Evening Star Newspaper, October 26, 1930, Page 102

20 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, B. €, OCTOBER 2, 1930, - Four Desperate Outlaws Caught in a Net Second Installment of an Article Deal- ing With the Ex- termination of the - Notorious ““‘Black Jack Gang” of the Southzvest—7T hree SDwdes n uw Buggy, and the Gun Fight in theBakery. AWoman in the Case. BY CARL B. LIVINGSTON, Formerly Assistant Attorney General of New Mexico. EDITOR’S NOTE—The “Black Jack” gang was a widely famed group of desperadoes who around 1900 were terrorizing the South- west with their bold holdups of trains, daring bank robberies, cold-blooded murders and an end- less succession of minor crimes. This is the second of a series of three articles describing the law- less exploits of the gang and the dramatic incidents leading up to its final extermination. NE evening at dusk two strangers came riding up to V. H. Lusk’s ranch, at Chimney Wells, in Southern New Mexico. In the gathering gloom one was perceived to be a short, stockily built fellow, ,wearing two white-handled pistols; the other was slender and boyish Jooking. This was on August 16, 1899—the very night when Tom Ketchum made his fatal mistake in holding up the Colorado & Southern train near Polsom, and exactly a month after the attack which Special Agent Reno had led against *Black Jack” bandits in Turkey Canyon. Chimney Wells, however, is down on the Rio Pecos, 400 miles from Turkey Canyon, and there was ncthing whatever in the appearance of the two newcomers to arouse suspicion that they were the two bandits—one short and the other tall—who had escaped after the skirmish with Reno’s men, Wandering cowboys often came to Lusk's ranch, and he would have thought nothing of these two fellows’ advent but for the fact that they inquired, rather furtively, for a horse they were in search of—a gray, branded with a slash on the left thigh. One of the men was riding a black and leading a bay—and both bore this same brand of the slash. These three animals ~—the black, the bay and the gray—were “mys- tery” animals and Lusk had been watching them for months to see who would claim them. In May, four months previously, Sheriff Cicero Stewart and Deputy United States Marshal D. R. Harkey had captured four out- Jaws and locked them up in the El Paso County jail. In an El Paso paper of May 3 there ap- peared a statement to the effect that one of these prisoners was the notorious “Black Jack” —an error on the part of a too imaginative reporter. This mistake, strangely enough, was destined to be instrumental in bringing disaster to certain members of the “Black Jack” gang. THE Shattuck brothers, ranchers of Sulphur ¢ Springs Valley, Ariz., read the erroneous account in the paper and, believing the report to be authentic, wrote to Cicero Stewart in Carlsbad, N. M. In their letter the Shattucks stated that the “Black Jack” gang had stolen three of their horses, and they were anxious to know if Stewart had found any ponies in “Black Jack’s” possession. The Shattuck brand was a slash on the left thigh. After this letter reached Stewart he happened to be riding on the train one day with a certain Tom White of the L. F. D. outfit. White in- formed the sheriff that three L. F. D. animals had just been stolen and in their places the thieves had left three badly jaded ponies with fresh saddle marks that indicated hard and long riding. These horses were marked on the left thign with a slash. In course of time the three “mystery” ponies drifted down to Lusk's ranch at Chimney Wells and Sheriff Stewart asked Lusk to keep a special watch on the suimals and report at once if any one came to Carver fell, his weapon sli:hwing across the floor. As he crawled toward it Deputy Sharp kicked the gun at;my. claim them. For months Lusk watched the three horses fatten on his range and waited for some one to come along and ask for them. And now, at last, two men had arrived. When the strangers rode up to the ranch house, riding two of the ponies and inquiring after the third, Lusk informed them that the gray was somewhere out in the salt-grass flat with his remuda. There was small chance of cutting this skittish-animal out of a herd at night, he added; they would have to postpone catching the gray until morning. In accord- ance with ranch hospitality, however, Lusk in- vited the newcomers to spend the night with him. No, they wouldn’t stay, the pair told him. They would rather camp out. Thereupon they rode away and were swallowed up by the dark- ness. Then suddenly fromgthe