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A springboard wagon topped a ridge surrounded by a grove of ancient juniper trees seven miles outside Muskogee. The wagon was weighted down with several heavy crates and made little sound. The contents inside the crates sloshed as the vehicle slogged through the rain-soaked turf. The soft ground muffled the hardworking wheels and the horses’ hooves. Solomon Coppell, an unshaven man dressed in a dirty, fawn-colored suit with a long-tailed coat, drove the wagon over a crude trail cut deep in mud and dirt. His roving button eyes scanned the scene in front of him, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Just beyond Solomon’s line of sight, tucked behind a thicket of brush, Captain Sam Sixkiller sat on his horse watching the driver. Sweat rolled down the lawman’s face that late spring day in 1883 as the sun rode up into a leaden sky, empty and cloudless, and blanketed the captain with a sticky heat. Solomon was uncomfortable too. He pulled his flat-brimmed hat off his head, backhanded a bead of perspiration off his hairline, reset his hat, and fixed his gaze back on the muddy track. The captain waited for just the right moment, and in one fast, flawless movement spurred his horse onto the trail directly in front of Solomon’s team.
A stunned Solomon quickly jerked back on the reins of the animals, bringing the skittish horses to a stop. “Hold it, Coppell!” Captain Sixkiller announced in a sober, stern voice. “You’re under arrest.” Solomon glanced at the cargo he was hauling and back to the captain. The lawman was alone and the bootlegger was confident he could survive a confrontation with his wagonload intact. Solomon stared at the captain for a moment, then shook his head. “I got a tip you were bringing booze into the Nation,” the captain informed him. Solomon didn’t reply and showed no signs of cooperating. “Surrender, Coppell,” Captain Sixkiller warned him again. “Throw your guns out in the road.”
The captain was empty-handed, his leg gun still resting in a holster on his thigh. Coppell made a grab for the shotgun on the wagon seat. Sixkiller’s hand whipped forward in a short, small arc. There was no strain. He saw Coppell’s face, distorted and desperate. His gun kicked back against his wrist. One shot. Captain Sixkiller’s gun exploded before it cleared his coat. The flame of the lawman’s shot licked through the fabric and curled to form a smoldering ring. He watched Coppell’s body jerk. Coppell swayed and fell into the trace chains and wagon tongue. The team reared and snorted and pawed at the air. The captain calmed the horses and kept them from running away.
Most Muskogee residents agreed that Captain Sixkiller was an effective policeman, quick to enforce the laws regarding the buying and selling of liquor. Nevertheless, some thought the rules should be relaxed. Cherokee Indian business owners believed they should have the right to purchase liquor to sell to white railroad workers and settlers passing through. Indian leaders maintained that such measures would lead to an increase in violence on the Cherokee Nation and insisted that troublemakers who peddled whiskey needed to be stopped.
Although Captain Sixkiller was never accused of being too harsh on those who violated the law, some Indians, including former chief of the Cherokee Nation, Lewis Downing, and Indian agent John B. Jones, thought that the US marshal and his deputies went too far in upholding the law. “Some deputy marshals make forcible arrests,” Chief Downing told Indian agent Jones in a letter, “without regard to circumstances or the facts of the case, and without any of the forms of law.” Smugglers occasionally planted whiskey on innocent people traveling through the Cherokee Nation. If they were stopped by Captain Sixkiller or his deputies and alcohol was found in their possession, they were arrested and taken immediately to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to be prosecuted. Chief Downing strenuously objected to the captain’s rush to judgment, arguing that in those instances, such individuals should be given the benefit of the doubt.
To learn more about Sam Sixkiller read:
Sam Sixkiller: Frontier Cherokee Lawman.
