A DRINK FOR THE DEAD

(There occurred at Winslow, Arizona in April, 1905, a simple armed robbery leading to a fantastic shoot-out with lawmen. This incident produced a third so bizarre that no one today will believe it happened. Yet the amazing facts are matters of record. The series of singular events were published in territorial newspapers at the time. Six pictures of the third incident were made. Down through the years I heard about this case but never believed or disbelieved until inspecting the pictures and talking to living participants, and more recently acquiring documentary evidence. There is no doubt that what is likely the most weird incident ever to happen in the West probably no other like it did occur as hereafter described.) A solid blue dome studded with stars covered the high country of northern Arizona. A soft, warm April night made life pleasant and wondrous in the railroad town of Winslow, especially along Third Street, known as "Saloon Row." Here the click of the roulette wheel, the rattle of poker chips never ceased. The bars, honky-tonks and gambling dens never closed. Winslow was wild and wide open the night of April 7, 1905. The date actually had nothing to do with the events of the opening of the 8th. Nothing more than that Friday barely ended and Saturday was born with the series of misadventures that were to startle with amazement a territory disillusioned and calloused against the usual where the fantastic was normal rather than a rarity. Saturday was barely minutes old when two men sauntering along Third Street turned in through the batwings of the Wigwam Saloon. Both were dressed neatly in business suits, felt hats and boots with no weapon in sight. They were young, between twenty-two and twenty-four, and rather handsome.

By Drawings by De Grazia

The one who survived to give lawmen an alias, Wil-liam Smythe, was short, of dark hair and bronzed coun-tenance. He also said that his companion, six foot tall, reddish of hair, sandy complexioned and wearing the trace of a grin even in death, was John Shaw.

They paused at the front bar, ordering whiskey. While the bartender poured, Smythe paid and turned to find Shaw staring across the room at the gambling games. Not a large crowd at the roulette wheel, nor at the monte table and only a dozen or so booted and spurred men off the cattle ranges were interested spectators at the stud and draw poker games. But when Shaw's gray eyes reached the dice table he froze with back to the bar. A moment later he nudged Smythe with an elbow.

Arizona Territory was hard money country, and the dice table where several players gathered was loaded with stacks of silver dollars rather than chips. Most of the silver was before Frank Ketchum, and the next largest pile in front of Lucien Creswell, Hashknife cowboy.

Shaw took a slow step forward, sixgun appearing from beneath his coat. Smythe followed in a hurry, going towards the dice game, his gun also out. From the center of the floor Shaw called clearly, "Okay, gents. Keep your hands in sight and nothing will happen. You don't, and--" his words trailed off ominously. Smythe coming near motioned with gun barrel and the seven men at the table stood up to move backwards, hands partially raised. Gun held in left hand, Smythe proceeded to cram silver dollars into every pocket of his suit.

Pockets overflowing, a few stray cartwheels remaining on the green cloth covered table, he then moved sideways for the batwings without cleaning out any of the other games. Joined by Shaw, both men were suddenly through the doors and gone into the night.

A simple, unspectacular robbery, yet it set in motion the series of unusual episodes culminating in the dawn of the next day. Following the holdup no one seems to have chased after the armed bandits for over ten minutes. Neither was anywhere in sight on the streets. J. C. N. Pemberton, deputy sheriff of Navajo County stationed at Winslow from headquarters at Holbrook, 33 miles away, was summoned from his home.

On his arrival descriptions of the two men, details of the robbery were quite clear. Yet the amount of loot taken was never definitely established. The total varied from four to six hundred dollars, depending on which player made the estimate. When some of them tried to put six hundred silver dollars in coat and pants pockets it couldn't be done.

Deputy Pemberton, joined by Town Marshall Bob Giles, set forth seeking the bandits around town. They searched the saloons and other places still open, investigated alleys and empty buildings to no avail. Deciding to go to the railroad depot to warn the ticket agent to call them if they showed there, Pemberton and Giles set forth walking to Second street. Then across, turned into First, better known as Front street because it faced the railroad tracks on the south side of which stood the depot, Santa Fe Railroad division headquarters, the Harvey House and a hospital.

Suddenly Pemberton stopped, staring through the starlight at a shiny silver dollar on the ground. He picked it up, searching around to discover another ten feet away to the right.

"Betcha they was lost by the short feller," he said. Both officers advanced parallel with the railroad embankment, finding over a distance of five hundred feet six more silver dollars. Smythe's pockers had been overloaded. The trace ended where scuffed up boot marks indicated the bandits might have boarded a slow moving train.

