Slaughter Knew & Tom Horn Looks Back With Fondness

 April 8, 2023

   Going back into our archives for a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's all for the return of the half-Irish, half Mexican, all son-of-a-bitch poster boy of the Apache Wars.

Daily Whip Out:

"The Red-Haired One-eyed Captivo

Mickey Free"

"You don't want to mess with Mick when his Irish is up."

—Tom Horn, warning a squad of Rurales at El Forte of Mickey Free's notorious temper

   Fourteen years later, while standing on the newly built gallows outside the Cheyenne, Wyoming jail, he thought of the look on the Rurale's faces with some fondness.

The Big Tease

   "Slaughter knew. And, he tried to warn me. This was a fool's errand, as he put it, and looking back, he got it right before any of us knew what was really going to happen at El Forte, Mexico, forty years ago this week."

—James Young, in his 1924 interview with newspaperman Glenn Burns

  And, who is this historic Tombstone character we are borrowing, so we can have him claim to have ridden into Mexico with Mickey Free and Tom Horn with orders to bring back the head of the Apache Kid? This guy.

James Young's Honor Guard at his grave marker (designed by me) in Tucson

And who else might be showing up in this sweeping epic tall tale?

A Cast of Characters to Die For

   Plus, we have the graphic goods, like this spot on parody of a Harper's Weekly.

Heads Will Roll 

 Apache warriors had already begun leaving in droves from the newly formed San Carlos Apache Reservation when a U.S. Army officer was murdered in May of 1873. Gen. George Crook ordered his troops to bring in the heads of the suspected murderers. On April 27, 1874, scout Mickey Free brought in the head of Pedro and presented it to Capt. George Randall. Within a few months, eight severed heads were neatly arrayed on the post's parade ground.

   And, so, what is my point in all this? It's simple.

"History is something that never happened, written by someone who wasn't there."

—Old Vaquero Saying