Desert Desperadoes
In an excerpt from a new book chronicling "The Banditti of Southwestern New Mexico," the High Fives gang blazes a bloody trail across "the gunfighter proving ground of the Southwest."
By Bob Alexander
This month, Gila Books—the book-publishing arm of Desert Exposure—will publish the second in a series of colorful histories of Southwestern New Mexico, Desert Desperadoes by Bob Alexander. The first title in the series, Six-Guns and Single-Jacks, also by Alexander, chronicled the history of Silver City and old Grant County from early settlement, through wild and wooly Old West days, to statehood. The hardcover edition of Six-Guns and Single-Jacks sold out in less than a year after its June 2005 publication; paperback copies are still available for $21.95 from local bookstores and museums and www.gilabooks.com.
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In Desert Desperadoes, subtitled "The Banditti of Southwestern New Mexico," award-winning author Bob Alexander expands his geographic scope while narrowing his subject focus. Desert Desperadoes looks at the outlaws and infamous badmen—"banditti," as early Las Cruces/Mesilla notable Albert Jennings Fountain dubbed them—throughout this corner of the state. It traces their bloody trails across Las Cruces and the Mesilla Valley, Silver City and Grant County, Deming and Columbus, Lordsburg and Shakespeare, into the Gila and even to El Paso and southeastern Arizona (including Tombstone), when New Mexico outlaws learned their violent trade or sought refuge from pursuing posses there.
Besides such well-known "desperadoes" as Billy the Kid and Johnny Ringo, the book colorfully recounts the careers of characters including "Bronco Bill" Walters, "Curly Bill" Brocius, Kit Joy, "Three-Fingered Jack" Dunlap, Pony Diehl, "Black Jack" Christian, "Six-Shooter Smith" and John Kinney, "King of the Rustlers." Among those seeking to bring the book's "banditti" to justice are Pat Garrett, "Dangerous Dan" Tucker, Harvey Whitehill and Fountain himself. Readers will also encounter such famous Wild West characters as Wyatt Earp and his brothers, the Clantons and "Doc" Holliday, as well as the Texas Rangers.
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Although written with the verve of a campfire storyteller, Desert Desperadoes is meticulously researched and documented, written by one of the most renowned historians of the Old West. Bob Alexander, a native Texan and veteran lawman, retired as a special agent with the US Treasury Department and began a second career as an author, based in Maypearl, Texas. He has written seven other books, including Fearless Dave Allison, Border Lawman (High Lonesome Books), which was named the 2004 Best Outlaw/Lawmen Book by the Western Outlaw/Lawman History Association (WOLA). His Lawmen, Outlaws and SOBs (High Lonesome Books) also won the association's best-book award the following year—the first such consecutive honors in WOLA's history. The National Outlaw/Lawman History Association honored Alexander in 2004 with its Literary Award for Outstanding Contributions to Western Historical Writing. As Robert G. McCubbin, co-publisher of True West Magazine, puts it, "Bob Alexander, in a few short years, has joined the ranks of the foremost writers in the field of Southwestern history."
Besides Alexander's lively prose, Desert Desperadoes also contains 117 rare historical photographs, many of them never before published. The cover painting is by noted Western artist Donald Yena. Desert Desperadoes is available in a limited-edition hardcover ($34.95) as well as in paperback ($21.95), from bookstores, museums and other retailers throughout the area or at www.gilabooks.com.
In the exclusive excerpt from Desert Desperadoes on the following pages, Alexander tells the saga of the "High Fives," a ruthless gang of bandits who blazed a bloody path through southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona in 1896 and 1897. Though not as well-known today as Billy the Kid or the Earps, the High Fives' story epitomizes the heyday of Old West outlaws in what's been called "the gunfighter proving ground of the Southwest."
