Classic Gunfights
Left for Dead Yginio Salazar vs Peppin’s Thugs
- Published June 10, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
July 19, 1878
As a raging fire engulfs another room, Alexander McSween and his men move into the kitchen, the last standing room of his adobe home in Lincoln, New Mexico.
Doc Hits Bottom (but not much else)
- Published May 13, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
August 19, 1884
High Doom in the Andes
- Published July 10, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell & Anne Meadows
November 6, 1908
Two Mules for Aramayo
Two heavily armed “Americanos on jaded mules” ride into the high mountain village of San Vicente, Bolivia.
Triangle Canyon Shoot-Out
- Published April 16, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
April 3, 1900
Lawman George Scarborough and Triangle Ranch manager Walter Birchfield are trailing cow thieves in the San Simon, Arizona, area.
Sieber Goes Down
- Published June 13, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
June 1, 1887
Absent from duty for five days, the Apache Kid, along with four other Apache scouts under his command, rides single file into the headquarters of the San Carlos Reservation (near Globe, Arizona).
Wild Bill’s Last Fight
- Published March 18, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
October 5, 1871
The summer cattle season is all but over, and Marshal Wild Bill Hickok has kept the peace in Abilene, Kansas—not an easy job.
Black Bart’s Bad Day
- Published April 26, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
November 3, 1883
The Sonora-Milton stage rattles along, empty, save for the driver. Reason E. McConnell has been on the road for three hours since he stopped at the Patterson Mine, near Tuttletown, California.
Billy’s Dirtiest Deed?
- Published March 18, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
November 27, 1880
The cook at the Greathouse Ranch, Joe Steck, steps outside the main ranch house to harness a team of horses and encounters a bristling row of Winchesters. The leader of a White Oaks posse in New Mexico Territory, Will Hudgens, hands him a note that demands the men inside the ranch house give themselves up.
O.K. Aftermath
- Published January 09, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
October 26, 1881
First of all, it didn’t happen in the O.K. Corral.
The Death Tent
- Published January 08, 2013
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
November 27, 1887
Working out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Deputy U.S. Marshal Frank Dalton, is tracking a horse thief in the Cherokee Nation named Dave Smith. Dalton is accompanied by Deputy James Cole, who also has an arrest warrant for Smith for introducing whiskey in the Indian Territory.
Cave Creek Ambush
- Published November 08, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
December 22, 1873
Stationed at Camp McDowell, northeast of Phoenix, Arizona, a unit of the 5th Cavalry, led by Lt. Walter S. Schuyler, has been on the hunt since December 1, looking for bronco Apaches (Indians who have left the reservation).
Tapped Out!
- Published December 10, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
October 15, 1894
Did Doc Holliday Start the Fight?
- Published October 04, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
October 26, 1881
Plus: Did Wyatt Earp Shoot Morgan in the Back?
Kid Curry’s Last Gunfight
- Published November 05, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
June 9, 1904
Two days earlier, the westbound San Francisco Express—train no. 5—was robbed near a shipping station in Colorado known as Parachute.
Shot for Snoring?
- Published August 28, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
August 7, 1871
Charles Couger is sitting on a bed reading a newspaper in the American House in Abilene, Kansas.
Four shots are fired from outside his room, with the bullets coming through a “board partition,” one of which strikes him “in the fleshy part of the left arm, passing through the third rib and entering the heart, cutting a piece of it entirely off, and killing Couger almost instantly,” the Abilene Chronicle reports on August 10.
Number One With a Bullet
- Published October 02, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
Date Unknown, 1876
While en route from Arizona back to Texas, cattleman John Slaughter is holding his herd of cattle at John Chisum’s South Spring Ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.
Tragic Fight on the Devil’s Backbone
- Published July 28, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
January 11, 1886
Captain Emmet Crawford is on the brink of victory.
Yesterday, his punitive raiding party of three officers, one medic, one interpreter and 77 Apache scouts completely surprised and
“I Don’t Hold for Anybody!”
- Published September 02, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
March 15, 1881
Two California boys are riding the box on this chilly night along the San Pedro River bottom in Arizona. Eli “Bud” Philpot, a top-rated stage driver who hails from Calistoga, California (about 60 miles north of San Francisco), and
Love Will Find a Way
- Published June 27, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
July 25, 1853
Saddling up at 2 a.m. Harry Love and his fellow California Rangers ride out of their rugged mountain camp and make their way to Cantua Creek in central California. They have been on the trail of Joaquin Murrieta for more than two months.
Shoot-out at Hanska Slough
- Published August 06, 2012
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
September 21, 1876
Four fleeing outlaws, believed to be the robbers of the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, slip into a slough on foot and disappear into a dense thicket of wild plums and vines.
The Kid’s First Kill
- Published May 24, 2011
- Written by Bob Boze Bell
August 17, 1877
“I...called him a pimp.”
It’s a Friday night, and young Henry Antrim is playing poker in George Atkins’s Cantina, just outside the military reservation of Fort Grant, Arizona.
