When the West Was Young/The Passing of John Ringo
The Passing of John Ringo
THERE were all kinds of bad men in the days of the old West. John Ringo was one sort and Buckskin Frank was another. While this tale deals most with the former, still it concerns the two of them.
In its wild youth the town of Tombstone knew both men. To this day the old-timers who witnessed the swift march of events during the years 1879, 1880, and 1881 will tell you of their deeds. But things were happening fast when those deeds took place. There was, if one may be allowed to use a poetic figure, a good deal of powder-smoke floating in the air to obscure the vision. And so although no men were ever more just in passing judgment than these same old-timers, the story has its sardonic ending.
John Ringo was the big “He Wolf” among the outlaws, a man of quick intelligence who did not seem to care much whether he or the other fellow died. To him who wants the ornate trappings of the motion-picture bad man or the dialect which makes some desperadoes popular in fiction, Ringo would prove a disappointing figure as he showed up in southeastern Arizona.
For he wore no hair chaps, nor do those who saw him tell of a knotted colored handkerchief about his throat. Like most of those riders who drifted into the territory when other portions of the West had grown too hot for them, his costume was unobtrusive: light-colored jean breeches tucked into his boot-tops, a flannel shirt and the gray Stetson peculiar to the country west of the Pecos, a limp-brimmed hat with a high crown, which may be creased after the old “Southern Gentleman” fashion but was most often left with such dents as come by accident. Of hardware he carried his full share; sometimes two forty-five revolvers and a Winchester; but if he were in town the arms were as likely as not concealed.
It would take a second look to separate him from the herd. That second look would show you a fine, lean form whose every movement was catlike in its grace, a dark face whose expression was usually sullen, whose eyes were nearly always somber; slender hands and small feet. And his speech, whenever you heard it, was sure to be comparatively free from the idioms of the region; the English was often more correct than otherwise. A man of parts, and he looked it; they all say that.
This was John Ringo. He had fought in one of those numerous cattle wars which raged throughout western Texas during the seventies. Before that period a certain California city had known him as the reckless son of a decent family.
And in passing note the fact that he still got letters from his people after he came to Tombstone with a price on his head. Which helps to explain that somber demeanor, the whisky which he drank—and the ending of his life's story.
Buckskin Frank fulfils the requirements of some traditions much better when it comes to externals. He wore leathern fringes on his shirt and breeches, and his sombrero was bedecked with much silver. His weapons were always in evidence; a pair of silver-mounted revolvers were the most noticeable among them.
Because he called himself a scout some men used the term in speaking of him. He did not ride with the outlaws, although he often vanished from Tombstone for considerable periods; in town he was always to be found in some gambling-house or dance-hall.
Of women there were many who fancied him. And he could shoot to kill—from in front if the occasion demanded it; from behind if the opportunity was given him. A handsome fellow, and he had a persuasive way with him.
Whisky got the best of him in his later years, but that was after the period with which this narrative has to deal; and when he drank, it was not because of any brooding. The past held no regrets for him; thus far he had managed to handle every situation to his own satisfaction.
These are the two men; and as for Tombstone, it was booming. The mines were paying tremendously; business was brisk twenty-four hours a day. An era of claim-jumping, faro-playing, dance-halls, the Bird-Cage, Opera House, Apache scares, stage hold-ups; and, of course, gun-fighting.
The Earps virtually ran the town government; they enforced the local laws against shooting up the place and so forth very much after the manner of Dodge City; and they were strong, resolute men. Buckskin Frank was on good terms with their henchmen; he was, if the statements of the old-timers are to be believed, anxious to remain in the good graces of these stern rulers.
John Ringo, on the other hand, was at outs with them; and soon after their advent into power he drifted away from Tombstone along with the other outlaws. To use the expression of the times, he was “short” in the mining town, which means that when he came there he had to be ready at all times to defend his life and liberty.
And now that you have seen the men and the town, the tale can go on; it is a mere recital of certain incidents which took place during the last year or two of John Ringo's life; incidents which show the difference between his breed of bad man and the breed to which Buckskin Frank belonged. To the chronicler these incidents appeal for that very reason. The days of the old West strike one as being very much like the days of old knighthood; they were rude days when some men tried hard to live up to a code of chivalry and some men made themselves mighty by very foul means indeed. And while we may not always be sure that the names which have come down to us—from either of these wild eras—are those that should have been coupled with fame, still we can be certain of one thing: the chivalry existed in both periods.