From Desert Desperados:
To outlaw/lawman history, William "Will" Christian is better known simply as "Black Jack," nominal chief honcho of a villainous outlaw quintet, the "High Fives." The Christian boys, Will and his older brother Bob, after Texas births and Indian Territory outlaw careers, not unexpectedly headed for freedoms afforded by the loose and lackadaisical law-enforcement atmosphere of New Mexico Territory.
Another Texas-bred cowboy, 19-year-old George West Musgrave, too, had a touch of grand larceny on the brain. Like the Christian boys, Musgrave had transplanted to southeastern New Mexico Territory before managing to make it farther west. Musgrave's fast-traveling companion for the hard run ahead of Chaves County, New Mexico Territory, cattle- and horse-stealing indictments was 25-year-old Code Young, aka Bob Harris. North of Deming, using the name Jeff Davis, Musgrave found work on Jim Upton's O-O Ranch, where his brother Calvin Van had taken a job as ranch foreman. Code Young cleverly had morphed into Cole Estes, working for the Head and Hearst Ranch, adjoining the Diamond A. Shortly thereafter George Musgrave moved his fanny over to the Diamond A and started drawing his wages from that ranch's cookie-jar. Working a little farther to the south in the Playas Valley, but yet a Diamond A cowhand, was another tough hombre from Texas, a fugitive, Bob Hayes aka John West. With the hiring of these type of fellows a simple Diamond A truth was borne out: "We treated the outlaws as guests, and when the posses came for them a day or so later, we gave them the same consideration."
Soon Musgrave, Young and Hayes drifted on down the line, taking jobs with southeastern Arizona Territory cow-raising outfits, as the Christian brothers already had done. Through roundups or other cowboying business they were acquainted with each other. A common thread pulled these bad actors together; they were all hard Texas-bred cowboys—carefree and reckless—and they were all out to make an easy buck.
Soon known as the High Fives, named after a then-popular card game, the outlaws on the evening of July 20, 1896, pulled up in front of John D. Weems' general store at Separ. With the two Bobs staying outside tending the sweaty horses and serving as lookouts, George Musgrave, Code Young and Black Jack pulled bandannas up over their faces and brashly walked inside. Six-shooters drawn, they demanded compliance from patrons—and got it! Weems' store housed the US Post Office and from Postmaster Robert C. Milliken the bandits took $20.94. From the mercantile store they managed $180 cash and coin, and "a large red, orange, and white-striped Navajo blanket; six gray wool blankets; a three-bladed penknife with buck-horn handle; three boxes of cigars; French harps; a demijohn of whiskey; a pair of oil-tanned gloves; a new bridle; socks; and miscellaneous provisions."
Gathering up their plunder, the inside bandit boys rushed out to where fretful Bob Hayes and Bob Christian had the horses untied and ready. Tensely they all mounted up, fearing a citizen's gunshot at any second, and speedily hightailed it south for Hachita, in the Bootheel country. For big-time hijackers their take in money and merchandise, which in the aggregate amounted to about $250, had proved paltry—especially for a five-way split. Their getaway was perfect; the secrecy of their identities wasn't.
The then-Grant County Sheriff, Baylor Shannon, was quite naturally notified, but he opted to remain at Silver City. Instead of a personal response, two days later the sheriff sent a pair of deputies to make the investigation and chase after any bad guys. For his lackluster crime-fightin' zeal Sheriff Shannon took an old-fashioned journalistic blistering from a Lordsburg newspaper, the Western Liberal. Eventually two Grant County deputies, William G. McAfee (a future sheriff) and Perfecto Rodriguez (a future US deputy marshal) cold-trailed the High Fives into southeastern Arizona Territory.
There are two tales as to what happened next. By one account, McAfee and Rodriguez met face to face with Black Jack's gang, and in a twist of sour fate were disarmed, then sent on their way—tails embarrassingly tucked between their trembling legs. The other report, carried in pages of the Albuquerque Daily Citizen, indicates the deputies did indeed find what they thought was an outlaws' campsite some 30 miles east of Bisbee, but could not reliably make any positive identifications tying those fellows to the robbery at Separ.
