Ringo memorial.  It is not a touristy area; there are no paved lots, no public restrooms, and no gift shops.  Far from it:  there is a dusty road, with just enough room to pull over (not that you'd need to, as rural as the area is); a wire gate that sternly admonishes visitors "No Trespassing," while, a few feet up, a sign reminds us of the "rules," for visiting the site; and a rock-piled gravesite beside a simple historical sign and, of course, the oak tree above.  During our visit, not so much as another vehicle passed by, much less fellow visitors to the gravesite.  It is a site appropriate for a westerner's resting place:  still feral, if not wild; and within feet of that most-precious substance of desert life:  water.

Looking into the azure shallows of Turkey Creek, I couldn't help but think that, if Ringo had indeed committed suicide as the official coroner's report stated, he'd picked an utterly gorgeous location to do so.  His last view would have been one of tranquility, despite any inner turmoil he most certainly felt.  The Chiricahuas to the east are stunning, and although an Apache at the time might have looked at them as safe harbor, and a gunfighter in a bad situation might have viewed them as an inconvenience, if not a hazardous obstacle to his safe escape, both must certainly have recognized their grandeur at the same time.

Ringo, for those who have done little by way of research, was a gambler, cowhand, rustler, and (albeit briefly) a county deputy.  Although the Ringo legend attaches him to the conflict remaining after the shootout by the OK Corral, and he was credited with several unproven gunfights, it is certain that he was affiliated with many of the "elite" gunfighters and history-makers of the 1880's Arizona territory.  Ringo was involved in the Hoodoo Range War in Texas, and indisputably pistol-whipped and shot (but didn't kill) a fellow drinker at a Safford saloon.  His acquaintances included enemies (such as the Earps) to benefactors (for example, Sheriff John Behan) and fellow gunmen and friends (Buckskin Frank Leslie, John Wesley Hardin, Scott Cooley, among others).  Although the extent of his involvement in various conflicts remains unclear, he certainly knew well the major players of the time.  Ringo, by any standard, led an interesting life.

At only 31 years of age, on July 14, 1882, Ringo was found dead in one of the more bizarre death scenes of the time.  He was found facing west, sitting at the tree in the photograph above, with a bullet entry wound in the right temple and an exit wound in the top of his head on the left side.  His revolver, a Colt .45 holding five cartridges, was in his right hand; his Winchester 1876 was resting beside him against the tree.  Nothing points to an ambush, and Ringo was described as depressed in some accounts, but there are indeed some oddities about the death scene.  He wore two cartridge belts, and the revolver cartridge belt was worn upside down.  He was missing a part of his scalp (in a different location than the exit wound from the fatal bullet) leading some to surmise he'd been scalped.  He was barefoot, and had wrapped socks and part of an undershirt around his feet.  Much can, and has, been written about the theories of his suicide or murder (depending on which camp you're in) as well as controversial details about the scene, but I will not begin to debate them here.  Suffice it to say that no one can proclaim with certainty what did occur that hot summer day, beyond the fact that Ringo died by gunshot, nestled within a clump of oak trees, at that beautiful spot alongside the creek on a hot summer day.

Ringo was buried just feet from where his body was found.  Unlike many sites of interest related to gunfighters' deaths or burials, there's no disputing that Ringo is in the ground beneath the rocks shown here.  He did, indeed, die just a few feet left of the stone cairn in the center of the photo.  This location was near a major wagon road, used for logging and other freight; in fact, Ringo's body was found by a teamster driving through.

Today, his grave is scattered with quarters, left in tribute by those who visit his resting place.

It is one of many ironies of John's death that everyone familiar with his legend wants to add their "two-bits' worth," and that even today, his grave is marked with "two bit" pieces.

Oh, Those Misunderstood Tumblin' Tumbleweeds!

Picture this in your sepia-toned imagination:  a lonely, dusty desert street, bleached by the ever-present sun.  A couple of tired horses are tied to the wooden hitching post in front of the general store.  A vulture circles ominously overhead, and a scrawny yellow dog trots uneasily across the road.  If that doesn't build enough ambience for the western movie in your head, add a tumbleweed, freed from its roots by the wind and drought.  It half-rolls and half-bounces in the breeze until it lodges against a barbed-wire fence, trapped alongside a half-dozen of its cousins.  Now you've got the iconic western setting.

Or do you?  That tumbleweed, so evocative of desolate western life, is no more native to the land than the ponies tethered in front of the shop.  It's true name is Russian thistle.  The bane of sock-wearing hikers who've encountered them in the arid regions of the west, it was an import.  You've probably already guessed it came from Russia.  It's last name, though, is a misnomer:  it's actually not a thistle, despite its prickly nature.  If you're a stickler for detail, you'll refer to it by its botanical name:  Salsola iberica.

The tumbleweed hitch-hiked here as a stowaway in a load of flax seed shipped to South Dakota.  It fit in well, thriving on the harsh, dry conditions -- and, like most of the native desert plants, its stickers made it seem like a natural.  It germinates quickly and, thanks to its tumbling skills, it spreads its seed with each bounce.  It's considered an invasive weed by some, and a darned nuisance by others.  

It didn't arrive in the United States until the 1870's, but it was soon clear it was here to stay.  If you're watching movies set earlier in the century, those tumbleweeds rolling along the landscape are anachronisms.

Welcome to that Old Place Just West of My Heart

The old west is still alive in many places -- some real, some imagined, some contrived.  It's still alive on some of the remaining ranches that sprawl across the countryside, where "the old way" of doing things is still the right way.  It's alive in some of the small towns where gimpy cowboys greet the day telling stories to (and on) each other at the main street cafe.  It's alive in fictitious places, on the pages of books we love, in scenes of movies we watch again and again, and on the computer monitor before your eyes.  It's alive inside many of us -- and that's why I've chosen to call this little virtual place "just west of my heart."

I'm well into the middle ages of my own western love affair.  I love the history, the trappings, the old-school western crafts, the vistas, the creatures, and the kindred spirits who share this passion.  As an Arizona native, I was privileged to grow up in a much-more-western west, surrounded by open space, ranches, and the gritty, self-reliant individuals these places spawned.  Dad moved here to the desert as a young man, thirsty for the lifestyle and the land; whether nature or nurture, his love for the place and its past made its way into my own DNA.

Now, watching a little more bit of the west eaten up every day by soulless subdivisions and hungry asphalt, and seeing the values changing from self-reliance to dependence, I share the concerns of many westerners about the erosion of our lifestyle.  I find refuge in reliving the "old" west in many ways; daily time on horseback, tooling leather using the same techniques the masters of the past 150 years used, or researching the history in person or in the pages of dusty out-of-print volumes.

This is the basis of the medley of western writing you'll find here:  some personal experiences, some memories, some tales gleaned from the archives, some hard facts, and some sweeping opinions.  There might be an interview here and there, or an essay on the then-and-now contrast.  You won't find too much emphasis on the commercialized west; there are enough magazines devoted to selling you stuff.  Neither will you find constant retelling of the same five gun battles; here, we'll focus on more obscure lore.  I like John Wayne's movies, but John Wayne wasn't a cowboy; I'm more interested in what a cowboy has to say about a western movie than in what a movie cowboy has to say about the west.  I find the old ways and commonplace routines of the real west far more fascinating than the retold and resold Hollywood west.  The shopkeepers and schoolmistresses, the butchers and blacksmiths, are the characters with a more authoritative voice than those who filled the big screen with tin badges and artful dialogue.

I hope you'll enjoy returning to that old place with me -- it isn't glamorous and it isn't always pretty.  It's always dusty and sometimes bloody, but it's authentic.  It's still here, just west of my heart.