GUNS Magazine January 1956

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COULD GUNFIGHTERS REALLY SHOOT? (Continued jrom page 17) work unless he was specifically ordered to carry a weapon. Actually, according to Governor Granville Stuart of Montana, who was not only a good man with a gun, but hired many who were, "Not more than ten out of a hundred cowboys owned a revolver in the 80's in Wyoming and Montana, although most of them had a rifle." With thousands of cowboys from Texas to Montana and the cattle industry spreading everywhere on vast public ranges, disturb- ances were to be expected. But the record shows that despite the exuberance of ranch riders one marshal and a brace of deputies could usually keep the peace in a cowtown that was one solid line of saloons, honky- tonks and bawdy houses. Of course, such marshals or sheriffs included fast-draw artists like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickolt, Heck Thomas, Bud Ledbetter, Chris Madsen, Bill Tilghman, to name but a few of the better-known. The cowboy didn't fare too well in his gun- battles in the cow towns that lived off the range trade and trail traffic. Even when he did a lot of shooting, he did very little hit- ting. Examples are legion, but one of the best is R. J. Jennings' eye-witness description of the free-for-all in Tom Shurman's Bar in Dodge City in 1881. Two trail outfits, each with 3,000 head of long horns, arrived at Dodge on the same day and camped on the @asslands surrounding the clapboard town. Three months on the monotonous trail had left both crews irritable, dry and ready for a toot. Both hit the saloons at the same time. Some 40 crowded into Shurman's and ba~ whiskey flowed like water. Within a few minutes some of the boys were carrying quite a head of steam. One thing led to another and suddenly a M Bar rider began to pistol whip a cowboy from the Texas City outfit. This sport quickly ended when one of the friends of the latter whipped out his sixgun and took a shot at the M Bar cowboy. Guns flashed out of holsters and the din, according to Jennings, sounded like a replay of the Battle of Shiloh. More than a hundred shots were fired before the room was cleared-by way of both the back as well as front doors. When the mess was surveyed, the results were astonishing. Not one rider had been killed or wounded! A cat sitting near the piano had forfeited even its ninth life, and there wasn't a fixture or mirror left intact in the whole place. The managers of both outfits split the bill the next morning to avoid a mass arrest of their crews. An even more dramatic example of wasting good ammunition occurred in Frisco, New Mexico, in 1884. A young Mexican rider newly graduated from a mail-order detective training course, and proud of his badge sent him by the school, rode into the western New Mexico cowtown just as a Texas cowboy from the Slaughter outfit began to celebrate by shooting up the town. This was a common use for the cowboys' sixguns during the period and was a familiar sport from the gulf to northern Montana and from Dakota Territory to the Sierra Madres. It simply consisted of getting well lathered with "rot 48 gut'' whiskey, and then striding vr riding up the main street of town taking pot shots at signs, lamps, windows and local natives. The ~outhful horseman was named Elfego Baca and his visit was occasioned by the fact that his girl had recently moved to the town from Socorro. Baca asked the New Mexican justice of the peace why he didn't stop the cowboy from terrorizing the natives. "Don't be a fool," replied that official. "If I interfere he'll have all eighty of the Slaughter cowboys up here in an hour. They'll release him and then tear this town apart. They don't like mexicanos!" Baca thought the reasoning silly and said so. "You can't convince those Texans to respect us or any other mexicanos by letting them walk all over you. I'll arrest that drunk." He did-without any resistance from the celebrant whatever. But the justice of the peace was too frightened to try the man. "I'l not bring the Texans down on us." "Then," Baca announced, "I'll take my prisoner to the county seat at Socorro." He took the subdued cowboy to the hotel and both put up for the night. Within a few minutes, however, the Slaughter foreman, Perry Perham, and seven cowboys rode up and demanded the prisoner. Baca calmly refused. Perham, still mounted, began an abusive tirade casting aspersions on Elfego's forebears. Without raising his voice, the mail-order deputy just commented, "I'm go- ~ng to count t~ three and you've just that long to get out of towmW Perham paid no attention but launched into another threatening speech. Baca ignored it and began his count. "One. TWO. Three!" At the end of his count both six-guns appeared in his hands as though by magic. Before the astounded Slaughter riders could recover and retreat, their foreman lay dead in the street, crushed by his horse. Three others were down. The rest left the plaza in a rush. Then the trouble really started. During the night the Slaughter riders rode to every American ranch in the vicinity charging that the Frisco natives were bent on wiping out all the "Americanos." When some of the ranchers investigated during the early morning hours, they found everything peaceful. A hurried conference with the justice of the peace and Baca led to an agree- ment to try the Slaughter cowboy for dis- turbing the peacea minor infraction-fine him and end what threatened to turn into a race war. But the letting of Slaughter blood had to be avenged. Just as Baca turned his prisoner over to the justice, in rode the entire Texas crew-all 80 of them according to court testimony and uncontested eye-witness ac- counts. They cared nothing about their un- fortunate companion. They wanted Baca . . . and they wanted him either stretching a rope or well ventilated with Texas lead. Even in the face of the whole crew, however, the 19-year-old Mexican refused to back down. When one of the Texans fired, he drew and covered the acting foreman and several others immediately in front of him.
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GUNS Magazine January 1956

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