Accordingly, lawmen McAfee and Rodriguez returned to New Mexico Territory empty-handed—but with a workable plan. At Lordsburg, Deputy McAfee telegraphed Separ and requested that Postmaster Millican meet him at once. As an eyewitness, Millican could make a positive identification. But by the time a heavily armed posse was fashioned and a return trip to the Bisbee neighborhood was accomplished, the outlaws' camp had been abandoned, a fresh trail leading straightaway across the nearby Mexican border. The High Fives no doubt hooted and hollered.
They huddled, too. They were makin' plans, setting up a bank heist. The High Fives' next escapade would be in Arizona Territory. The towns' timepieces seemed synchronized as they chimed noontime that August 6, 1896, at Nogales, Arizona Territory, a pleasant little border town that lay almost squarely atop the international line. The clock's harmonized tones rang out, and a trio of the High Fives ran in—into the International Bank. With a six-shooter in each hand, Bob Hayes held employees at bay, his dead-serious deportment backed up by Black Jack's Winchester, the one with a menacingly aimed muzzle. George Musgrave, too, armed with two Colt's, herded employees and patrons.
But the bank's scared interior captives, growing panicky, eventually broke like a covey of quail, racing out a rear doorway, and the exterior crowd learned the depository was being robbed. During the chaotic melee, bank cashier Fred Herrera cut loose with his six-gun—not effectively, though. Robbing banks is dumb, but the High Fives weren't dummies—it was time to run! Outside, Code Young and Bob Christian mounted up, holding reins as their cohorts climbed aboard the white-eyed and gyrating horses. There was a hailstorm of bullets as the High Fives raced out of a now very wide-awake Nogales, but no casualties—excepting two dead horses. And maybe the owlhoots' pride, as they'd failed to get the greenbacks.
Now the High Fives were heavily hunted and much-wanted criminals. The stakes were ratcheted even higher after a gritty and hard-riding posse overhauled three of them—Bob Christian, Code Young and Bob Hayes—in that infamous New Mexico/Arizona border gap, Skeleton Canyon. There on August 12, during a scorching gun battle, US Mounted Customs Inspector Frank Robson was mortally cut down, two bullets to the head. As night fell, the triumphant outlaws rode east through the narrow canyon, and straight into New Mexico Territory's historically blood-stained Animas Valley.
Toward month's end the trio scampered over to Deming, unbelievably and casually calling for their mail at the US post office, stocking up on ammunition and other provisions. Then they hastened out of town, heading for the neighborhood of Cooke's Peak, pointedly implying they were journeying north for a change in scenery, a Colorado vacation.
Soon afterward, townsmen realized just who the hard-looking visitors had been. Fearing another bank robbery was imminent, the Deming folks made ready. As the Western Liberal reported: "Cashier Brown made his peace with his Maker and was prepared to die before he would give up a dollar. A number of fighting men laid in ambush in the vault. There was a loaded shotgun or Winchester behind every store door in town and no businessman went out after a drink without packing a piece of artillery with them."
Meanwhile, George Musgrave and Black Jack had been running and lurking, and even resorting to robbing a store owner at Bowie Station, southeastern Arizona Territory, of two brand-new pairs of boots. Although they came up short—as usual—in making the big score, the $1,349.25 booty was stashed at the bottom of a coffee sack.
The High Fives didn't come up short, however, at the next session of the US district court's grand jury, sitting at Silver City. The boys were criminally indicted for their earlier Separ robbery; they'd monkeyed with the US Postmaster's mail—a federal violation—although the actual take had been trifling.
For the time being, the High Fives vacated the Bootheel country and ambled into the vicinity of Rio Puerco, about 30 miles southwest of Albuquerque. They'd tried stores, they'd tried banks—they'd had bad luck. Perhaps the cards would fall differently if they'd but realign their sights elsewhere—say, a train?