"There was a freight through a few minutes before I got the call to join you," Giles said.

"That's it," Pemberton replied, convinced. "They hopped a freight moving at yard limits. From their sign looks like it was headed west."

A check on the freight train at the depot proved his surmise correct. Because the bandits fled into the adjoining County, Pemberton sent a telegram to Coconino County Sheriff Ed Henderson at Flagstaff. And one to his boss, Navajo County Sheriff C. I. "Chet" Houck at Holbrook.

The transcontinental line of the Santa Fe was the fastest means of travel in northern Arizona at the time. Otherwise, automobiles being few and the roads nearly impassable for them, travel had to be by horse and horse drawn vehicles.

Houck reached Winslow at dawn, talking to Sheriff Henderson by telephone. The latter reported searching all freight trains arriving in Flagstaff, but the bandits were not located. The wanted men might have left the freight on the outskirts of Flagstaff, procuring horses to flee north or south into little known country. Therefore, Houck and Pemberton took the next train to that city to aid in the search for some trace of them.

It could also be possible the bandits had successfully evaded detection, or even hopped another freight head-ing east to fool lawmen by change of direction. Messages were sent west along the line to Needles, California, to look for them, and east to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Absolutely no trace of the wanted men was discovered that day. So late in the afternoon Houck and Pemberton boarded a local for Winslow. Houck sat in the caboose in a dark study trying to figure out what the bandits might have done. He said little until the train passed through Canyon Diablo, 35 miles east of Flagstaff.

"I'll bet they left the train along the way and stole horses from some ranch for their get-away," he speculated aloud.

The conductor approached in time to hear that and called to him, "You mean them men who held up the Wigwam?"

"Yes, we haven't located them anywhere."

"Say, wait a minute!" the conductor exclaimed. "On our trip up to Flagstaff today we saw two men hiding behind some bushes about a mile this side of Canyon Diablo."

By "we" he meant the brakeman, who immediately confirmed his statement. The train was then past that point. Houck and Pemberton left the local at Sunshine station, four miles beyond Canyon Diablo.

Inquiries at the section house and the foreman's residence revealed that men answering descriptions of the wanted two had been seen there that morning. However, none of the witnesses remembered which way they departed nor when.

"Those boys should be plenty hungry by now," Houck decided. "Maybe they went on to Canyon Diablo to get something to eat at Fred Volzs' trading post."

The two officers set out walking the tracks towards Canyon Diablo. Short of the little village they quit the right-of-way for a rocky dirt road on the north side that would take them directly to the post. The sun was just setting behind the San Francisco Peaks at Flagstaff.

Canyon Diablo had once been a rip-snorting, hellroaring guntown. A crude mess of tin and tar paper shacks, burying its bullet dead in the boothill south of the tracks. In 1905 it was disintegrating into a village of ghosts. There remained the long Volz stone trading post north of the tracks, facing eastward. A road crossed the tracks directly towards it. West of this road stood two warehouses, a small one of stone and Volzs' larger one of unpainted lumber. On the east side of the crossing was the two story, yellow painted depot and next in line the section foreman's residence and the section house where track laborers lived with their families. A mixture of tumbling down shacks left over from the old days, and in no regular order, surrounded the area.

Fred Volz, one of the first telegraphers at the depot after the railroad came through in 1882, had quit and gone into the Indian trading business. Standing in the gloom of his store lean-to porch he saw two men approaching. As they neared he finally recognized Houck and Pemberton and called to them.

When the officers stood facing him he asked. "Did you catch them robbers yet?"

"No," replied Houck, "But maybe we have traced them to near here."

"There's been two strangers hanging around the section house this afternoon," Volz informed them. "Thought maybe they was bums begging food, but could be they're your men. We got it on the company wire at the depot about the Wigwam."

At that moment E. F. Klee appeared from the blind end of the store building.

"They're coming this way now!" he hissed.

The officers and Volz peered through the bluish haze towards the tracks, observing the movements of two men until they reached the end of Volzs' warehouse.

"I don't know," Houck said slowly. "It's hard to tell in this falling darkness. Anyhow, we'll go over and have a look at them jaspers."

Houck and Pemberton started walking fast for the suspects, and were spotted crossing the road. The pair picked up their stride for the lighted windows of the depot.

"Just a minute," Houck stopped them. "We're officers and we want to look you fellers over."

