CANYON DIABLO'S INCREDIBLE SHOOT-OUT

SHOOT-OUT IN CANYON THREE SECONDS OF TERROR IN THE WEST'S MOST Deadly TOWN

Just east of Canyon Diablo, a 250-footdeep gorge about halfway between Flagstaff and Winslow, lie the tumbledown ruins of the infamous town also called Canyon Diablo. There, in 1905, occurred an incredible shoot-out that stands alone for highspeed gun work. Two lawmen and two outlaws - all skilled gunmen - spewed bullets at each other across a distance of six feet. All four men emptied their sixguns in a blast of flame, smoke, and hot lead that lasted less than three seconds (compared with the 30-second gunfight at the O.K. Corral). Witnesses said the gunshots were so close together they sounded like a single explosion. And, amazingly, some of the men walked away. As I stood on Canyon Diablo's main, and only, street beside the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, I could see where the gunfight took place, a spot between the depot and the ruins of the Volz trading post. Most of the old town long ago rotted away or was carried off. Even in 1905, almost 25 years after Canyon Diablo's brief existence (1881-82), much of the town had already disappeared. Yet it seemed fitting somehow that this almost forgotten shoot-out took place in the most violent and deadly town in the West. The number of men who were killed in Canyon Diablo's one year surpassed the combined death tolls of Tombstone, Dodge City, and Abilene, based on the worst single year of each. The 1905 incident offers a glimpse into the violence that earned Canyon Diablo its evil reputation. The confrontation began shortly after midnight on April 8, when to the bar in Winslow's Wigwam Saloon, slapped down some money, and ordered two shots of whiskey. But before drinking, the men pulled guns on the gamblers and began scooping up silver dollars from the dice table.

The robbers hadn't planned the stickup;

THE DEAD MAN, WITH A FAINT stiff as a board GRIN ON HIS FACE, WAS RIGOR MORTIS. THE MEN POSED FOR PICTURES WITH

WITH THE CORPSE, AND THEN THEY STOOD AROUND WITH THEIR HATS OFF AS THE BODY, ALONG WITH ITS UNFINISHED BOTTLE OF WHISKEY, WAS REBURIED.

they didn't even have a sack to carry the loot. Instead, they crammed the heavy cartwheels into their pockets and even their hats before backing out the saloon's batwing doors and vanishing. The robbery netted less than $300.

Deputy Sheriff J.N. "Pete" Pemberton and Town Marshal Joe Giles searched the town but found nothing until they saw a string of seven silver dollars in the dirt next to the railroad tracks. The officers figured that the coins spilled from overloaded pockets as the robbers ran for a slow-moving freight train.

Late the next afternoon, Pemberton and his boss, Sheriff Chet Houck, got a tip that two strangers were loitering near the tracks at Canyon Diablo, 26 miles west of Winslow. The two lawmen hopped a train, arriving at the nearly deserted town at dusk.

Pemberton was a gunfighter. In the wild days of the West, towns often hired gunfighters to wear badges on the theory that it took a killer to catch a killer. A slim, taciturn Texan, Pemberton came to Arizona as a participant in the Pleasant Valley War and later worked for the Hashknife outfit which was rife with ex-gunfighters. Houck had a reputation as a roughshod sheriff who hanged men first and asked questions later. He was especially hard on rustlers, of which the Hashknife, the largest ranch in Arizona, seemed to have plenty.

In Canyon Diablo, the lawmen met trader Fred Volz, who confirmed that two strangers had been seen in town earlier that afternoon. As the three stood talking beside the trading post porch, the two suspects unexpectedly appeared, heading toward the depot. Houck and Pemberton quickly followed. Houck loudly identified himself and Pemberton as law officers and ordered the men to halt. The two suspects wheeled around and spread apart. One of them snarled, "Nobody searches us."

Immediately all four men pulled their pistols and began shooting as fast as they could. Houck said he had already drawn his weapon when he first called out to the two, but the taller bandit was still able to draw his pistol and shoot before the sheriff could fire.

A word here about six-guns.

Lawmen, outlaws, and cowboys in those early days almost unanimously preferred a single-action revolver. The weapon of choice was the Colt .45 caliber Peacemaker.

Single-action means that a shooter has to cock the gun by thumbing back the hammer and pulling the trigger. A double-action revolver can be cocked and fired by just pulling the trigger.

While an advancement over single-action, the double-action guns Western shooters maintained were slower in getting off shots. Also, the firm finger grip on the trigger that was necessary to bring the hammer to full cock caused the aim to move to the right if the gunman was right-handed.

By holding back the trigger of a singleaction revolver, a shooter could simplify matters by repeatedly thumbing back the hammer and letting it go until all the bullets had fired.

Some gunslingers practiced "fanning" a six-gun, which meant holding the gun in one hand and striking the hammer repeatedly with the open palm of the other hand. Sometimes the trigger was removed or tied back with a thong.

But in reality very few gunfighters fanned their guns because it was extremely inaccurate. This was mostly a custom popularized in Hollywood movies.

Another point rarely known today is that most six-shooters held only five shots. This was because early revolvers had no safety mechanism. If the hammer was over a chamber with a live round and the gun was dropped or the hammer accidentally struck, the weapon could fire. To avoid this danger, it was common to put the hammer down on an empty chamber, thus allowing only five shots.

In the fight between the two lawmen and the two outlaws, three of the men had five shells in their pistols; Pemberton had six. This was the deciding factor in the shoot-out.