On the night of Oct. 2, 1896, the High Fives tried to change their luck in the hard game of outlawry. They were dealt deuces. During an abortive effort to hijack the Atlantic and Pacific train, Code Young was fatally shotgunned by Deputy US Marshal Horace Will Loomis, who by mere chance happened to be aboard, returning from a subpoena-serving trip. With bleakly empty saddle bags, the remaining High Fives (now the High Fours) hightailed it east, hoping pursuing posses would scour the country southwest.
Filching from a US post office, country store, busy bank or chugging train hadn't yet led to a worthwhile payday. So, near White Oaks in Lincoln County, the boys again undertook something new—a stagecoach. Five days after disastrously trying the Atlantic and Pacific train, they made a respectable paycheck, successfully robbing $500 from a securely wrapped package being shipped by the First National Bank of Las Vegas, carried on Aaron Hollenbeck's eastbound coach running between San Antonio, New Mexico Territory, and White Oaks.
Emboldened by at last finding a measure of high-handed success, a scant six hours later they impetuously held up the westbound stagecoach, but they'd once again been hounded by Mr. Bad Luck—their haul was a puny $32.60. The bandits' spiky story was fast fixin' to move back to southwestern New Mexico, but only after hard settlement of a little unfinished six-shooter business in the southeastern section of the territory.
George Musgraves and Bob Hayes, on the morning of Oct. 19, coolly rode into a roundup camp, working the range southwest of Roswell. At the chuck wagon they were afforded the usual cow-country welcome, and idled their time eating sourdough biscuits and bacon—both cold, but graciously served up by cook Sam Butler (later a lawman), who eyed them nervously. George Parker, an ex-Texas Ranger but then ramrodding the morning's drive, rode into camp for the noonday meal. Musgrave stood up with a feigned smile and handshake, but then quickly jerked his Colt's revolver and at dreadfully close range shot the unsuspecting Parker four times, setting his clothes afire. Bob Hayes, meanwhile, had unlimbered his six-shooter and kept the wolves off Musgrave by commanding the other cowboys in camp to stand pat. Looking down at the smoldering and dead Parker, Musgrave, too, mumbled his warning: "Keep still, boys, I will kill the first man that moves. Boys, I don't want to hurt any of you but I came a long way to kill this son of a bitch! He has caused me a lot of trouble. He reported me to the law for the things he did himself, forcing me to hide out the last few years. In other words, for branding mavericks when we were partners a few years ago."
After stealing fresh ranch horses and forcibly trading their worn-out saddles for better ones, Musgrave and Hayes hauled out of Chaves County and southeastern New Mexico Territory. The killing of George Parker would prove a signature event, precursor to an emblematic Western shoot-out in the Bootheel section.
Subsequent to a twisted and torturing horseback chase over rough country, finally, Chaves County Deputies Charles Littlepage Ballard and Frederick "Fred" Higgins (both later Chaves County sheriffs) scooted into Deming for rest and refurbishment and recruiting. They pleadingly petitioned by telegraph that Eddy County's sheriff-elect James Leslie "Les" Dow, a genuine fightin' man, join them, which he did. They were darn sure murder fugitives Musgrave and Hayes were ridin' and hidin' somewhere in that lonesome Bootheel country—shielded by their cowboying friends.
The deputies' hunches were solidified after it was learned that—once again—Musgrave and Hayes had, on Oct. 27, ridden into Separ and committed a series of outrages and robberies. That very same day Black Jack and his brother Bob were doing likewise across the territorial borderline at Bowie Station. Musgrave and Hayes were seemingly indifferent to the very real and predictable possibility that Chaves County's hard-riding law hounds might be dogging their backtrail for the merciless killing of George Parker. After a near-riotous time spent at Separ, outlaws Musgrave and Hayes promptly vamoosed.
