by John Mason Glen, Ph.D. for the Western Heritage Foundation
As I walk my dog, I listen to books on tape. Right now, I’m enjoying Tom Horn: In Life and Legend by Larry Ball. I know a lot about Horn and used to discuss him when I taught my Westward Movement class in college. There is also an excellent film — Tom Horn — starring Steve McQueen.
Horn was the quintessential westerner. Born in Missouri at the outbreak of the Civil War, he ran away from home at 16, perhaps because of parental abuse, perhaps simply a wanderlust unquenchable at an isolated Midwestern farm.
He arrived in Prescott broke and spent his last “two bits” on a beer and free sandwich at the Palace bar on Whiskey Row, before gaining his first paid employment as a stagecoach driver between Prescott and Santa Fe.
Horn went on to be a scout and mule train packer during the Apache Wars in the 1880s and was present at the surrender of Geronimo to General Crook. Horn served as a deputy sheriff in Globe under Glenn Reynolds, as a Pinkerton detective and finally a “range detective” in Wyoming.
He also was active in the “Pleasant Valley war” that pitted the Graham and the Tewksbury families against one another in Central Arizona around the turn of the century, in and around the hamlet of Young, resulting in the deaths of over 25 people, as well as the “Johnson County war” in Wyoming.
While serving as a deputy under Reynolds, the “Apache Kid” was captured, tried and convicted of several murders. Reynolds was tasked with transporting the “Kid,” together with several other Apache convicts to the territorial prison in Yuma and asked Horn to assist.
At the last-minute Horn was invited to participate in a rodeo in Phoenix and begged off. Along the trip, the wagon carrying the prisoners needed to ascend a steep hill, so all got out to walk to lighten the load.
The Apaches planned an escape. As it was winter, the two lawmen wore heavy coats over their sidearms and when several of the lawbreakers attacked Reynolds as they walked, they were able to wrest his “long gun” from him and killed him.
Horn always regretted not being with Reynolds, as he spoke the Apache language and would have overheard the plot.
Part 2 in December.
