A Fair-minded Frontier Lawman

In an age when most killings could be justified ... Billy Breakenridge Was the Territory's Good Man in a Tight Spot

Text by Larry Winter Illustrations by Ruben Arizpe Desperadoes killed a payroll clerk near Tombstone? Get Deputy Breakenridge! Robbers hit the Tucson train? Send for Special Officer Breakenridge! Got a war-rant for Johnny Ringo? Let Breakenridge serve it. Rustlers drove a herd through Skeleton Canyon? Outlaws hijacked a bullion shipment? A vagrant stole your horse? Where's Billy Breakenridge?

For 40 years, starting in 1864, William M. Breakenridge, known as Billy, brought "law to the mesquite." His prime coincided with Tombstone's. As deputy sheriff of Cochise County in the early '80s, he refereed fights among such notables as Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, the Earps and Doc Holliday, the Clantons and McLowrys, and dozens of lesser lights. He got his start as a teenage scout and messenger for the 3rd Colorado Cavalry, then served as deputy sheriff of Phoenix, went to Cochise County, returned to Phoenix as deputy U.S. marshal, and finally joined the Southern Pacific Railroad to chase train robbers full time.

It was an age when almost any killing could be justified, especially if the gunman wore a star. But Breakenridge liked people too much to shoot them indiscriminately. In this he differed from many of his peers, including the Earps. Of the five men the Earps and Doc Holliday set out to kill near the OK Corral, three were unarmed. In contrast, Breakenridge's model was Tom Smith, a legendary Kansas marshal who rarely carried a gun. "Anyone can bring in a dead man," Smith declared, "but to my way of thinking, a good officer is one that brings them in alive."

Galeyville, a moribund mining town in the Chiricahua Mountains, was the stronghold of Cochise County's worst outlaws. Bandit chiefs like Ringo and Curly Bill regularly held court in Galeyville's saloons while their followers brawled on its street. Yet when Deputy Breakenridge had business in Galeyville, he went alone. Posses, he believed, provoked bloodshed.

One day in 1881, Breakenridge rode into Galeyville to serve papers on a barkeep who had neglected his taxes. As he neared the saloon in question, Breakenridge threw an admiring glance at a fine horse tied out front. The horse, he guessed, was stolen: most of Galeyville couldn't afford such an animal, but all would jump at the chance to steal one. However, that was not his business this day. He had no warrant, and he had no proof, and Galeyville was a tough place to arrest a horse thief even when a lawman had both.

Breakenridge had just dismounted when the horse's putative owner, a gunfighter named Jim Wallace, emerged from the saloon. A veteran of the Lincoln County Wars in nearby New Mexico, Wallace was not intimidated by Breakenridge's tin star. "Where I come from," he snarled, "a lawman better not take too much interest in a cowboy's horse."

Given a chance, Breakenridge would have ignored him, but Wallace was drunk and anxious to boost his standing among the locals. As Breakenridge walked calmly toward the saloon, Wallace barred the door. The two were within arm's length when Wallace went for his gun. But the gunfighter had seriously misjudged his man. Breakenridge grabbed Wallace's gun hand before the outlaw could draw. Simultaneously he stuck his own pistol, cocked and ready to fire, into Wallace's belly.

A gunfighter would have pulled the trigger, notched his gun, and appropriated the deceased's horse. Breakenridge only took Wallace's gun. Then, because Wallace could easily get another weapon, the lawman ran a bluff. He gave the gun back.

"You're making a fool of yourself," Breakenridge told Wallace. Pushing his bluff to the limit, Breakenridge brushed past the dumbfounded gunfighter to buy a round for the boys in the saloon and to serve his papers on the bartender.

In Territorial Arizona, where isolated

"As he entered the door," Breakenridge noted in his report, "it was supposed that everyone at the poker table took a shot at him." Riddled with bullets, Lloyd crashed to the floor, very dead and very far from Texas. Out of respect, the poker players donated their next kitty to buy the corpse a new suit, and when time came for the funeral, they paused for a moment of silence.

Billy Breakenridge ducked across the open yard and fired both barrels of his shotgun into the front door. Grounds fell through the splintered door with a mortal wound in his skull.

The homicide was ruled justifiable after Breakenridge gave evidence that Lloyd had not only stolen a fine horse but had also threatened innocent bystanders and nearly ruined an important poker game. But, in Breakenridge's experience, not all killings could be treated so charitably.