Quickly Grant County Sheriff Baylor Shannon at Silver City was updated, and this time he didn't tarry. Taking Deputy Frank M. Galloway with him, he rushed to Separ. There, the distraught sheriff was joined by Frank McGlinchey (commissioned as a deputy US marshal) and Steve Birchfied, part-time deputy from the Deming country. Traveling separately but also hurrying to Separ were three stubborn southeastern New Mexico Territory gendarmes, Les Dow, Charley Ballard and Fred Higgins, thoroughly stiffened to the hard notion of running their game to ground, come hell or high water!
After their separate shenanigans, the High Fives—minus the very dead Code Young—had shrewdly reunited and were riding all throughout southeastern Cochise County and southwestern Grant County, posses chasing this way or that. On the night of Oct. 31, Baylor Shannon's little posse went into camp, posting Frank Galloway as the weary nighttime guard. Around three o'clock in the starless morning, something startled the sleeping possemen. They speedily grabbed for their Winchesters and made ready for war. In the not-too-distant shadows they detected a movement, someone coming their way—upright and unafraid. After hollering a challenge to stop and identify, there was not a reply—not a peep. The supposed threat, undaunted, kept advancing toward the campsite and Sheriff Shannon could stand it no more. He barked out the order for Steve Birchfield and Frank McGlinchey to fire! They did! Deputy Frank Galloway—the collar of his overcoat up around his ears—fell dead as an iron-headed hammer. Perhaps returning to camp from answering nature's necessary call and unable to hear the proffered warning, the deputy had kept marching toward the campsite, only to be shot in the head. Friendly fire had finished Frank!
Temporarily forgoing the arduous chase after owlhoots, the grief-stricken and humiliated Grant County lawmen packed Galloway's lifeless form across his stock-saddle. They solemnly struck out for the near legendary Cienega Ranch, squarely straddling the New Mexico/Arizona line. From the owner, a fiery pistol-packin' preacher and proven mankiller, John Augustus Chenowth, the humiliated and remorseful lawmen obtained a wagon, removing their comrade's body to Lordsburg's depot, then to Deming for interment.
After another spate of Arizona Territory crimes, the High Fives once again set their compass east and made entry at Steins Pass on the evening of Nov. 16, 1896. There's little doubt their original intent was to hijack the general store/US post office and the railroad station agent, or perhaps even the Southern Pacific train itself. But, upon learning that the postmaster was a postmistress, Emma Rodgers, the High Fives seemingly honored a pledge never to rob a lady, and forwent their big plan—probably, however, robbing a few valueless items from Charles St. John, the railroad's man in charge. Leaving Steins Pass behind, the gang rode south through the Bootheel's Animas Valley.
Others were riding that way, too! Cutting across diagonally, hoping to interdict any escape into Old Mexico, a nine-man posse struck out for the Diamond A horse camp, where—it was theorized—the outlaws were going to outfit with supplies and relax awhile before continuing south across the border. It was unspoken knowledge that hard-boiled cowboys at what was commonly referred to as the Deer Creek Camp would not be unfriendly nor unhelpful to the High Fives.
Zeroing in on particulars about the actual case at hand—and the general disdain many ranchers had for lawmen—is made much easier by peeking at the reminiscences of one of those hard-ridin' possemen, Charles L. Ballard: "About that time we learned that Musgrave and Hayes had joined Black Jack and his brother again. . . . Here was where we got our first help. The Southern Pacific Railroad gave us an engine and a freight car. We loaded our horses at Deming and they ran us into Separ in a very short time. We took their trail again there and went south toward the Mexican border. We trailed them all day and knew we were pretty close to them. We decided they were headed for the Diamond A horse camp, as their trail led into an old Indian trail called the Old Smugglers Trail that led near the Diamond A camp. We decided to ride all night and get there before them. Late that evening we came to a small cow ranch. They refused to give us fresh horses, but we told them that we were officers and took them anyway, leaving ours."