According to the code in the Middle Ages the challenge and the single combat were recognized institutions; and they say that knights-errant used to go riding through the country seeking worthy opponents. And according to the cow-boy code in southeastern Arizona during the early eighties among the outlaws, a champion must be ready to try conclusions in very much that same way on occasion.
It was one of those traditions which some men observed and some—wisely—ignored. This desperado John Ringo was among those who observed it; and one day, like poor old Don Quixote, he found himself trying to force conclusions with men whose ideas were more modern than his own, which led him—like Cervante's lean hero—into a bad predicament and also brought him to a strange friendship.
The Earp brothers and their followers, as has been said, were ruling Tombstone, and the outlaws had fled into the country east of the Dragoon Mountains. But the outlaws did not fancy remaining out in the open country; sometimes they came back to town in force and hung about the place for days; always they were hoping to return permanently. And always the Earps were looking to drive them out of the country for good and all.
Eventually the situation came to a climax in the great Earp-Clanton gun-fight, and there was a long period when this battle was brewing. During this period whenever they came to town the desperadoes used to stay at the Grand Central Hotel; and Bob Hatch's saloon, where the Earp boys and their friends were accustomed to take their “morning's morning,” was directly across the street. Things came to a pass where the noon hour would often find a group of outlaws on the sidewalk before the hotel and a number of the Earp faction in front of the saloon, both outfits heavily armed, the members of each glowering across the street at those of the other.
Now Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others of the law-and-order party had come here with big reputations from Dodge City, where they had taken part in more than one affair when the lead was flying. They had sustained those reputations by their deeds in Tombstone; they were champions—“He Wolves.” And so one noontime when he was standing on the sidewalk among his fellow outlaws, John Ringo was seized with an idea.
He looked across the street at the members of the Earp party, who were regarding the desperadoes in ominous silence. The idea grew more powerful, until it owned him. He stepped down from the sidewalk's edge into the roadway, crossed it, and came to a halt within a few feet of his enemies. Addressing Wyatt Earp by name—so goes the story—
“This sort of thing,” John Ringo said, “has been going on for a long time now. Pretty soon there's bound to be a big killing if it keeps up. Now I've got a proposition. You, or Doc Holliday if you'd rather have him, step into the street here with me, and the two of us will shoot it out, and, if you're game, why we'll do it holding the opposite corner of a handkerchief in our teeth. I give my word, my gang will stand by the result.”
Wyatt Earp made no answer. What temptation that offer held to him one can judge only by the fact that he was a bold man who had a long record of large deeds to his credit. But also he was the recognized head of a movement for law and order, a movement which had already stopped indiscriminate street-shooting in Tombstone; just at this time he was being groomed in certain quarters as a candidate for sheriff, and the banner of his party was emblazoned with the word Reform.
It is easy enough to see how John Ringo was behind the times when he made that proposition on Tombstone's main street. It is easy also to imagine his feelings when without a word by way of answer or acknowledgment the members of the Earp faction stood regarding him. He turned his back upon them and he recrossed the street, and when he had gained the opposite sidewalk they were gone within Bob Hatch's saloon.
Johnny Behan was sheriff then, politically an enemy of the Earps and politically friendly to the outlaws. He was sitting in his office with young William Breckenbridge, his diplomatic deputy, when some one brought word that John Ringo had made a gun-play and was holding down the main street with drawn revolvers.
“Go and fetch him in,” the sheriff bade Breckenbridge.
The latter found the outlaw pacing up and down before the Grand Central Hotel after the fashion of the cow-boy who has shot up a saloon and driven all hands out of the place. The two had met months before when the deputy was out in the eastern part of the county collecting taxes with Curly Bill as his guide and protector.
“What's up?” the youthful officer demanded, and John Ringo recited his version of the affair.
“Well,” the other told him when he had finished, “the sheriff wants to see you.”
The desperado shrugged his shoulders, but went along quietly enough; bail was easy to arrange in those days, and this was not a serious matter.
