Ride The Devil's Herd

HOW THE COWBOYS RULED TOMBSTONE BEFORE WYATT EARP

- John Boessenecker

The Cowboys’ genesis lay in the savvy and the six shooters of John Kinney, one of the most notorious outlaws of the American Southwest. Several desperadoes who became leading lights of the Cowboys rode with John Kinney in Texas and New Mexico Territory, playing bloody roles in the El Paso Salt War and the Lincoln County War. Two of them were Bob Martin and Curly Bill Brocius. In November 1878 they broke jail near El Paso and fled to southeastern Arizona Territory. It was an isolated frontier, with no settlements, no towns, no border, no law enforcement—just mountains and desert and mesquite and Apaches.

During the next two years, Bob Martin and Curly Bill were joined by numerous badmen and fugitives, including desperadoes John Ringo, Pony Diehl, Cactus Bill Graham, Sherman McMaster, Jim Wallace, Billy Leonard, Jim Crane, Harry “the Kid” Head, Luther King, Frank Stilwell, Pete Spence, Jimmy Hughes and Dick Lloyd. They formed a loose-knit gang of about 100 outlaws which operated in small bands on both sides of the border. Their number would eventually grow to as many as 200. Mexicans dubbed them “Tejanos,” or Texans; Americans called them the Cowboys. Although the term “cow-boy” had been in common use in New England in the late 1700s, by 1879 it took on a sinister meaning in Arizona and New Mexico. As one frontier journalist explained, “The cowboy is a cross between a vaquero and a highwayman.”