The lawmen pushed on relentlessly; the High Fives, steadily. The posse got there first, arriving at the Deer Creek Camp at 3 a.m. Walter Birchfield, the Diamond A's superintendent and by coincidence a cousin of Steve Birchfield who was riding in the posse, did the right thing—he supposed. He sternly ordered all the cowboys in camp to stay in camp, not wanting it leaked all over the Bootheel's ranch country that his cowhands had warned wanted outlaws about the officers' presence. The cowboys stayed put, and the lawmen strategically disbursed.
Les Dow, Charley Ballard, Fred Higgins, Frank McGlinchey and Frank Preiser took a concealed position in the newly excavated dirt tank next to a windmill. Inside a tiny adobe house, Sheriff Baylor Shannon, Frank "Pink" Peters, Perfecto Rodriguez and Steve Birchfield, along with several cowboys took up interim residence, rifle barrels out of sight but at the ready—fully charged and the Winchesters' hammers resting on the half-cock notch. Other cowboys and foreman Henry Brock, some eight or 10 in number, were screened from view by a picket-post corral. The trap was set! Dawn was fixin' to break orange over the eastern horizon. On the calendar it was Nov. 18, 1896. For the Old West's history books it was shaping up to be one hell-to-pop morning!
From tiny specks in the distance, four riders steadily grew into identifiable stature: Black Jack and brother Bob Christian, George Musgrave and Bob Hayes were gradually working their way toward the windmill and corral, lawmen somewhere on their distant back-trail, it was understood, but hunger pangs and a hearty breakfast then on their minds. Moving toward the corral where the possemen had turned their horses in with the Diamond A remuda so as not to call undue attention to themselves, the ever-watchful Bob Christian and George Musgrave lagged behind, while Black Jack and Hayes advanced, cautiously. Though one of the corralled cowboys removed his hat and waved a warning, Black Jack and Bob Hayes misinterpreted the signal—thinking it was a welcoming. They rode on.
When but a hundred feet from the enclosure, the outlaws ciphered their ugly mistake, a blunder made emphatically clear when Les Dow showed himself and hollered for their surrender—right now! The badmen replied with gunfire; the posse answered with same. Bob Hayes, catching bullets in the leg and foot, fell from his horse, but was a dead-game badman as he lay on the rocky ground, clipping splinters from the corral's cedar posts with every shot from his fire-belching six-shooter. Black Jack's chestnut horse, Barney, a real working-man's cowpony, was hit and began bucking, dislodging the Colt's revolver from its owner's tenuous possession. Before the dying horse lunged and fell, Black Jack jumped to the ground with a rodeo bronco-rider's flair, and somehow managed to extract his Winchester from the underside saddle scabbard. Somewhere between 200 and 300 yards away, George Musgrave and Bob Christian chimed in with their rifles, but not productively. Likewise, lawmen returning hot fire in their direction were ineffectual. Just as Bob Hayes eared back the hammer for the last shot remaining in his pistol's cylinder, a lawman's bullet (probably Fred Higgins') tapped out his running lights forevermore. Black Jack skillfully worked the lever on his yapping Winchester as he scooted, scampered and snaked his way to safety in a nearby arroyo. Black Jack finally disappeared, seemingly in a vapor of blue gunsmoke. At least the keyed-up lawmen couldn't—or wouldn't—find him. The older Chiristian brother and George Musgrave—thankful to be alive—hightailed it for a more hospitable hideout.
After the horrific shoot-out, a Diamond A cowboy wearing one of those inexplicable but suggestive nicknames, "Sammy Behind the Gun," transported Bob Hayes' dead body to the railroad station at Separ. Thereafter a real newspapermen's war erupted, partisan regional voices giving or denying credit to which team of lawmen had truthfully played the leading role in the Bootheel's latest episode of high drama. Sheriff Shannon took a public word-whipping for not actually being in on the fireworks, while southeastern New Mexico Territory lawmen were chastised as "men who lay in a dirt tank [and] only succeeded in shooting the tops of the pickets of the fence that surrounded the tank." Factually, in this particular instance, it seems the boys from the southeastern side of the territory really did outshine Grant County's fellows. For the last three badmen of the illegit High Fives, who got the damn glory made not a spit.
