A Fitting End for Badguys and Badgirls
I’m often asked if there were any legendary Old West characters who died with their boots off. There certainly were and the following are just a few. Ed Tewksbury and Doc Holliday died of consumption. Robert Younger died while in prison, Cole Younger died of heart disease, and Frank James died on his farm in Missouri. Judge Roy Bead, “The Law West of the Pecos,” passed away peacefully in the arms of his friend, Billy Dodd. With him went much of the spirit of the Old West, the lawlessness he had unofficially helped to control. He died a natural death. And probably so did Burt Alvord, who took, together with Bob Downing and Billy Stiles, $10,000 from a Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Arizona, at the same time he was sheriff there. Downing was killed by Arizona Ranger Speed when he went on a drunken spree and beat up a disreputable woman. Billy Stiles escaped to the Philippines, joined the Army there, returned to Nevada, and was actually made a sheriff there. He was killed while making an arrest. Alvord buried his part of the loot, was captured, tried, sentenced. But he was double-crossed the Mexican desperado Augustine Chacon and had been instrumental in his capture by Captain Mossman, and so his term was cut short to seven years. He went out, upon his release, and dug up his treasure and rode away to the South, to Panama, where he died a few years later. There’s no telling what a bad man will say just before he leaps that unfathomable gulf into eternity. “Let me go. The world is bobbing around,” said Sam Bass just before he expired. Tom Horn, just before hanging, said, “Ed, that’s the sickest looking bunch of sheriffs I ever saw!” It is often said that they believed him innocent of murder of the youthful sheepherder, Willie Nichols for which he was hanged. Doc Holliday had bet frequently that a bullet would win out over tuberculosis in his death; but he lost the bet, saying just before he succumbed, “This is funny.” One thing the truly bad guys never did before they died was admit their wrongdoings. They had lied about what they had done for so long the lie was now truth to them. I know at least three murderers who currently operate on the same principle. If they’re ever brought to justice it will be a miracle. Whenever they meet their Maker however, I’m sure they’ll go without boots on.