Although he hated killing, Breakenridge could shoot straight when he had to. One morning in the spring of 1882, he led a posse of three volunteers toward the bunkhouse at Chandler's Ranch in remote Cochise County. Inside they could hear two mean outlaws, Zwing Hunt and Billy Grounds, growling at each other while they stirred up a breakfast fire. The pair had reason to be mad. Two nights before, they had botched a payroll robbery in Charleston, a mill town nine miles outside Tombstone. (See Arizona Highways, April '93.) Hunt and Grounds had burst into the mill office with sixguns blazing. Survivors of the assault huddled in a corner, too terrified to resist. But the flashy entrance proved a strategic disaster, for, during the fireworks, the outlaws had mortally wounded the only clerk who could open the safe. In the end, they fled without a cent. Now, ignorant of the noose tightening around them, Grounds and Hunt slurped strong coffee, gobbled old beans, and plotted a route to Mexico.

Breakenridge surveyed the ranch from concealment, then devised a plan to capture the outlaws without a shot. The posse would trap Hunt and Grounds as they came out to tend their horses. Caught in the open, they would have to surrender. To cut off escape from the back, Breakenridge sent two of his men, Jack Young and a miner named Gillespie, behind the house. Meanwhile he and E.H. Allen, a Cochise County jailer, covered the front.

But Breakenridge had failed to reckon political ambition into his calculations. Gillespie, who planned to stand for county sheriff in the coming election, sized up the situation and concluded he could ensure victory at the ballot box by capturing Hunt and Grounds single-handedly.

Once out of Breakenridge's sight, Gillespie strode to the bunkhouse's back door and boldly pounded on it. "Open up!" he shouted. "It's the sheriff!"

On one side of the door, an ambitious miner looked forward to his future. On the other side, an authentically bad man, probably Hunt, finished Gillespie with his first shot. Then, for good measure, he dropped Young with a terrible wound in the thigh.

Out front, Breakenridge and Allen now had no choice. They rained lead into the bunkhouse. But when they paused to reload, back came a shot that hit Allen in the neck. As the wounded jailer fell unconscious to the ground, Breakenridge shouted to Gillespie and Young for reinforcement, but Young could only moan in answer.

Breakenridge was outnumbered. He could run, but that would doom the rest of the posse. How had the outlaws escaped the barrage he and Allen had just laid down? Where were they? At last, an old lawman's adage came to him: aim low in the dark.

With the sun still not risen, Breakenridge ducked across the open yard and fired both barrels of his shotgun into the front door at knee height. Grounds fell through the splintered door with a mortal wound in his skull. When Hunt bolted out the back in panic, Breakenridge took careful aim with his revolver and put a bullet through his chest.

After 1882 Breakenridge returned to Phoenix, where he was appointed deputy U.S. marshal in 1886. Although he was 40 years old and had been in the saddle more than 20 years, none of his skills had left him. In particular he remained an expert tracker. A legendary mountain man, Jim Beckwourth, had taught him to read sign when he was a young cavalry messenger.

Breakenridge's powers were never tested harder than in 1886 when bandits ambushed the bullion wagon of the Vulture Mine, near Wickenburg. Before he and his men fled with 40 pounds of gold, the bandit leader, an outlaw named Valenzuela, murdered the mine superintendent, the wagoneer, and a mounted guard.

Posses crisscrossed central Arizona, yet the fugitives eluded capture. Finally Breakenridge and a few others struck their trail. But the outlaws were cunning. They waded their horses down the streambed of the Gila, then emerged on stony ground where they left faint trace. They repeated the trick. They mixed their tracks with those of cattle and horses. They backtracked. But at every critical juncture, Breakenridge uncovered telltale signs of the outlaws' trail.

After more than a week, the lawmen caught up with Valenzuela in the desert near Gila Bend. Unable to catch his horse as the posse bore down on him, the bandit ran for the nearby hills. When Breakenridge ordered him to stop, Valenzuela answered with his pistol. Then Breakenridge jumped from his horse, pulled his rifle from its scabbard, and dropped Valenzuela with one shot to the head. The outlaw died instantly. Back at the robbers' camp, Breakenridge and his men found the bullion wrapped in a blanket, and from Valenzuela's pocket they took the dead superintendent's watch.

When he finally grew too old for the hunt, Breakenridge retired to a desk in Tucson. He liked office work at the railroad. It left plenty of time for the Old Pueblo Club where he regaled younger listeners with stories of days that already seemed remote, even impossible. He told friends he would gladly relive the old times. After all, he had more than survived them, he had done his duty by the law and also by his fellow man. "I never shot at a man," he proudly recalled, "until after he shot at me first."