FOR THOSE WHO LOVE TRUE 'WILD WEST' TALES, WE HAVE AS OUR GUEST AUTHOR, C.R. KING, WHO IS SHARING TWO STORIES FROM HIS BOOK OF SHORT STORIES, 'FRATERNITY OF GUNSLINGERS' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
- Eva Bielby
- Aug 9
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 10
A FRATERNITY OF
GUNSLINGERS
VOLUME 3
1
OWENS VALLEY INDIAN WAR
The “War” started in the winter of 1861 which was quite severe. It took place in California, but many Nevadans were also involved. Due to the severity of the winter, Natives living in the Owens Valley killed some cattle to stay alive (the number of exactly how many is unknown). The blowback from all that snowfall was the Great Flood of 1862.
To date, the Great Flood was the largest ever in that part of the country, and the Natives were hurting. In addition to the harsh winter, there was the encroachment of cattle onto Paiute land that became the source of their food supply. The winter and the flood, combined with the overused land, threatened to starve the Paiutes, and they had little choice but to kill the cattle or starve.
The cattle owners retaliated with what they considered to be caution, killing only “some” of the First Americans (F.A.). Because they feared starting a war, when they came across an Indigenous person or two, they killed them if they thought they could get away with it; five Anglo men were killed in kind by the Natives. The trouble began when the ranchers refused to stay off the F.A. land they needed for grazing land. The Natives retaliated for no other reason but to remain alive.
As things escalated, as a group, the cattle owners decided to gather their cattle to graze in an area 31 miles above Lake Owens. In doing so, they realized they needed help, so they sent word to both Visalia, California, and Carson, Nevada, so they would be backed by troops.
On March 28, 1862, eighteen men from Aurora, a mining boomtown (now a ghost town) located three miles from the California border, showed up and immediately, re-enforced the owners. The cattle, being raised in Owens Valley, was earmarked to feed the Aurora miners, as was the agreement, and Aurora had an investment to protect.
The additional men, plus a detachment of militia, joined Colonel Mayfield, who now had 60 volunteers under his control in addition to his detachment to counter the Paiutes. He took his troops, and off they went to engage in a head-to-head confrontation with the Paiute in what is now known as the Battle of Bishop Creek.
The 50-mile march did not go well, for Mayfield had to fall back to a “ditch” and hold up there until nightfall when he could remove his men, including the dead and wounded, before they headed back to the valley. On their way to their destination, Mayfield came across a volunteer force from California, headed by George S. Evans, a former Texas Ranger who had volunteered to fight the F.A., as well as a group of Tuolumne Rangers from Camp Alert, located in San Francisco, now known as the California Volunteers.
Evans was commissioned to the rank of lieutenant colonel and appointed to serve as adjutant general of California from 1864 to 1868. Evans was a busy man, a born leader who continued to serve, and he was elected to the State Senate in ’65. In ’69, he was a Stockton city councilman and then the mayor. Once again, he was elected as a California State Senate office official from 1871 to 1877 (Farquhar, 1965). When they neared Bishop Creek, Mayfield joined Evans’s group with 40 of his men and headed on a Northbound track while the rest of his men, and of course, the wounded, headed back to Owens Valley.
Evans’s scout informed the two leaders that another group of 50—from Company A, 2nd Cavalry out of Fort Churchill led by Lieutenant Noble—were on their way. They were headed south to a place called Putnam’s Store, where they would wait for Noble’s command to show up. Meanwhile, a scout returned to inform the three officers that there was a large group of F.A. near Bishop Creek. Evans moved up during a storm so he could lay low for a surprise attack once his main body was in place, but the plan fell through when the Natives spotted the main body of cavalry and quickly left.
Around April 8, 1862, Evans observed campfires in a canyon. The following day, he advanced to the canyon where the Paiute were holed up. The whites and F.A. engaged, and Mayfield was wounded. Col. Mayfield was hit once more as his men carried him away from the firefight, and he died. The canyon was named Mayfield Canyon in his honor.
Note that the Shoshones also lived in the area and are likely to have joined the Paiute in their battle against the Anglos. On July 1, 1862, Camp Independence was established,
meaning that the military presence was large enough to counter Indigenous raids. On March 22, 1863, Chief Captain George came to Camp Independence for a peace talk and indicated that he no longer wanted war. As a result of his surrender, more than 400 F.A. laid down their arms. Two other chiefs, Captains Dick and Tiemaha, also surrendered. By July ’63, there were close to 1,000 Native people at Camp Independence. From there, they were “escorted” to Fort Tejon, California, located on the top of “The Grapevine.”
As more settlers moved into the area, the military became harsher with their dealings with the Paiutes and the way they engaged them. There were other battles, such as the attack on Putman’s Trading Post on April 2, 1862; The Black Rock Skirmish on March 11, 1862; The Battle of Alhambra Hills on March 19 1863; and Big Pine Creek, to name a few. The skirmishes continued; miners and settlers were not killed in large numbers, but it was enough to frighten the Anglo settlers.
