ON-TRIAL RUSTLER 'ALTERS' EVIDENCE

Geronimo's Cattle

Apaches probably couldn't get away undetected anyway. He added what a good joke it would be if the officials awoke in the morning to find all Apaches and cattle gone. Something like a smile appeared on Geronimo's face.Davis sent the pack train on its way. When he returned to the house, every Apache had disappeared.

Kaywaykla, an Apache boy who understood some English, later told the story from the Apaches' view: "If any people knows how to be quiet it is theApache. We . . . got everything ready to move. It did not take 10 minutes. Not a dog barked. Not a baby cried. We tied children's feet together under the bellies of the horses. We tied small children to adults. . . At first we moved slowly, very slowly . . . because of the cattle. But after we got out of hearing, we put boys with lances to keep the cattle moving, and we made time."

Near the house, Davis sat on a box and held his mule's bridle in one hand. As the sun rose, the marshal stirred andsat up. He looked around. Stunned, he jumped up and called his friend. Still in underwear and bare feet, the two climbed to the roof, scanning the countryside through binoculars. Not an Apache, not a single stray calf, not even a puff of dust in sight.

The two angry men confronted Davis. He shrugged, explaining that during the night Blake, as his superior officer, had taken charge of the Apaches. He had moved them and the cattle out. Where he had taken them Davis didn't know, but he guessed they were at least 40 miles away by now.

"You are lying," the furious marshal accused.

"Perhaps I am, but you can't prove it," Davis said, smiling.

Riding hard, Davis caught up with Blake and the Apaches two days later, and he soon delivered the entire band, with cattle, to reservation officials.

Adapted from the book Geronimo!: Stories of an American Legend, volume 11 in the Wild West Collection published by Arizona Highways Books.

On-trial Cattle Rustler 'Alters' the Evidence BY LEO W. BANKS

Rufus Nephew, or Climax Jim, as he was called, for his favorite brand of chewing tobacco, was a notorious crook and cattle rustler throughout eastern Arizona in the 1890s.

In addition to his genius with a running iron - a kind of branding iron that could obliterate original brands and imprint a new one - his particular skill was removing handcuffs and leg irons and picking locks. He possessed such ability as a frontier Houdini that no jail could hold him for long.

"Climax Jim is the most slippery bird in the Southwest," said the Solomonville Bulletin.

But his most creative work came in a Graham County courtroom. After rustling some cattle and expertly altering the brands, Jim brought his booty to a mine company butcher in Clifton. He got a check for the beef, but was unhappy with the amount. So he altered it to raise his pay to what he considered a fair number.

Knowing that Jim's rebranding work was too expert to win on a rustling charge, the district attorney went after him for check forgery. It looked as if the law would finally win its first conviction against the notorious Climax. When the prosecutor pulled out the check and had it introduced as evidence, Jim elbowed his counsel and told him to object.

The young lawyer bounced to his feet, and a vigorous argument ensued. In order to fully engage in the debate, the prosecutor put the check on a table in front of the defendant.

Amid all the shouting, Jim reached into his shirt and removed some tobacco. He loaded up on a plug and put the tobacco bag down on the check.

A moment later, he grabbed the bag, with the check stuck to the bottom. He returned the bag inside his shirt, but with his fingers concealed, he balled the check up, leaned over and spit into the spittoon beside his chair, and as he straightened up, he slipped the only evidence against him into his mouth and ate it.

The judge ruled the check admissible, but by then, its remnants were sailing through Jim's digestive system. Case dismissed.

Adapted from the book Rattlesnake Blues: Dispatches From A Snakebit Territory, volume 8 in the Wild West Collection published by Arizona Highways Books.

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