b'Lawman continued from page 31hard spanking across his face, then being dumped in the street by the no-nonsense mayor. The humiliated KenedyWilliam Matthew Tilghman was a scout, a buffalo hunter, plotted his revenge on the mayor, and on the evening of October 4, 1878, fired two shots at a silhouette in Mayora deputy sheriff in Dodge City during its wildest years, Kelley\'s bedroom. He fled the scene, thinking he had killed the mayor. then it was town marshal after Bat and Wyatt left for a Only Mayor Kelley wasn\'t in town that evening. Sufferingnew mining town in Arizona called Tombstone.from an intestinal ailment he had sought medical treatment at nearby Fort Dodge. That decision saved his life. But it did not save the life of Dora Hand, also known as Fanny Keenan, for Dog Kelley had offered the room to her and herlawmen in Dodge saw the writing on the wall, and left forformed a bit late to prevent Coffeyville but they and Deputy fellow actress Fannie Garretson. It was Dora Hand who wasthe sunny Southwest in the summer and early fall of 1879,Marshal Tilghman were soon operating out of Guthrie, on the silhouette in Dog Kelley\'s bedroom that evening, andleaving Bat\'s other lawman brother Jim, Charlie Bassett,the trail of the Doolin-Dalton gang. They soon realized that while Kenedy\'s first bullet missed her, the second one hitChalk Beeson, Neal Brown, and a seasoned Bill Tilghmanthe Doolin-Daltons were operating out of the Oklahoma Miss Hand in the side, killing her almost instantly.behind to enforce the law in a much tamer Dodge, andterritory town of Ingalls (not the Kansas town of the same while both Bat and Wyatt would make occasional briefname that Tilghman brought law and order to just four Bat Masterson immediately collected a posse that was forreturns, it would be Bill Tilghman, who, after a decentyears previously). all intents and purposes the cream of the crop of westerninterval, in early 1884, would be named town marshal oflawmen - Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Charlie Bassett, Billa much tamer Dodge City, continuing the legacy of Bat Ingalls was a hotbed of criminal activity. Saloons, Duffey, and Tilghman. They tracked down the wild Texan,and Wyatt.prostitution, cattle, and horse rustling were the norm, and caught him 35 miles south of town desperately riding forthere was a safe haven at the local hotel for the Doolin-the Indian Territory border. Wyatt shot Kenedy\'s horse,To be sure, there were still killings, and incidents, suchDalton gang anytime they wished to"cool down" after while Bat put a plug from his 50-caliber rifle in the Texan\'sas the biting off of Tilghman\'s deputy Benjamin Franklina raid. Furthermore, the notorious Dunn brothers who shoulder, and he fell. As Masterson grabbed him, KenedyDaniels\' ear in a saloon fight with a desperado, but thethemselves were involved in cattle and horse rustling and asked, "Did I kill him (Kelley)?" When an angry MastersonDodge City that Tilghman inherited from Masterson waswho had often collaborated with the Doolin-Daltons kept told him he had murdered Dora Hand, Kenedy mutteredan almost civilized community, and it soon became a quitea ranch just outside of town (Glenn Shirley, Gunfight at that he had wished Masterson had been a better shot. Tomundane town for the new team of Tilghman and Daniels,Ingalls: Death of an Outlaw Town, Barbed Wire Press, which the Ford County sheriff responded, "Well, you damnaided occasionally by Neal Brown, Chalk Beeson, and1990, pp. 19-26). murdering SOB, I did the best I could" (Clavin, Dodge City,George Bolds. The real action would soon be happening pp. 243-247). at the southern border of Kansas, in the Indian Territory,In short Ingalls was just the perfect outlaw town, but the and that is exactly where Tilghman would be heading justone man who might have put paid to the Doolin-Dalton Masterson, Earp, and Tilghman shielded Kenedy as a moba few years later when his tenure in Dodge City came togang right then and there instead of that "Desperado" war tried to grab him and administer "Judge Lynch" justice toan end. By now, having resigned his marshal\'s duties, backcontinuing on for another three years, the man that Marshal this thoroughly disliked kid who murdered the