12 Years in the Saddle: For Law and Order on the Frontiers of Texas. Sergeant W. J. L. Sullivan
Читать онлайн книгу.
thieves” (meaning Yoakum and his partner, Gregg), “if I can catch you I certainly will do so.” After that I kept my eyes open and watched Yoakum very closely. Whenever I managed to get off to myself, I walked around the herd and took down the brands of these three hundred cattle that had been stolen from different parties throughout the state.
After procuring sufficient evidence to show that they had stolen the cattle, I went to Brackenridge and informed the sheriff of these facts, and he and I went to the office of the justice of the peace, where I swore out warrants for the arrest of Yoakum and Gregg.
The sheriff sent his deputy, Frank Freeman, with me to make the arrest, and we reached the herd late in the evening. Gregg was with the herd, grazing cattle in a mesquite flat, when we found him, and we arrested him first. Turning my head toward the wagon, I saw Mrs. Yoakum standing on the wagon tongue motioning her husband to run, which he did. Freeman and I immediately placed Gregg in the charge of other officers who had come along, and set out in pursuit of Yoakum. Yoakum was riding a fast saddle mule, but was caught by Freeman and I, and we brought him back to where the other men were.
While the deputy sheriff was reading the warrant to Yoakum, the latter, being angered at me, suddenly made a play for his six-shooter to kill me, but I was too quick for him and blocked his game. Several men who watched us arrest Yoakum and Gregg were in sympathy with them, and claimed that Yoakum did not try to draw a gun on me. The deputy sheriff, being busy reading the warrant, did not see Yoakum’s movements, so he could not say whether I was right or wrong in attacking Yoakum. Old Man Wilson (W. R.) seemed to be the “worst stuck” on Yoakum, and I thought for quite a while that I would have him to kill, but he eventually quieted down.
I ate no supper that night, nor breakfast the next morning, and drank nothing but a little water out of a creek. The following morning we started back to Brackenridge, taking our two prisoners to jail. Mrs. Yoakum accompanied us to town.
When we reached the town, Old Man Wilson, the great friend of Yoakum, swore out a warrant for me, charging me with assault upon Yoakum. They wanted to arrange it so that I couldn’t be in Brownwood to appear against Yoakum when the trial came off, but Freeman held himself responsible for me, and in that way blocked their game.
We left the next morning for Brownwood. Frank Freeman and I rode along together, and while discussing various subjects to pass away the time we accidently learned that we were distant relatives. That probably accounts for Frank being so nice to me and afterward showing me so many favors.
While we were in Brackenridge, Yoakum and Gregg employed Attorney Webb to defend them. That night, when we reached camp, Yoakum asked the deputy sheriff if he could talk to me and, being told that he could, he took me off a few yards to make me a proposition. He told me that if I would not appear against him he would go to Brownwood and beat that one ease and leave the country with his stock.
“I can not afford to do it,” I said, “for such characters as you should be in the penitentiary.” He then went back to the wagon, and Freeman called me off and asked me what Yoakum had told me, and I repeated the proposition that Yoakum had made to me.
“Those men who went out to help arrest Yoakum and Gregg are undoubtedly thieves and thugs themselves from the way they worked against you,” said Frank, “and it might be best for you not to go back to Brackenridge, for you will be alone up there since no one knows you except me, and those tough characters might kill you. I know them too well,” he continued, “and I am satisfied that Yoakum made a break for his gun, but his friends will swear that he didn’t, and that will cause lots of trouble.” Frank then told me that he being responsible for me, he could manage it for me if I wanted to get loose.
I told him that I thought it best for me to leave and not go back to Brackenridge, so I left that night for my former home.
Yoakum succeeded in beating his case through a “slick” scheme of his attorney. Webb and his clients worked on Mrs. Holt and won her over to their side. Yoakum bought Mrs. Molt’s cow back, and Mrs. Holt swore in court that that was not her cow, and the indictments were quashed. I learned afterward that Mrs. Holt went over to Brownwood in the wagon with Mrs. Yoakum, and it nearly made me lose confidence in the fair sex.
In accordance with his promise to me, Frank Freeman advertised the brands of the stolen cattle, and cattlemen came from several parts of the state and claimed their property.
If I had been easily persuaded, as a great many young, unfortunate boys are, to join those cattle thieves in their theft of cattle, I would, most likely, have been found later hanging at the end of a rope, or serving a long sentence in the penitentiary.
VIII
The Hanging of Bill Longly
On the 11th of October 1879, I witnessed the execution of Bill Longly, who was hung at Giddings, Lee County, for the murder of Wilson Anderson. The sheriff, Jim Brown, who had charge of the execution, was the noted horse racer who was afterward killed in Chicago by a policeman.
A little while before the execution the sheriff read the death sentence to Bill, and, pointing to his two hundred guards, he told the people that he had worked three months selecting his men for the occasion, and that he thought he had about the best there was in the country to assist him in the execution. He then asked Bill if he wanted to make a talk. Bill said he did, and pulled his hat off and placed it in a chair. Then, looking calmly over the crowd, he addressed the guards and spectators as follows:
“This is a big crowd to witness the last of me. I know I am surrounded by enemies, but I forgive them for all that they have done against me, and I want them, as well as my friends, to pray for me.” Then, continuing, he said, “I understand that my brother, Jim, was in here to kill the man who cuts the rope to hang me. If you are in this crowd, Jim, don’t kill anybody on my account. I knew that if I was ever caught I would have to pay the penalty which I am now paying. I hate to die, but I have killed many a man who hated to die as bad as I do now, so I know I am getting my just deserts.”
When Bill finished his harangue he knelt between two priests. He had been confined in the jail at Galveston for eighteen months, and while there he had become a Catholic. Each priest put his hand on the man’s head, and they knelt together in prayer for several minutes. When he arose he walked straight to the trapdoor and, bowing to the crowd, said:
“Goodbye to everybody.”
The sheriff immediately placed the cap over his head, the rope around his neck, and bound his hands and feet. Then he got the hatchet and cut the rope. The trapdoor swung back, Bill fell through, and his neck was broken.
Mrs. Anderson, the widow of the man whom Longly had murdered, was present at the execution with her two children. When the doctors pronounced Bill to be dead, she remarked that she was satisfied.
Then they let him down and placed him in his coffin. The rope was coiled and laid on his breast, and the lid of his coffin screwed securely on. A sorrowful father then took charge of the remains of his former wayward son.
Bill’s cousins had given him a nice suit, and he was neatly dressed. Young and fine-looking, with dark hair and long black mustache, and with a complexion as fair as a lady’s, he looked so handsome before his death that it seemed a pity for him to die in such a terrible and unnatural manner.
IX
The Capture of Henry Carothers
In 1879, John Presall, a Pinkerton detective, told me that he had traced Henry Carothers to the San Bernard River, and that he wanted me and several others to help capture him. Carothers is the man who killed a Mr. Kirk, a prominent man of McDade.
With Willis McMaron and Albert Rosenberg, I immediately left Burton, on my way to join Presall.