Experts' calculations of the High Five gang's criminal offenses prior to the Deer Creek fight reveal they "had held up one bank, one train and four stagecoaches. They had robbed a total of eight stores, as well as express depots, railroad depots and post offices." Additionally Musgrave's coldheartedly gunning down George Parker was hard and undeniable fact. Whether or not the gang was really responsible for the mean ambushing of US Customs' Frank Robson suffers a little historical haze, but folks in the desert Southwest sure thought they had.
Sorry to say, the High Fives weren't the only odious owlhoots slippin' around southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico Territories, so they netted blame for a rash of other felonies they could not have possibly been responsible for. On Feb. 11, 1897, a federal grand jury, again sitting at Silver City, returned unambiguous criminal indictments against George Musgrave and the now-doornail-dead Bob Hayes for their second heinous trip into Separ, and the resultant hurrahing of the town and Post Office robbery.
For all practical purposes, with the death of first Code Young and then Bob Hayes, so too went the High Fives as a first-rate gang. But the fiery desire for fast and easy money had hardly been squelched in the remaining three, George Musgrave, Black Jack and Bob Christian. So, as nefarious replacements when certain work called for washed-away consciences and daring ado, Sid Moore, aka Ef Hillman, and/or Musgrave's brother Van sallied forth to lend a helping hand, as did others from time to time. Two particular offenses stand out.
After a spate of horse-thievery, part of the gang showed up at Cliff, 25 miles northwest of Silver City. There, on the night of March 22, 1897, Black Jack and George Musgrave strode into the town's general store and US Post Office, cocked six-shooters in hand. The proprietor, William Heather, was ordered to fork over a considerable amount of money and merchandise or forfeit his life. In light of some of their pitiable past performances, the gangsters were pleased with their take in cash and coin: $201.70. Plus they took Heather's personal gold watch and chain. Then Black Jack and Musgrave kicked off their shopping spree. The badboys didn't shop till they dropped, but their on-the-house haul was rightfully tallied after store owner Heather's inventory: "assorted jewelry, including two gold rings, an opal scarf pin, and a gold nugget scarf pin. . . two suits of clothes, two hats, two pair of boots, six suits of underclothes, two overshirts, one and a half dozen handkerchiefs, neckties, an Ulster overcoat, tobacco, seven pocketknives, and a six-shooter."
Adding whopping insult to injury, the outlaws then forced Heather and his store clerk to belly up to the establishment's corner bar and down two or three drinks of bourbon whiskey, compliments of the new faces in town. Afterward, the party moved outside. Down the dirt street, at the local stagecoach stand, the yahoos stripped saddles from their stolen horses, appropriated two more from the carriage company's plank corral, bade Bill Heather a pleasant adieu and headed for parts they really hoped would forever remain unknown. And for the moment such was the case—lawmen knew not where they holed up.
Two weeks later, Black Jack and Sid Moore commingled their meanness. This time they more than proved that—just like George Musgrave—they were both proficient at gunning down an unwary man. After the April 3 sun had set, the two outlaws rode into the Z-P Ranch headquarters of cowman George Smith in Socorro County. Smith, as custom dictated, asked the men to step down, wash up and partake of supper. Black Jack and Moore alighted, enjoyed the meal prepared by the camp cook, Frank L. Melville, and knowingly winked at one another in what must have been a prearranged signal. Without batting an eye, Black Jack jerked his six-shooter and shot the trusting George Smith five times. Fatally! Moore followed suit, cutting down on Frank Melville with his Colt's, knocking the man to the floor—and, thinking him dead, finally quit shooting. The bleeding cook played possum and survived. For this murder a motive has never been fully explained, though many an unsupported hypothesis has been penned.