Why, you may ask, did the war continue if two chiefs and their men surrendered? It continued because another warrior, Chief, Joaquin Jim, did not surrender. With the removal of the F.A. to Ft. Tejon, the Anglos thought the war was over for the Native population in the area was becoming insignificant; however, it was not in reality, and the war lasted another two years.
An engagement east of Owens Lake resulted in the death of several warriors and the capture of others in August 1866. The raid on the “Spanish mines” by the Panamint Shoshones occurred in August 1867. Finally, the skirmish at Rainy Springs Canyon on March 12, 1867, ended the war.
Note: the Paiute village was at the east end of Owens Lake. Thirty-three years later, there was another war over its water.
Suggested further reading for this story Key (1979)
2
THE GAMBLER’S WAR
TOMBSTONE ARIZONA
“Easterners” was a term loosely used to describe Dodge City gamblers, a few of whom were recruited by Wyatt Earp after he took charge of the Oriental gambling concession on February 1, 1881; this name has nothing to do with East Coast.
The Tombstone Epitaph made reference to this gambler’s war in 1880, which quieted down in December after “Shotgun” Collins exchanged shots with “Deadwood Scotty” on Allen Street at Seventh. It was about their third clash after Scotty had raised havoc on a couple of Faro banks earlier in 1880. The Tombstone Epitaph referred to the factions using metaphors, such as the “King’s forces” versus the “Rebel forces,” in an attempt not to upset the populists with the rumblings of possible gunplay. The affirmed leader of the Sloper faction was Johnny Tyler, a.k.a. John Enos Tyler, age 40. Some of his crew, the number of which may have peaked at 20, were not so much violent as gaming specialists like Henry Ladd. Others were nasty killers with knives and guns, like Henry “Whistler” Newman. Tyler was a proven gunman and killer himself.
At the start of 1881, Lou Rickabaugh (age 44) was the leader of the Easterners. He wanted Luke Short as security man on the early shift, starting at 9:00 a.m., and had Wyatt recruit more dealers to run three Faro banks. He had three shifts, totaling 21 hours, after which they shut it down for three hours. The first dealer Wyatt hired was his brother, Morgan, who was a natural and experienced. His job was security on the late shift—Morg’s life was about a third nocturnal. Other Easterner dealers and lookouts included Dick Clark, Napa Nick, Bat Masterson, Warren Earp (on the night shift with Morg), Sylvester Comstock, and several others, as many as 27 but no less than 18.
There were no hard lines distinguishing the two factions. The Slopers had been in existence for a while. The Easterners was a fledgling group with its earliest beginnings in 1876, and in my opinion, as a small group, rebuffed by the Slopers at Deadwood. There was some mingling between the factions in the form of friendships. For instance, James Leavy—an old-time Sloper—was good friends and business partners with a few Easterners, which caused him to take a neutral stance. Tony Kraker, a natural Sloper from San Francisco, was with the Earp faction and hated Johnny Tyler for at least a decade when they were a part of the sporting fraternity together in San Francisco. Most of their activities as Slopers took place in Nevada. This was critical when Charlie Storms and his partner, “Dublin” Lyons—two confirmed Slopers for decades—arrived and conferred with Tyler on the current situation. The partners made it clear they would
not pressure Morgan Earp, who they knew and liked and had spent two and a half months with him in the fall of 1878 when Morg was town marshal/detective at Butte, MT; things were complicated in Butte’s gambler’s war.
On February 25, 1881, when Storms and Dublin walkedinto the Oriental, their main target of intimidation was Lou Rickabaugh. For some reason, Lou was sitting in the dealer’s chair rather than the lookout’s chair. Rickabaugh sized up the situation in an instant, got up, and went back to his office, with Storms close on his heels, continuing to verbally abuse Rickabaugh. Lou came out of his office and stepped out the Oriental’s side door.
Storms re-joined everybody in the gambling room— which no doubt included Wyatt and Virgil Earp—manning one of the Faro banks, being an eyewitnesses to the whole affair. Storms turned his attention to Luke, who was now sitting in the dealer’s chair, and started a fight he could not finish. Outside, on the Oriental’s walkway, Storms pulled Luke onto the street and reached for his gun, but Luke was faster, and Storms was dead before he hit the ground.
Virgil Earp, the deputy United States marshal at the
time, took Luke Short into custody, appropriate under the circumstance of protecting Short from any immediate Sloper retaliation. Dublin Lyons was speaking with Bat Masterson, and both were standing at the entry threshold when Charlie passed them as he took Luke out through the front door. There were enough witnesses to give testimony favoriting Shorts’ need to defend himself, and Luke was released. Gamblers’ wars were not uncommon, but the information of such was not a matter for public consumption. Rather it was private in nature, only for the gamblers, and this was understood by insider participants. As I mentioned before, the public was rarely aware.
After the death of Charlie Storms, the Slopers left Tombstone, and the war was over. Luke Short engaged in at least three such wars over his lifetime, and Shotgun Collins was involved in a few, while Virgil Earp participated in three, the first in Council Bluffs in 1875.
Suggested further reading for this story - Thompson & West (1958)
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COMING SOON: On Monday 11th August, our arty team member and author, Dawn Treacher, will be sharing her Flash Fiction story, 'The Watcher'.
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