Both wheeled around spreading apart immediately, and the shorter one retorted, "Nobody searches us!"

In the bat of an eye began the most unusual gun battle old Arizona ever produced, and some of them are still ringing today. Like the Earp-Clanton shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone. The Canyon Diablo fight, with fewer engaged, was probably the shortest on record. In a matter of fifths of seconds it was over, one dead, one wounded.

Afterwards Houck said that he saw the tall bandit reaching for a gun and that he got his own weapon drawn first. Yet the tall man beat him to the first shot, shelling lead from blazing gun in a stream. Pemberton was tangling with the other one, wounding him slightly in the left leg. Houck moving in on the tall bandit fired his final bullet as that worthy turned to run with an empty gun, shooting him dead through the side of the head.

While his companion was still failing the short bandit took dead aim on Houck who, pursuing the dying man, had closed within four feet. Just as his trigger finger squeezed Pemberton also fired his last cartridge. The bullet struck the bandit in the left shoulder throwing his aim off enough to save Houck's life. It cut through the sheriff's clothing on the left middle, crossed his stomach and went out through his coat.

Twenty-one bullets were fired in a matter of split seconds, and Pemberton was the one man among them who violated the customary practice of loading with only five cartridges by filling the sixth chamber of his gun. That odd bullet saved Houck's life, and a year

Later was to cost him his job as sheriff of Navajo County. This fight was cussed, discussed and argued about for years afterwards. How come four men, experts with six-guns, never more than six feet apart at the most didn't kill each other off? Twenty-one bullets were fired, three hits, eighteen misses not counting Houck's bullet pierced clothing. No one could understand it, least of all the three survivors. Witnesses were Volz, Klee, the depot agent and men around the section house. They agreed on one definite point. From the first blast the shooting was so fast and furious that all shots sounded together like a volley.

Therein perhaps lies the answer. Shaw missed his first shot because he fired too hurriedly. All four were so near each other that his powder flash blinded them and with their own blazing shots they were even more confused. All four fired as fast as they possibly could, trying to kill before hot lead should knock them down. Still, so many misses caused men skilled with handguns to shake heads dubiously. One put it this way, "They must of all been scared half to death, standing there shaking loads from their guns at nothing whatever!"

shot because he fired too hurriedly. All four were so near each other that his powder flash blinded them and with their own blazing shots they were even more confused. All four fired as fast as they possibly could, trying to kill before hot lead should knock them down. Still, so many misses caused men skilled with handguns to shake heads dubiously. One put it this way, "They must of all been scared half to death, standing there shaking loads from their guns at nothing whatever!"

When the gun blasts ended several individuals ran over to the scene of the shooting. The short bandit sat on the ground bleeding, Houck standing over him.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Bill Smythe" came the shaking reply.

"S-m-i-t-h?," Houck wanted to know.

"No, S-m-y-t-h-e."

"Where are you from?"

"Nowhere, and it's none of your damned business."

"What about your friend?"

"I don't know where he's from."

"What was his name?"

A brief moment of hesitation before Smythe answered, "Shaw, John Shaw."

The wounded Smythe was carried over to the trading post and given first aid, while Houck entered the depot to send a telegram to the sheriff at Flagstaff. On Shaw's body was found 117 silver dollars, and 154 were taken from Smythe.

"It's not likely that either name is the right one," Houck said in the post. "These boys were experienced, which means they have records somewhere else."

"Fred," to Volz, "have you got a kodak? I'd like to make pictures of Smythe here, and the dead man, to try identifying them."

Volz did have a kodak, but there was no regular flash powder. They tried using powder poured from shotgun shells and it failed to produce sufficient light.

While waiting for the coroner to arrive on a train from Flagstaff, Smythe was questioned without much result.

He appeared in a daze from other than his wounds and kept shaking his head. Once he mumbled, "Don't savvy it. John was a crack shot. He never missed before."

Two hours later John Herrington, justice of the peace and ex-officio coroner, arrived from Flagstaff to swear in a jury on the deceased, with Volz as foreman. The members were Mark Jacobs, John R. States, G. S. Woodaul, E. F. Klee and N. J. Browne.

Their verdict was death by "Gun shot in the hands of C. I. Houcks, sheriff of Navajo county, Arizona, in his official duty and we exonorate him," signed the 8th day of April, 1905.

Shaw was buried immediately in a rough pine box, the kind Volz kept in stock for burying Indians, across the tracks in boothill where many another gunshot vic-tim preceded him. Houck and Pemberton took the wounded prisoner to Winslow to the Santa Fe Railroad hospital.