belovedtending bar and enduring a long and unhappy marriage,Nix had specially commissioned to lead the force of lawmen actress paramour of their popular mayor. They saved histhe restless lawman craved new adventures. After taming,into Ingalls the morning of the first day of September 1893, hide but it might have best if they hadn\'t. Under normalalong with Deputies Jim Masterson, Brown and Bolds, thewasn\'t there.circumstances, the trial of Kenedy should have been a hung- Gray County seat of Ingalls, Kansas (not Oklahoma)in a and-dry matter with Kenedy dangling from a cottonwood atcelebrated gun battle, Tilghman and his family rode southFor those of you who may have wondered where Bill the end of a rope, but his father\'s money paid off the judgeinto the newly open for settlement Indian Territory ofTilghman was on the morning of the ride into Ingalls, and perhaps some of the jurors as well, and both father andOklahoma riding right into what would become his greatestwell, simply put, he was in bed nursing a broken leg. Just son fled Dodge before the disgusted lawmen would allowexploit of them all as a lawman. His experiences in Dodgedays before he was to lead the lawmen into town, his a lynch mob to try to get to them. Still, justice, or eventualwould definitely pale in comparison to what awaited himhorse buckled, got away on him, he was thrown from the karma if you will, would, however, catch up with Jamesand a new breed of deputy U.S. marshals in Oklahoma.saddle and he broke a leg (Paul I. Wellman, A Dynasty of "Spike" Kenedy four years later, when, convicted of anotherWestern Outlaws, Doubleday and Company, 1961, p. 209).crime, he died of typhoid fever in his jail cell.Tilghman may already have anticipated a move to theTilghman\'s fellow "Oklahoma Guardsmen" Chris Madsen, Indian Territory even while he was still the Dodge CityHeck Thomas, and Bud Ledbetter were on assignments As Dodge City began to settle down, as the cattle drivesmarshal. He had purchased land in the Indian Territoryelsewhere. So it was a different group of U.S. deputies soon became fewer and far between, the two most famousand when it was first opened up for settlement on Aprilwho rode into Ingalls that day and the inexperience of 22, 1889, he and his family pulled up stakes and as the saying goes they "got outta Dodge" and moved straight to Guthrie, Oklahoma, where Tilghman once again tried his hand at ranching. He soon learned that the old lawlessness he had helped to tame in Dodge had resurfaced throughout the new settlements in the Indian Territory, the Dalton gang was on the loose, and chaos reigned. So in May 1892 Tilghman gave up ranching and joined the group of veteran lawmen supervised by Judge Isaac Parker and U.S. Marshal Evitt Dumas Nix that were sworn in to stop future depredations. The unit was organized a bit too late to stop the Dalton raid on Coffeyville, but the townspeople acquitted themselves well enough that the criminal career of most of the Daltons ended in the bloody streets of that town. It seemed that things would finally settle down in the Indian Territory. But it was not meant to be, for within months, like a Phoenix rising out of the ashes of the slain Daltons, up rode the survivors of the Dalton gang or those who were wise enough not to participate in the folly of attempting to rob two banks simultaneously. Led by that easygoing, good-natured Cowboy Bill Doolin, who had claimed his horse went lame on the outskirts of Coffeyville (more likely Doolin had the common sense to know a trap when there was one), and by Bill Dalton, the former California politician, who, bitter over the death of his brothers, chose to go rogue. The gang embarked on a Bat Masterson, above, and Wyatt Earp may haveseries of train and bank robberies which soon eclipsed, overshadowed Big Bill Tilghman, but the modest Tilghmanwith the exception of Coffeyville, almost anything else did so much more to tame the cities, territories, and countiesTilghman\'s pursuit of Bill Doolin in the dead of winter turned he worked in than those much more famous men did. the old Dalton gang had done. As aforementioned, theinto a misadventure that almost cost him his life.conglomerate of lawmen organized by Marshal Nix was 32 August 2019'