top of a high hill ‘to the north there shot up the glow of a camp- fire. Thereupon, satisfied that the visitors had camped for the night, Lusk saddled the best horse on the ranch and galloped into Carlsbad, 20 miles away, to tell Sheriff Stewart what had happened. The sheriff organized a small posse on the spot—Rufus Thomas and John Cantrell. Thomas had no rifle handy and borrowed one. As he rushed out to his mount a bystander shouted after him: “Be careful, that gun's been known to hang fire!” The four men reached Chimney Wells just before dawn. Unsaddling their mounts, they hid their saddles under a tarpaulin and John Lusk, the rancher’s son, drove the sweating horses over a rise and hobbled them so that they would be out of sight when the visitors arrived after daylight. The officers coneealed themselves behind the embankment of a tank near the reservoir surrounded by a barbed wire fence, close by a tent that Lusk was using as a temporary headquarters. Just at sunrise a lone horseman, slender and boyish, appeared over the brow of the hill to the north. He rode up in style, his pistol buckled on his hip and his rifle swinging at his saddle. The youngster dismounted. The posse could have closed in on him quite easily, but they were waiting for the arrival of his thick-set partner. Meanwhile the first man grew obviously restless; he took out a pair of field glasses and scanned the horizon pre- sumably looking for his belated comrade. Stewart, fearing that he would get tired of waiting and take his departure, whispered to young John Lusk to get the hobbled horses ready so that, if necessary, the posse could give chase without loss of time. To V. H. Lusk, the father, the sheriff said: “Get him into the tent for breakfast.” LUSK went off and, in his usual hearty fashion, invited the young man to have some food. He accepted, stepped inside the tent and seated himself at the table, but with his face to the door. When the officers had- arrived, an hour previously, Stewart had taken the precaution of covering up a rifle he saw in the tent so that there would be no extra weapon lying around for a bandit to grab up. As he crouched behind the embankment of the tank, Stewart had told the rancher the location of this rifle, and Lusk was to indicate that he had found it by walk- ing to the tent door. At this signal the posse would close in upon the stranger. About 200 yards separated the posse's place of concealment from the tent, and directly between the two stood a wagon to which the visitor had tied his horse. The posse planned to rush out from the tank and reach the horse directly Lusk gave the signal. Presently the rancher duly appeared at the opening. It transpired later that he had not located the rifle and was merely strolling around hoping to stumple upon it. The posse, however, mistook his movements for the pre- arranged signal, leaped up and raced toward the horse and tent, making a good deal of noise as they negotiated the barbed wire fence round the pool. “When the stranger heard the barbed wire sing,” Lusk said afterward, “he glanced out of the tent and saw the enrushing posse. “‘Did you do this?” he snarled at me. Then he sprang out of the tent toward his horse. Rufus Thomas and the “wanted” man reached the wagon almost simultaneously. “Surrender!” shouted Thomas, raising his rifie. With that the stranger drew his pistol, fired at Thomas, and ducked under ghe wagon to reach his rifle, which was on the saddle of the pony, tied to the opposite side. Thomas’ gun snapped once—twice—several times—but no explosion followed, and—too late—he recalled the warning the bystander at Carlsbad had shouted to him. A moment later the young outlaw’s pistol spoke again, and Thomas fell to the ground. Lusk, who was completely unarmed, so as not to arouse the suspicion of his “guest,” had meanwhile stepped outside the tent in order to be clear of the line of fire. But the stranger had not finished with him. In a rage he whirled on the rancher. “You old ——!” he roared savagely. “You're the cause of this!