Under guard in the hospital before removal to the county jail in Holbrook, Smythe mellowed a trifle. Now he declared himself as William A. Smith, and swore to a statement saying that Houck was justified in killing his companion. Beyond that he would reveal nothing, denying all knowledge of Shaw and refusing to say where he met up with him.

News of the shooting reached the Wigwam on Third street soon after midnight. Cowboys from the great Hashknife outfit and a dozen lesser ones were in there making whoopee. Obviously from what followed they were rapidly getting drunk.

Among the Hashknife's men were several who didn't like Sheriff Houck for peanuts. It stemmed from years of hatred for his brother, Jim Houck, in the days when he was always some kind of a peace officer at the range hangings of stock thieves. The most vociferous was Sam Case.

"It must have been some kinda bushwhack," he averred.

"Never was a Houck born who wasn't a rope fiend or a back shooter. That he shot this feller in the side of the head shows he sneaked up on him!"

"Now, hold on, Sam," Lucien Creswell tried to cool him down. "Chet's a fair and square feller. Always has

much of a prayer, yet it was the best they could do. All this time a cowboy used the kodak infrequently, making six snaps. He was hardly noticed on the scene and none could recall his name a few years later. The bottle of whiskey from which the dead man was given a drink was dropped into the box and the lid replaced. The only sound afterwards was the thud of small stones and clods of dirt into the grave, until it was rounded anew.

The bunch moved slowly away, halting on the tracks to pass the bottles around again. This time there ensued no talk, no drunken hilarity marking them enroute to Canyon Diablo. Walking down the road they returned the tools to Volz.

Volz unloaded the kodak, handing the roll of film to Creswell with instructions to see that it reached Houck. An early morning train was due soon, so they strolled over to the depot to catch it.

On the return ride to Winslow, Case took the roll of film away from Creswell, saying, "Houck ain't going to get no pictures. I figger we should throw this roll.

He told him that the details were exactly as Houck often related them to him, and yet the reporter shook his head sadly while talking to me about it.

"I proposed doing the story as a feature article for my paper," he said. "But my editor killed it on the grounds it was too preposterous to have happened. Digging up a dead man to give him a drink!

"When I'm gone, wish some friend would be as nice to me!"

Incredible as it may seem, it did happen.

As for Smith, as he chose to call himself in jail, he copped a guilty plea to armed robbery, October 12, 1905, and was sentenced from Navajo County to the territorial prison at Yuma, the infamous "snakes," for a period of fifteen years.

But there was a final surprise in this weird case. The alias of "Smith" didn't cover the prisoner's identity long. On his arrival at the pen he was uncovered as William Evans, who had worn prison No. 1368 after beginning a term of ten years for robbery in 1897. He had been However, that wasn't done. Case kept the roll a month or so, and then gave it to W. H. Burbidge, a Winslow attorney, better known as "Judge." He had the film developed and a print made from each negative. In time they passed into the hands of his son, Ted, who kept them after his death. After prohibition ended they were displayed in a Winslow tavern until 1940 when Ted gave five of them to me. The sixth, showing the whiskey actually being poured into the dead man's mouth, he kept and it vanished after his death four years ago.

Not long ago a newspaper reporter stumbled onto some of the first published bare accounts of this case in the files where employed. He viewed my pictures and read the statements of participants in my files. Investigating leads, he talked to the man who owned and published the Winslow newspaper at the time, who confirmed the facts. He also interviewed a former sheriff of Navajo County, for whom ex-sheriff Houck worked as a deputy during the later years of his life. This man paroled in 1903, a little over two years before received there to do his second sentence. He served nine years of it before released with a pardon and citizenship restored in 1914.

As Sheriff Houck declared, the two bandits must have been experienced in crime. Certainly Smith/Evans was by his record. As for Shaw, only his partner knew and he never divulged any information about him whatever.

Deputy Sheriff Pemberton, who saved Houck's life in the Canyon Diablo gun fight, got into an argument with Town Marshall Giles and killed him in 1906.

He was Houck's friend and the sheriff was also indebted to him. While under arrest awaiting trial, Pemberton was allowed free run of Holbrook, locked up only at night. In due course he was tried and sentenced in district court for a short term of years.

Houck, by favoring him as a special prisoner at the county jail, engendered considerable criticism and anger. In the next sheriff's election he lost by a landslide.