In his office Johnny Behan heard the tale and frowned. There were times when his cow-boy constituents became a source of embarrassment to him; this was one of them.
“Guess you'll have to turn over those guns of yours,” he bade the prisoner.
Ringo handed the revolvers to him, and he put them into a desk drawer. There followed several moments of awkward silence. At length Johnny Behan arose and started to leave the room.
“Going to lock me up?” Ringo asked. “I'd like to fix it to get bail, you know.”
“No charge against you,” the sheriff said in the doorway. “You can go back downtown whenever you want to.”
With which he passed out into the corridor and forgot all about the matter. In the office Ringo stood scowling at the deputy.
“That's plain murder,” he said at length. “Before I get a block away from here without my guns those coyotes will kill me.”
Breckenbridge had been doing some thinking on his own account during the last few moments, and he realized the justice of this argument. But the law was the law, and the sheriff was boss. It was not his business to interfere. He looked Ringo in the eyes, got up from his chair, opened the desk drawer—and left the room. And when he came back the guns and their owner had departed.
In itself the incident wasn't much to talk about. In those times all sorts of things were being done according to different standards from those which rule now. But it brought its consequences.
The days went by. In Tombstone politics seethed; the law-and-order party was making things hot for Johnny Behan, whose sympathies with the cow-boys gave him the support of the desperadoes, a support which in its turn brought the accusation that he was extending leniency to wanted men.
Over in the Sulphur Springs valley and the San Simon John Ringo nursed his grudge against the sheriff for having disarmed him when his guns were so sorely needed; he cherished that unpleasant memory while he directed the movements of Curly Bill and their followers, while he rode forth from Galeyville with them to raid the herds of border cow-men, or to ambush bands of Mexican smugglers, or to rob the stages.
And so gradually it became known among his fellows that their leader held a grievance against the sheriff, that he was biding his opportunity to play even with Johnny Behan for that blundering piece of thoughtlessness. John Ringo was the biggest man among them all, the brains of the whole crowd; they wanted to see in what manner he would settle the score. And finally the time came when he got his chance.
A man who rejoiced in the name of Kettle-Belly Johnson was the indirect means of bringing about this opportunity. He enters the story on a blistering afternoon in the little town of Galeyville.
It has been told in another of these tales how Galeyville was the bad men's metropolis, headquarters for all the rustlers and stage-robbers of Cochise County; how the place enjoyed a brisk prosperity through the enterprise of a wide-awake citizen who had established a cattle-buying business—and no questions asked. On the afternoon in question John Ringo was the only outlaw in the place; his followers were absent on some wild errand or other and he was putting in the time at a poker-game.
There were four men seated around the table in the dingy bar-room, silent as four owls, mirthless as high priests at a sacred rite. Observing the full ceremonials which dignify draw-poker, they let the chips and cards do all the talking—and made signs when they chose to pass.
It has been said that John Ringo's face was sullen and his eyes were somber; the depth of his unpleasant expression had grown this afternoon as the shabbiness of his luck increased. Or was it luck?
He sat, of course, facing the door, and Kettle-Belly Johnson occupied the opposite chair. On the two other players, one of whom was flanking John Ringo on each side, there is no need to waste words; they belonged to the same breed as the poetically rechristened Johnson, the breed that got its name from shaking dice against Mexicans out of tin horns.
It was no more than natural that the desperado should ask himself whether he was right in blaming fortune for the cards which he drew. There came a new deal and time to draw again.
“Two,” John Ringo muttered.
Kettle-Belly Johnson held up a single finger; and when he had got his card, performed one of those prestidigital feats by which he made his living. And when this was accomplished—with the aid of a device known as a “hold-out”—his moist, plump fingers clutched a full house—jacks on kings. The betting went briskly to the bitter end.
John Ringo scowled down on the hand which beat his; pushed back his chair, fumbled briefly at his vest, and laid his gold watch on the table.
“Lend me a hundred,” he growled. “She's worth a hundred and fifty.” But Kettle-Belly Johnson shook his head.
“Easy come,” said he, “easy go. Get out and rustle some more cows or hold up the stage again. We ain't a-runnin' no pawn-shop.”