™ Then came a shot and Lusk felt a bullet sear through his arm. Shots were soon flying fast as Stewart and Cantrell came into action, the stranger dodging this way and that and returning the fire. He ran behind the tent, rose, fired, dropped out of sight and then bobbed up again at a new point to shoot once more. Cicero Stewart’s rifle cracked and the stranger fell flat as though shot dead. . He was, however, merely temporarily dazed by the bullet passing close to his head and was up again in an instant, but this time with his hands raised. ‘Thereupon the posse ceased firing. The outlaw came walking out with his arms held high and his empty pistol stuck in his waistband. Sheriff Stewart advanced to hand- cuff him. Directly they met, however, the bandit dropped his arms, grabbed for the sheriff’s pistol with one hand and struck at him with the other. But Stewart was a power- ful man and he thrust out his big fist and knocked the bandit down. A moment later Cantrell ran up with cocked rifle and covered the outlaw while the sheriff “hog-tied” him. HEN the battle first started the short out- law appeared on the crest of a hill half a mile away. After watching for a few minutes he loped off southward, returning about the time the fight was over, leading the gray horse that he and his partner had been in quest of. The fellow on the brow of the hill looked the situation over intently, evidently with field glasses. Finally he waved his hat in a mock- ing adieu and, wheeling his horses, galloped away over the rise. The prisoner was placed on his horse and both feet tied under the pony's belly to pre- vent escape. Lusk and Thomas, the wounded men, were put into a buckboard wagon and the little procession set out for Carlsbad. At the jail when the outlaw was stripped for examination he was found to have two old bullet wounds not yet fully healed. This in- formation, as related in a previous article, was forthwith wired to Special Agent Reno. Reno hurried to Carlsbad with Jim Hunt, a merchant of Cimarron, who had seen the “Black Jack™ gang in that town time and again. The boyish-looking prisoner was at once identified as Bill McGinnis, alias Ezra Lay. Reno recog- nized him as the slender outlaw who had fig- ured in the battle of Turkey Canyon. Meanwhile the other outlaw, who had gale loped off after the fight at Chimney Wells, had been seen as he passed a place called Dagger Draw and was recognized as Will Carver, the stocky bandit who covered his wounded friends during their retreat from Turkey Canyon. Ezra Lay, under the name of Willlam Mc- Ginnis, was duly tried and convicted at Raton, N. M., being sentenced to life imprisonmens for the murder of Sheriff Edward Farr. Lay made a model prisoner. Because of this and his youth he was pardoned in 1906 and never again renewed relations with any of the “Black Jack” fraternity. Thus a third member of the gang disappears from our list. In the middle of February, 1901, there drove into the little old cow town of Sonora, Tex., three elegantly dressed men in a rubber-tired buggy—an unusual sight in that land of cov- ered wagons, boots and spurs. The three strangers announced themselves as horse buyers from Iowa. They drove about the countryside and always seemed to have plenty of cash. Frequently the trio changed fat rolls of 20- dollar gold certificates at the Pirst National Bank. Well dressed, obviously prosperous and always riding in their gleaming new buggy, these men soon became known as the “Rubber- tire Outfit.” Local horse dealers looked upon the new- comers as easy marks. Whole herds of ancient “plugs” were rounded up on the cactus flats for immediate sale to the greenhorns, but the “dudes” were not so gullible as they looked, and out of a thousand they bought only one horse—a good animal that had got among the rest by accident. Presently, the “Rubber-tire Outfit” went on to the neighboring town—Paint Rock, Concho County. There they established their head- quarters out at the camp of old Mr. Kilpatrick —the father of Ben Kilpatrick, a known mem- ber of the “Black Jack” gang. The “Iowa horse buyers” then purchased three more ponies, making four all told. Old horse traders began to wonder “why them Iowa fellers was so choicy” as to buy only four animals after coming 2,000 miles with “stacks” of gold notes. And how could they have driven all that distance and still keep the rubber-tired buggy shiny and the team as fresh and frisky as though the rig had just flaghed out from a city livery stable? Then, all of a suddert on March 27, the citizens of Sonora were startled to hear of the killing of Oliver Thornton, sheriff of Paint Rock. Officer Howze of that county 'phoned to Sheriff E. S. Briant at Sonora and informed him that Sheriff Thornton had been murdered by the “Rubber-tire Outfit” and that the trio had now headed back into Briant's own territory. A FEW months before—on September 29, 1900—the First National Bank of Win- nimucca, Nev., had been held up and robbed of over $32,000 by members of the “Black Jack” gang. In Fort Worth, Tex., on No-