a sunday fishing party—"bad-men"—ben thompson and other desperadoes—the story of a hot spring.
a few weeks after i arrived at the mines, some of the men wanted to get up a fishing party one sunday to go over to the nueces river, and i was asked to make one of the number.
it was arranged that we should leave the mines on saturday night, camp out, and come home on sunday afternoon. we started at 6.30 p.m., got over to the river by eight o’clock, and by eleven o’clock i and a young electrician named burnet were the only two sober men in the crowd. luckily for me burnet was a giant in strength and a “long-horn” (as native-born texans are called); for it was not long before the others started wrangling, and finally one of them said he could lick any one in the crowd, bare hands or with a knife. i and burnet suppressed him and took away his knife, then burnet told the rest of the men he would lick any one who started trouble, and we all rolled up in our blankets and tried to get some sleep. but every few minutes the first man would stick his head 114out of his blankets and say, “i can lick any one in the crowd.” finally, this got monotonous, and burnet told him he would sit him on the fire to cool off. this subdued him for a while, and i was beginning to think for good, when, just as i was dropping asleep, out popped his head with the same remark, which he repeated again after a short interval. not getting called down by burnet, he finally got quite brave, crawled out of his blankets, and kept getting louder and louder in his remarks. just as i was beginning to think burnet must be asleep, and was preparing to try a fall with him myself, up jumped burnet and, grabbing his man, threw him bodily into the fire. luckily for the poor devil, he staggered as he fell, and consequently dropped mostly on the far side of the fire, with only his legs in it. he soon jerked them out, and escaped with no worse hurt than singed pants. after this we had peace for the rest of the night.
next morning they started drinking again (we had not destroyed the liquor as we could not fight the whole crowd), but by noon we got them started home. most of these young fellows would have been quiet enough in different surroundings. but the little town of uvalde had turned out more “bad-men” than any town of its size in the west, and the fathers of these young men had been handy with a gun and mixed up 115in some shooting or other, so the sons thought it behoved them to keep up the family reputation. one young fellow, john garnet (who was later my shift mate in the extracting house), was the only survivor of a large family, every member of which had died by violence. his father was a large sheep-owner and very brutal to his mexican herders. one night the boys, coming home from a barbecue in town, found the old man tied in his arm-chair with his throat cut, and every herder on the place gone. there and then the eldest boy made a vow to kill every mexican he met. he went over to c. p. diaz, across the mexican line from eagle pass, and shot two or three mexicans who, he thought, had been implicated in his father’s killing. the rurales tried to arrest him, and he killed two and wounded three before they finally killed him. john himself i saw once in uvalde, some years later, have a fight with his cousin joe, whom he licked. joe said, "john, you are too big for me to fight with my fists, but i’ll get my gun and fix you." the rest of us got round john, and finally got him into his buggy and started off to his ranch, but fifteen minutes later i saw him drive round the plaza with a shot-gun across his knees. we remonstrated with him, but all he would say was, "boys, it’s no use; i cannot leave town as long as joe is looking for me." luckily, 116some other friends had worked on joe by telling him how bad it looked for the last two members of the family to be fighting, and got him to go home. it is this feeling that they cannot back down that makes so many young fellows who are naturally decent enough become killers and bad-men. for once you had killed some one and got a reputation as a fighter, your gun had to guard your life, for there were plenty of would-be fighters willing to try you out, and if they killed you they got the reputation you had and their own as well. the reader wonders probably why the city marshal or the sheriff did not interfere in a case like this. the reason is twofold: in the first place, whoever moved would make an enemy of both men if he interfered before there was any shooting done, and it would hurt his chances at elections; in the second place, because a fair, square “shooting-scrape” was even at that time not thought a very serious matter in west texas. and how could it be otherwise in a community like uvalde, where the man who was sheriff while i was there, and had held the office for twenty-two years, had killed more than one man in his youth in a private feud which his father had started; in a community where they still speak of ben thompson as a hero?