John Ringo left the room without more words, and the three tin horns fell to cutting for low spade to while away the time. They had been at it just as long as it would take a man to go down to the corral, saddle his pony, and bring the animal up in front of the building, when the outlaw reëntered. His single-action Colt's forty-five revolver was in his right hand; its muzzle regarded the trio at the table like a dark, baleful eye.
The bearer of the weapon uttered a single word, a word which is not found in any dictionary although it has come down from the time when the first Englishman took to the highway to seek his daily meat.
“Hanzup!”
They obeyed and the ensuing silence was broken by the pleasant chink of money as John Ringo's left hand raked the winnings into his pocket. There was no pursuit as he rode away down Galeyville's main street; but he spurred his pony hard, for self-righteousness was boiling within him and he had to find relief some way.
“Damn bunch of robbers!” he told the horse.
Ordinarily the incident would have closed then and there; but fate so willed it that Kettle-Belly Johnson came to Tombstone a few days later and voiced his plaint in Bob Hatch's saloon, where he found himself suddenly surrounded by sympathizers. He did not know—and if he had he would not have cared one way or the other—that the new law-and-order party had grown to a point where it wanted to get action in the courts; that its members were looking for an opportunity to swear out a warrant against some of the bigger outlaws in order to “show up” Johnny Behan, who—so men said—was unwilling to arrest any of the cow-boy faction. The grand jury was in session; they got Kettle-Belly Johnson sober enough to face star-chamber inquisition and led him to the court-house in the morning.
So it came that young Billy Breckenbridge, whose business was serving warrants and not bothering over the whys and wherefores of their issuance, knocked at the door of John Ringo's cabin in Galeyville a few days later; and then, being a prudent man, stepped to one side where he would be beyond the zone of fire.
“Got a warrant for you,” he announced when the desperado had demanded to know who was there. “Highway robbery.”
There was a bit of parleying through the closed door and finally—
“Man by the name of Johnson is the complaining witness,” young Breckenbridge elucidated. “According to what I hear, the play came up along of a poker game.”
John Ringo swore lightly.
“Come in,” he bade the deputy. “I'll get my clothes on in a minute.”
He laughed sourly as he was pulling on his boots some moments later.
“Looks as if the grand jury's hard up for something to do,” he observed.
He rose and belted on his gun, a proceeding about which his custodian, being unburdened with any desire to burn powder over such hair-splitting technicalities as a man's right to wear weapons on his way to jail, made no comment.
“We'll go down the street,” the prisoner suggested as they were leaving the cabin, “and I'll fix it up to get bail.”
But the accommodating cattle-buyer who arranged such matters for the bigger outlaws was out of town and would not be back until evening. Breckenbridge's horse was jaded, and if he wanted to reach Tombstone in good time he should be setting forth at once.
“You go ahead,” John Ringo bade him. “I'll catch up with you before you pass Sulphur Springs ranch.”
Those were queer days, and if you judge things from our twentieth-century point of view you will probably find yourself bewildered.
John Ringo was known to be a cattle-rustler, stage-robber, and—according to the law—a murderer. And Breckenbridge, whose duty it was to enforce the statutes, set out for the county seat alone on the strength of that promise. Nor was he in the least surprised when his prisoner, who had ridden all night to make good his word, overtook him in the middle of the valley.
Queer days indeed! And the threads of some men's lives were sadly tangled. Such desperadoes as Curly Bill were easy enough to read; just rough-and-tumble cow-boys who had taken to whisky and bad company. But behind the somber mask of John Ringo's face there lurked a hidden history; something was there which he did not choose to reveal to the rest of the world.
The mail had come to Galeyville after young Breckenbridge left. There is nothing more conducive to confidences than a long ride through a lonely country. And when these two were jogging across the wide, arid reaches of the Sulphur Springs Valley the outlaw pulled a letter from his pocket; the envelope was already broken. Evidently he had read its contents before; now he scanned them for a long time and his dark face was set. He thrust the paper back into its enclosure; then suddenly, as one who yields to impulse, reined his pony closer to his companion and held forth the envelope for him to read.
“Look at that writing,” he said quietly.
The hand was unmistakably that of a woman of education.
“My sister,” he added, and shoved the letter into his pocket.
They rode some distance in silence and then—
“And I'm here,” John Ringo added in the same even voice. “She writes me regularly. Thinks I'm doing fine!”