All four men were within six feet of each other when the shooting began; with Houck advancing as close as four feet. Shots exploded in a thunderous volley. The taller outlaw, his gun empty, was turning aside when the final bullet from Houck's six-shooter hit him in the head, killing him instantly.

Pemberton slightly wounded the shorter outlaw in the left leg with one of his shots. With his companion dead, the wounded bandit took point-blank aim at Houck and fired his last shot.

A split second before, however, Pemberton, with his sixth and final shot, hit the outlaw in the left shoulder and threw his aim off. The outlaw's bullet hit Houck's coat on the left side, skimmed his stomach, and cut a hole through the right side of the coat. The wounded outlaw sagged to the ground.

Later, the question asked in endless discussions in saloons and around campfires was how could four men skilled with sixguns shoot 21 times at spitting distance and wind up with only one killed and one wounded?

Because the men were blazing away at each other at such close quarters, the pumping adrenaline, fear, and excitement probably affected their aims. It was almost dark, and the old-fashioned six-shooters put out tongues of fire up to two feet long. The booming concussions, flames, and smoke spewing directly into the faces of the combatants must have been intimidating.

The wounded robber refused to talk, but in his possession and on the body of the dead man were found $271 in silver dollars. The unidentified dead man was put into one of the wooden caskets that Volz kept for the Navajo Indian trade and buried without ceremony. His partner, later identified as William Evans, was returned to Winslow, where he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to nine years in the Yuma Territorial Prison.

But that same night following the shootout, some Hashknife cowboys were drinking and brooding in the Wigwam Saloon. The consensus among them was that Sheriff Houck must have ambushed the outlaws. Eyewitnesses to the initial robbery pointed out that the robbers had paid for their two shots of whiskey but didn't drink them. That, to the cowboys' booze-addled brains, was an injustice.

Intent upon righting the wrong, they decided to go to Canyon Diablo, dig up the bandit, and pour him his last drink. The bar emptied and 15 drunken men, most of them carrying bottles, hitched a ride on a Santa Fe freight train to Canyon Diablo. At dawn they woke up Volz to borrow a shovel. He also gave them a Kodak box camera to take a picture of the dead man in hopes that someone would identify him.

The cowboys quickly uncovered the coffin from the shallow grave and pried off the lid. The dead man, with a faint grin on his face, was stiff as a board with rigor mortis. They lifted his body out, leaned him against a fence, and poured the drink between his clenched teeth. The men posed for pictures with the corpse, and then they stood around with their hats off as the body, along with its unfinished bottle of whiskey, was reburied. The macabre event, however, sobered the cowboys, and they went home subdued.

On a Saturday night seven months later in the Parlor Saloon in Winslow, an angry and inebriated Pemberton was losing in the games of chance. The bar, across Front Street from the Santa Fe Depot, was packed with cowboys and gamblers. Pemberton was not well liked by them, but he was feared for his murderous skill with a handgun.

Pemberton loudly insisted on placing a $3 bet on the roulette wheel, and when the dealer, Walter Darling, told him the house limit was $2, Pemberton jerked out his six-gun and fired. The bullet went through Darling's sleeve and hit the wall behind him.

Marshal Joe Giles had just stepped into the saloon on his nightly rounds. A husky

CANYON DIABLO

A man slightly over six feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds, Giles was married with four children. Coming to Arizona to find work, he had left his family in Oklahoma and planned to move them soon to Winslow. He was known for his steadiness and ability to calm down the often rowdy and combative bar patrons.

Pemberton, crazed with anger and drink, whirled and pumped five shots into the marshal's belly. Giles staggered back, and although dead on his feet, he was still able to draw and empty his weapon. Then he fell to the floor. Somehow, in the crowded bar, no one was hit by Giles' wild shots.

Pemberton ran out of the bar and gave himself up to the town constable. But he was not arrested. Because Pemberton had saved his life, Sheriff Houck refused to charge him. He also allowed Pemberton free run of the town. The citizens of Winslow were outraged, and brought pressure that resulted in Pemberton's arrest and jailing in Holbrook.

Trials in those days were quick and short. But Pemberton, perhaps with Houck's aid, was not tried for a full year and, citing the anger and unrest in Winslow, succeeded in getting the trial moved to Prescott. With Pemberton's lawyers arguing he was temporarily insane from alcohol, he was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years. Still, allegedly because of political friends, he served only a few years before being pardoned. By 1929 Pemberton was again living in Winslow.

But Winslow voters had gained a measure of revenge. The next time Houck ran for sheriff, he lost by a landslide.

Author's Note: The ruins of Canyon Diablo are 35 miles east of Flagstaff and 26 miles west of Winslow. The site lies beside the Santa Fe Railroad tracks on the east side of the Canyon Diablo bridge, about three miles north of Interstate 40. To visit, take the Two Guns exit off 1-40 and travel north to the railroad tracks. After crossing, turn left and follow the road beside the tracks to Canyon Diablo. The dirt road passes through flat, open land studded with large rocks. A highclearance pickup truck or a four-wheeldrive vehicle should be used.

Phoenix-based Bob Thomas says it is fitting that the fantastic 1905 shoot-out happened in Canyon Diablo. Call it fate, bad vibes, or whatever, some places seem predestined toward violence, Thomas believes.

Phil Boatwright was recently honored by the International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) with the 1999 Award of Merit for illustration.