Not surprisingly, as almost always is the case with double-crossing and treacherous underworld machinations, Black Jack's web of secrets began unraveling. Lawmen were posted on the very real probability—a snitch's sing-song—that the wanted outlaws were hanging out just across the Arizona Territory border, at a goat ranch in Cole Creek Canyon, not far east of Clifton. As it was relayed to the officers, when in the area, the bad guys every morning took their breakfast at Charlie Williams' isolated ranch house. The informant's words were bolstered by other intelligence tidbits, too. An unknown cowboy made a suspicious purchase in Clifton at W.F. Hagan's store—several paper boxes of .50-95 Winchester Express cartridges. It was the same caliber rifle carried by Black Jack, and by few others in that part of the country.
Depending on one's individual viewpoint, resolute lawmen planned either an apprehension or an ambush. Fred Higgins and Charley Ballard, still dogging Black Jack's murderous trail for killing George Parker near Roswell, were in the neighborhood of Clifton when the good news broke that the fugitives were in the vicinity also, cautiously crossing back and forth through picturesque Mule Creek, New Mexico Territory. Inopportunely away and busy on an errand of importance, however, Ballard wasn't at hand when it was learned that Black Jack and men were actually in camp—right now! Hurriedly, after dark, a hard-edged posse consisting of Fred Higgins and three Arizona Territory deputy sheriffs, Ben R. Clark (a future sheriff), William "Billy" Hart and William T. "Crookneck" Johnson, gathered up their gear and guns. The single-minded lawmen's platoon was quickly joined by either morally compelled double-agents or traitorous double-dealers—depending on personal and partisan perspective—Jim Shaw and Charles M. Paxton, serving as geographical guides. They rushed to the preselected surveillance spot in Cole Creek Canyon. It was April 27, 1897, a momentous night for Black Jack—his last!
When the morning sun peeked in on the secreted lawmen, it also cast a radiance on Black Jack and two others, who were silhouetted well enough for a snap shot. The jittery posse fired some eight or 10 not-so-well-aimed rounds. It's generally conceded, at this late date, that Fred Higgins' bullet did the trick on Black Jack, but he knew it not at the time. Gunfire reverberated down Cole Creek Canyon, as did the sound of fast-running boots kicking loose rocks. By most accounts, the possemen did what the outlaws were doing—hauling ass for a safer piece of ground. They found it in Clifton, not knowing to what extent or even if they had inflicted any damage. Back in the mountain country east of Clifton, freighter Bert Farmer, hauling lumber, found Black Jack conscious but fast fading, painfully moaning: "Some fellows shot me this morning." Shortly thereafter, at Williams' ranch house, Black Jack Christian died.
After catching up with the befuddled possemen at Clifton, Farmer queried, "Did you fellows know that you killed a man this morning?" Not knowing whether to really believe him or not, and apparently intent on shying away from any close-up sightseeing themselves, the possemen collectively anted up $75 for Farmer to bring the dead man to them. At Clifton the deceased man was—as was par for the course—photographed. Additionally, at least according to two later newspaper accounts, a near-legendary New Mexico Territory lawman, Cipriano Baca, removed Black Jack's "boots made after the regular cowboy fashion, with high heels, ornamental stitching, etc." Baca handed the fancy footwear over to Robert G. Hanner of Pleasanton, New Mexico Territory, who proudly took the boots to Silver City, where at the Club House Saloon they were put on public display as a ghoulish trophy.
Though actual identification of the dead body was at the time more than just a little complicated, and the versions and misinformation muddled, it's generally accepted that Will Christian, aka Black Jack, gave up the ghost in Cole Creek Canyon. Likewise it's now known George West Musgrave smartly ran away, to play another day during a lengthy South American vacation. Years later in a Chaves County courtroom, Musgrave beat the George Parker murder rap, but that's a different story. As is the mysterious owlhoot trail taken by Bob Christian—a badman lost to history.