He did not bring up the subject again; it was as if he had opened a curtain a little way and let it fall at once; but the deputy, who came from good people himself, had been able to see much during that brief glimpse into the outlaw's hidden life. And having seen those tangled threads he was able to understand certain matters all the better when the end came.
Now while Deputy Sheriff Breckenbridge and John Ringo were riding toward Tombstone things were brewing in that wild young mining camp. The law-and-order party was preparing to make a clean-up of the desperadoes.
And when the pair arrived the news went forth; the hour was late, but late hours meant little in those days of all-night gambling; a number of the leaders gathered in Bob Hatch's saloon and discussed the situation. It looked promising, for Ringo was the brains of the bad men; with him in custody it should be easy to lay hands on Curly Bill, who was at the time over in the lawless town of Charleston on the San Pedro. They made their plans toward that end; and, just to make doubly sure, they arranged with the district attorney to see that Ringo should be kept in jail for at least twenty-four hours.
That was the situation when the pair arrived from no-man's-land; there was no chance of getting bail at this time of night. The outlaw slept behind the bars; and when the morning came he sent for the lawyer who was always retained by the stock-rustlers, a criminal attorney by the name of Goodrich.
Goodrich brought news that the law-and-order party were preparing an expedition to Charleston to round up Curly Bill. Knowing the habits of his burly aide, John Ringo was reasonably sure that the crusaders would find the latter the worse for whisky and bring him back a captive. His natural itching to depart from custody was aggravated by the feeling that his presence in the cow-town by the San Pedro was badly needed. He urged Goodrich to hurry to the bank and get the bail-money.
The conference took place in Johnny Behan's office, and after the lawyer's departure on this errand the outlaw remained there pacing the floor. Half an hour passed; a man had brought Ringo's pony from the O.K. corral and left it at the hitching-rack before the court-house. Everything was in readiness—except the cash. Finally Goodrich returned.
“All right,” he told the sheriff, who was seated at his desk. “I've got the bail here, Johnny. Everything's arranged.”
And Johnny Behan, who was, if the truth be owned, a very easy-going peace officer indeed, bade his prisoner depart. He did not know—and Goodrich did not know—that on this occasion the bailing out of John Ringo was going to be something more than a mere formality.
So it came about that a number of people met with surprises this same morning. Included in these were a delegation from the law-and-order party who rode over to Charleston to gather in Curly Bill but got no further than the approach to the bridge which spanned the San Pedro River. A solitary figure at the other end of the structure made them draw rein. John Ringo's voice reached them from across the stream.
“Come on,” he called. “I'm waiting for you.”
Something had gone wrong, and when something goes wrong the wise general does well to investigate before continuing his advance. The posse deliberated briefly; and then turned back for Tombstone. But their astonishment at finding the leader of the desperadoes at large was as nothing compared to Johnny Behan's bewilderment when he met the district judge in the court-house corridor some time near noon.
“I'll be ready to take up the matter of that man Ringo's bail in a few minutes,” Judge Stilwell said pleasantly.
The sheriff remained inarticulate for several seconds. Finally—
“Ringo!” he managed to gasp. “Why, he's gone. I thought”
Perfervid language followed. Johnny Behan had been a cow-boy in his time, and the court had—in his unofficial capacity—a rather large vocabulary of his own. In the end certain facts began to outline themselves through the sulphuric haze: the district attorney had offered objections to the proffered bail.
“I'll take this matter up,” the judge told the stricken sheriff, “to-morrow morning, and I'll hold you responsible for the appearance of the defendant in court at that time.”
The news flew fast, and when the posse returned from Charleston they found the town of Tombstone discussing Johnny Behan's predicament. Being wise politicians, the leaders of the law-and-order party kept to themselves the information as to John Ringo's whereabouts. That evening they called a meeting of their followers, and a second posse set forth through the darkness for Charleston.
There were some fifty-odd of them, well armed and enthusiastic. Their purpose was to bring the outlaw to the court-house the next morning. Thereby the reform movement should gain much prestige—and the sheriff lose standing.
But Charleston was full of stock-rustlers and bad men that night, and when the members of the law-and-order party rode into the place they found themselves surrounded by a half a hundred of the worst men in the Territory of Arizona. John Ringo had been looking for further trouble, and his forces were so well disposed that the invaders had their choice between surrender and being massacred.