ben thompson was a noted character of san antonio 117some years ago—a man utterly without fear, a good shot and quick on the draw. he was a bad-man of a peculiar type, insomuch as he never bothered any but bad-men, and therein lay his immunity from the law, as the men he killed were all practically outlaws, and he could always plead self-defence. when he heard of any really tough man in his neighbourhood who was wild and woolly, he would hunt him up, pick a quarrel with him, and generally shoot him. he finally fell out with the men who kept a gambling and dance hall in san antonio, and in a row one night shot up the furniture and the lights. subsequently, on two or three occasions when the thought of how he had been robbed there rankled in his breast, or perhaps just for excitement, he used to go in and kick up a row. finally, this got monotonous, and they summoned up courage to call his bluff. they sent him word that he was not to come to their place again, as every man in the house would take a hand and kill him. when the message was brought to ben thompson, he said, "i wonder if they really have the nerve? anyway, i’ll just go and see about it," and over he went. the signal was passed from the door-keeper, and, as ben opened the swinging doors, eight or ten pistols cracked at the same time, and ben’s days were over. they had the nerve all right when there were 118enough of them. i knew one of the men implicated in this killing some years later, and i never knew him to turn his back to anybody or to a door or window. he was not at that time scared of any one, but it had become a habit from years of watching for some of ben’s friends to avenge him.
billy the kid, of whom i made mention before, was a noted desperado, but of quite a different stamp. he never fought fair like thompson, and never gave the other man a ghost of a show if he could help it. he was a half-breed indian, or at least had indian blood in him. when he was finally killed, it was proved that he had killed more than one man for every year he had lived. he is supposed to have originated, or at least brought to perfection, the art of whirling a gun and shooting. on two occasions when arrested, he pulled out his gun and handed it butt first to the sheriff, holding it by the barrel with the butt up and with his first finger in the trigger guard. as the sheriff on each occasion reached for the gun, the kid would whirl it on his finger, and, as the butt reached his palm, shoot. finally, as i said before, sheriff pat garrett (a product of uvalde) and kipp kinney went after him. they found out a mexican girl whom the kid used to visit, and lay in wait for him there after tying and gagging her. garrett stayed in the house behind 119a sofa, and kipp was to stay outside to see that the kid did not get to his horse again after the shooting commenced. the kid rode up when night fell and walked into the house; but, like all hunted animals, his suspicions were easily aroused, for he had hardly entered the dark room when he drew his pistol and asked who was there. as he called out, garrett rose from behind the sofa, and, sighting the kid against the light of the doorway, fired twice, killing him instantly. this was not showing much sporting spirit in garrett, but the man was a murderer of the worst type, killing men just for the sport of it.
while i am on the subject of bad-men, i may tell a story of luke short, another of that ilk. luke had been arrested by two deputies, who were taking him to the county seat, handcuffed, in a buggy. they stopped at a wayside saloon to get some refreshment, and, for security, left luke handcuffed to the buggy wheel. while they were inside taking a drink or two, the door opened and in walked luke short with the wheel of the buggy to which he was still handcuffed. he went up to the barkeeper and said, "colonel, these two snakes left me out there to die of thirst. i haven’t any money in my pocket with which to pay, but how many drinks will you give me on this?" and he slapped the wheel down on the bar. how many drinks he got, 120or how he got the axlenut off, the narrator did not explain.
the same raconteur told me this other tale, which he also swore was true. he and a partner once found a hot spring and mud-bath of wonderful curative properties. a new yorker, who was suffering from some complication of diseases, heard of it, and offered that, if they would take him out and it would cure him, he would not only pay them for their trouble, but buy their rights in the spring and bath as well. the money was payable on their return if he was cured, but said the narrator, “i never got the money.” on being pressed, he told the following tale: “we took him out with ten pack-mules carrying fancy canned goods and other truck. when we arrived and pitched our camp, it was arranged that we should bury him in the mud every morning up to his neck and dig him out again every night. well, after a week he was so much better that one night he opened up a bottle of champagne for a celebration. the next morning, after we had buried him, we were feeling pretty thirsty from the celebration, so my partner and i decided to sample some more of the fizz. one bottle led to another, so that by night we were too drunk to remember to dig him out. in the morning, when we came to life again, we went to see how he was 121getting along, and we found that the blamed coyotes had eaten his head off, so we lost our money.”
the pat garrett above mentioned got such a reputation as a killer of bad-men that they paid him $10,000 to come up to new mexico to be sheriff of a county there where the bad-man flourished. later, he was with roosevelt’s rough-riders in the spanish american war, and, when teddy was elected president, he appointed pat to be the head of the customs department in el paso, texas.
some time ago he got into a private row with some farmer over irrigation rights, and the farmer killed him. “how are the mighty fallen!”