They yielded to necessity like wise men and gave over their arms to their captors, who forthwith took them to the nearest saloon and bought them many drinks. It was during this portion of the proceedings that Curly Bill, who had led the ambushing-party, learned whom the prisoners were seeking. He brought the news to John Ringo.
“So it's me they're after,” the outlaw said.
“And it looks,” said Curly Bill, “like Johnny Behan is in a mighty tight box, the way things has turned out.”
Knowing the grudge which his friend held against the sheriff, he was not surprised to see John Ringo's face grow darker and the light in his eyes more devilish.
“I tell you what,” the latter bade him after some moments of thinking. “You keep those fellows here to-night. Don't let one of them leave Charleston.”
And Curly Bill departed to see that the command was obeyed. They say that the celebration which attended the holding of the captives was one of the large events in the tumultuous history of the cow-town by the San Pedro, and those who witnessed it are unanimous in stating that the Tombstone contingent upheld the reputation of their camp when it came to whisky-drinking. It was late the next day before the last of them rode back through the foot-hills of the Mule Mountains to their homes. But all of this is apart from the story.
The point is that John Ringo saddled up that very night and journeyed to Tombstone, where he sought out young Billy Breckenbridge.
“Heard there was some trouble about my being turned loose,” he announced when he had roused the deputy from his slumbers, “and I didn't know but what maybe you'd lose your job if Johnny Behan got turned out of office.”
Wherefore it came about that when court convened in the morning and the matter of John Ringo's bail was brought up the prisoner was produced to the utter astonishment of all concerned—except himself and the man who had allowed him to recover his confiscated revolvers.
Within the hour John Ringo walked out of the court-house under bond to insure his appearance at the trial. And no one expected the case to come to anything. In short, the situation was unchanged, and the head men of the reform movement settled down to bide their opportunity of killing off the bigger desperadoes, which was apparently the only way of settling the issue.
So John Ringo went his way, a marked man, and many a trigger-finger itched when he appeared in Tombstone; many a bold spirit longed to take a shot at him. But the knowledge of his deadliness kept him from being made a target.
He went his way, and it was a bad way. Dark deeds piled up to fill the debit pages of his life's ledger.
If he was influenced by those letters, which came regularly to remind him of gentle womanhood disgraced by his wild career, it was only to make him drink harder. And the more he drank the blacker his mood became. Those who rode with him have said so. A bad man, there is no doubt about it; and big in his badness, which made it all the worse.
There came a blazing day in the late summer, one of those days when the Arizona sun flays the wide, arid valleys without surcease, when the naked rock on the mountain heights is cloaked in trembling heat-waves and the rattlesnakes seek the darkest crevices among the cliffs. Deputy Sheriff Breckenbridge on his way back to Tombstone from some errand in the eastern end of the county was riding through Middle Pass in the Dragoons.
As he came forth against the flaring sky-line at the summit he saw a rider coming toward him from the west. He turned to one side where the lay of the land gave him a vantage-point, loosened his revolver in its holster, and awaited the traveler's closer approach.
Some moments passed; the pony drew nearer, and the deputy withdrew the hand which was resting on his weapon's butt. His face relaxed.
“Hello there, John,” he called, and Ringo rode up to him in silence. “Hot day,” Breckenbridge announced cheerfully.
The desperado swore at the sun in the drawling monotone wherein your artist at profanity intones his curses when he means them. His face was a good shade darker than usual; his eyes were satanic. He reached to his hip and brought forth a flask of whisky.
“Have a drink.” He uttered it rather as a demand than an offer.
The deputy took the bottle and made pretense of swallowing some of the lukewarm liquor. The outlaw laughed sourly, snatched it from him, and drained it.
“Got another quart,” he announced as he flung the empty flask against a boulder.
“Better hit it mighty light,” Breckenbridge advised. “The sun's bad when you get down there in the valley.”
He waved his hand toward the wide flat lands which lay shimmering like an enormous lake a thousand feet below them. Ringo raised his somber face toward the blazing heavens and launched another volley of curses upon them before he rode away. And that was the last time young Breckenbridge saw him alive.
The thing which took place afterward no man beheld save John Ringo, and his lips were sealed for all time when others came upon him. But the desert holds tracks well, and the men of southeastern Arizona were able to read trails as you or I would read plain print. So they picked the details of that final chapter from the hot sands of the Sulphur Springs Valley as they are set down here.
Morning was drawing on toward noon when John Ringo's pony bore him downward from the living granite pinnacles to the glaring plain. Noon was passing as he jogged onward across the Sulphur Springs Valley.
To this day, when ranchers have drawn floods of limpid water from the bowels of the earth, the place sees long periods whose heat is punishing. At that time the whole land was a desert; a flat floor, patched in spots by alkali deposits, girded round by steep-walled mountain ranges. Cacti grew there, and huge tufts of Spanish bayonets.
John Ringo's pony jogged on and on; the fine dust rose from its hoofs, surrounding animal and rider like a moving wraith of fog, settling down upon their sweating skins in a whitish-gray film which stung like fire. Before them the mirage wavered like an enormous, vague tapestry stirring in a breeze.
But of breeze there was none, nor was there any sign of water save that phantom of a lake—dead now for ages—which kept its distance always ahead. And the sun climbed higher; its scourgings grew ever fiercer.
Scourged also by thoughts and memories which he had never revealed to men—save only as he had hinted at them on that other afternoon to Breckenbridge—the bad man drank the lukewarm whisky as he rode. And the liquor did its work until when he had gone two hours from the foot of the pass he realized that it was overcoming him.
He drew rein, dismounted, and sought the shade of a clump of soto-bushes. But before he flung himself upon the baking sands he took off his boots and, tying their tops together, hung them over his saddle-horn. The pony he turned loose with the reins down cow-boy fashion. After which he yielded to the whisky and knew no more.
The sun was still glaring in the cloudless sky when he came back to his senses; and the torture of that thirst which comes after heavy drinking was upon him. He got to his feet. The pony had gone. Afterward the searchers tracked the animal to the Sulphur Springs ranch, where it had come with the boots hanging to the saddle-horn.
John Ringo was alone, a speck in the middle of the shimmering plain, and there was no water for miles. He started walking eastward toward the pass which leads over into the San Simon. The cactus did its work; the alkali sands scalded his bleeding feet; he took off his shirt, tore it into strips and bound them round his ankles for footgear; and when the strips were cut through he used his undershirt, until finally he walked barefooted and the blood-drops showed beside his tracks.
Toward the end the same blindness which comes to thirst-maddened cattle seized upon him. When they found him he was within a stone's throw of water and the sound of the stream must have been in his ears, for his footprints showed where he had circled and zigzagged, striving to reach the spot whence that limpid murmuring came. Among the cartridges in his belt were two whose lead was deeply dented by his teeth as he chewed upon them in the vain hope of moistening his lips.
He was seated on a boulder between two dwarf live-oaks and his big forty-five revolver lay beside him, with one empty shell. The bullet-hole was fairly between his eyes, all powder-marked.
And so they knew just how he died; and young Billy Breckenbridge, who came over into no-man's-land a day or two later, was able to piece out the story by backtracking along that trail through the sands; able to read those signs from the foot of the Dragoons on across the valley; and able also—because he had seen that letter—to realize the torture of memories which had come along with the torture of thirst to goad John Ringo on to self-destruction.
In this manner it came about that the outlaws of Cochise County lost their leader; and now that the man of brains was gone it became possible for events to shape up, as they did soon afterward, toward the big Earp-Clanton gun-fight.
The old-timers are unanimous in saying that had John Ringo been alive that battle wherein the leaders of the Earp faction slew several of the biggest desperadoes would never have taken place as it did. The forces would have been differently disposed than they were on that bloody morning when Billy Clanton and the McLowery boys died in Tombstone's street by the O.K. corral; the chances are the victory would have gone the other way. To this day they tell how Ringo's passing was the beginning of the end; how Curly Bill vanished soon afterward; how the stage-robbers and rustlers became disorganized and were no longer any match for the law-and-order faction.
And when the old-timers, who witnessed these wild doings, recount the history of the wind-up, laying the cause as has been stated, they give the credit to the man whom they believe entitled to it; which brings us back to Buckskin Frank.
On that blazing day when John Ringo rode out into no-man's-land Buckskin Frank was away from Tombstone. And this time there were more urgent reasons for his departure from the camp than the mere seeking after plunder. He was, as has been said, a bad man; a bad man of the type who can kill from in front but relishes best that opportunity which offers the back of his enemy as a target.
During the long period while the outlaws were swaggering down Tombstone's streets, defying the leaders of the law-and-order movement, the two-gun man managed to cling to the good graces of the Earp faction; just as in these days you may have seen a crooked ward-heeler hanging to the skirts of a good-government crusade. Nobody loved him, but there were those who thought he might be useful. He traded on their names and—when there was dirty business to be done, as there always has been since politics began—he was there to do it. Also he was right there to ask favors in return.
So it came that the knowledge of his killings spread abroad; men told how he had slain one victim who was drinking in a dance-hall when the bullet entered his back; how another had fallen, shot from behind in a dark alley. But prosecutions never followed, and the buckskin-clad figure with its bad, handsome face became a sinister object in Tombstone's streets.
However, a man can not keep up this sort of thing forever without getting an ill name, and the time came when Buckskin Frank was beginning to be a source of embarrassment to those who had thus far tolerated him. On top of which his prestige was suddenly threatened.
There was, in the camp, a fellow by the name of Nigger Jim, one of those black negroes whose blood is undiluted by the white man's; a former slave; more than six feet tall and—to this very day—as straight as a ramrod. He had fought Apaches and on more than one occasion held his own against outlaws; and the early settlers, of whom he was one, treated him as an equal.
This Nigger Jim had staked a silver claim over Contention way, and one day Buckskin Frank jumped the property. The owner heard that the bad man had put up new location notices in place of his own and hastened to the place to investigate. He found Frank camped on the ground, well armed and ready to maintain possession.
What followed does not amount to much when it comes to action with which to adorn a tale.
Nigger Jim walked up to the bad man, his hand on his revolver-butt. The luck which sometimes looks out for the righteous party in a quarrel was with him to the extent of seeing to it that the meeting took place out in the open where there was no chance for ambush.
The break was even. And the black man was determined to see the issue through, willing to abide by whatever consequences might follow. Moreover he had earned his reputation with a six-shooter. So, as has been said, he came walking up to Buckskin Frank—from in front.
And Buckskin Frank allowed him to approach until the two stood facing each other out there among the rocks and Spanish bayonets. Then the two-gun man spoke, holding forth his right hand.
“I heard some parties were jumping your claim, Jim,” said he, “and, being near, I thought I'd come over and look out for you.”
“Thanky,” said Nigger Jim, but made no offer to take the extended hand; nor did he turn his back upon the bad man, who evidently did not think the claim worth the hazards of an honest gun-fight, for he left soon afterward.
In Tombstone Nigger Jim kept silent regarding the incident, but the news leaked out within a week or two when Buckskin Frank tried to slay the black man from behind and was prevented by a woman who threw her arms over him and held him until the prospective victim turned his head and took in the situation. With the spread of the story Frank saw that Tombstone was no place for him at present and he left the camp. Whereby it happened that he was over in the San Simon on that hot day when John Ringo came across the Dragoon Mountains. And on the morning when the body was discovered he was riding through the pass on some dubious errand or other.
News traveled slowly in those days. Frequently it came to its destination sadly garbled. On this occasion young Billy Breckenbridge was the only man who brought the facts back to Tombstone; and he arrived there long after Buckskin Frank.
For the two-gun man had seen his opportunity to make men forget that incident wherein he had figured so poorly against Nigger Jim, and had spurred his pony all the way to the county seat, where he told his story—how he had seen the desperado sitting under the dwarf live-oaks, had stalked him as a man stalks big game, and shot him through the head. And just to give his tale versimilitude he said he had done the killing from behind.
The times were brisk; one shooting came so fast on the heels of its predecessor that every affair in its turn swiftly passed from public attention. By the time that Deputy Sheriff Breckenbridge arrived with the facts people were turning their minds to the big Benson stage hold-up. And so Buckskin Frank's story lived, and to this day in speaking of that bad man the old-timers give him grudging credit for having slain the big “He Wolf.”