June 2019 8 THE OLD STORYTELLER By Hank Sheffer, “The Old Storyteller” PART 2 Cattle and Sheep Don’t Mix The Pleasant Valley War has always been characterized as the Graham/Tewksbury feud, but at this time the Graham brothers had not played any roles of significance other than the fact that their loyalties fell toward the cattlemen. The ruckus that had been raised up so far was between the Hashknife/Blevins cattlemen and the Tewksbury sheepmen. However, that scenario was soon to change in a hard way. Sheriff Bill Mulvenon and his posse from Prescott had ten warrants in their possession to pick up anybody and everybody involved at the Middleton cabin brawl. In the meantime, Bill Graham headed for Payson. There he met up with Deputy Sheriff Jim Houck. As Houck told it, “I went on up the hill above the trail to the Graham ranch and picketed my horse and slept out till daylight. Then I got down on the trail behind a tree. I knew John Graham would come along, and I had a warrant for him and was going to get him. Instead of John Graham, Bill Graham come, and I didn’t have a warrant for him because he was one of the younger ones. I stepped out, and Bill drew a gun on me. I tried to stop him. When I first see it was him, I tried to speak to him, but it was no use. As he pulled his gun I turned loose and shot him. His horse whirled, and I shot two-three times—knew it was the only thing to do, for he was pumping at me fast as he could pull the trigger.” Graham, like Carrington, managed to stay on his horse and rode back to the Graham ranch. There, shortly after his arrival, he died. If it had not been officially declared before, the killing of Bill Graham marked the actual beginning of the Pleasant Valley War. On Friday morning, the 2nd day of September 1887, Tom and John Graham, along with Andy Cooper and a band of riders, headed for the Tewksbury headquarters. They encountered Bill Jacobs and John Tewksbury about a mile from their house. The Graham bunch ambushed the two men. Neither man survived and John became the first Tewksbury casualty. Meanwhile, Ed and Jim Tewksbury, their mother, and sickly father were inside the main house at the ranch headquarters. Some people believe Jim Roberts was also there, but that has never been confirmed. There are other confused facts about what happened next at the house. One story states that Jacobs and John Tewksbury were close enough to the house that Mrs. Tewksbury could see hogs rooting at the fallen bodies. Outraged and in shock, she ran outside to bury the men to get them away from the hogs. This account says she was killed for her efforts. Stories, including the accounts of Will Croft Barnes, another rancher in the area, and newspaper chronicles are more reliable. They state the Tewksburys slipped away out the back of the house to safety. Finding no one in the house, the Grahams and Cooper also pulled out. Justice of the Peace John Meadows, from Payson, rode to the Tewksbury ranch to hold an inquest, but he accomplished little more than to bury the mutilated bodies of Bill Jacobs and John Tewksbury. Meadows seemed to have been complacent about the situation. Like many others, he may have figured that perhaps, if given enough time, the two factions would wipe each other out and the killing would have to stop due to the lack of participants. However, there were others who did not see the situation that way at all. The Graham/Tewksbury conflict had not gone unnoticed by higher authorities. Enough was enough and it was now time to call a halt to the whole bloody affair. A meeting was held on September 7, 1887. In attendance were Governor C. Meyer Zulick, Sheriff William Mulvenon, and District Attorney John C. Herndon. The consensus was it didn’t matter who had started what or when... everyone involved in the conflict, in any way, was to be arrested and brought before the court. Warrants had been issued as early as March 26, 1886, for the arrest of Andy Blevins, aka Cooper, for stealing 30 or 40 horses from the Navajo Indians. Cooper enjoyed his freedom only because no peace officer, sheriff, territorial deputy, U.S. Marshal, or anyone else, considered stealing from Indians a crime that warranted arresting a white man. Now, however, pressure was brought to bear. That pressure was laid upon the shoulders of Commodore Perry Owens, the Apache County Sheriff from 1887-88. It came in the form of an ultimatum, “get Andy Cooper or get another job.” He had no choice but to comply. Andy Cooper arrived in Holbrook on the fourth of September immediately following the ambush at the Tewksbury ranch. He boasted that he was the one who had put Jacobs and Tewksbury in the ground. In doing so, he avenged the deaths of his father and brother. Unfortunately for Cooper, as we shall see, Sheriff Perry Owens also arrived in Holbrook on the fourth. The western gunfight that occurred when Owens moved in for the arrest during that mid-afternoon has gone down in history as nothing short of amazing. As near as we can ascertain, here are the actual movements of both Cooper and Sheriff Owens on September 4, 1887. Sheriff Owens rode to Browne Kinder’s livery stable in Holbrook to put up his horse. He then crossed the street to Wattron’s drugstore where he engaged some gentlemen in conversation. Andy Cooper spotted Owens from his mother’s house and told John Blevins, his brother, to fetch his horse for him as he did not want the sheriff to see him. Shortly thereafter, Owens returned to the livery to retrieve the Winchester rifle in his saddle scabbard. Once again he left the livery stable and walked eastward down the main street toward the Blevin’s house. Sheriff Owens approached the front door and called for Cooper to surrender. With a pistol in his hand, Cooper answered the door and told Owens that he would be just a moment while he got ready. Guided by instinct, the wary lawman fired through the door wounding the outlaw in the stomach. The sheriff then jumped down off the porch. A bullet was fired by John Blevins, which narrowly missed the sheriff. Ironically, the bullet consequently struck the horse John had gotten for Andy earlier. The animal ran a few steps and dropped over dead. Even if Cooper had any chance to flee, Blevins had just killed his only means of escape. Owens returned fire, again through the front door. This time John was the recipient of the lead missile; it struck him in the shoulder. Cooper was then spotted through the window. With deadly accuracy, Owens shot the fugitive in the hips... the outlaw soon died in his mother’s arms. With all hell breaking loose, Sam Houston Blevins the youngest brother picked up the pistol dropped by the fallen Cooper and headed out onto the porch after Owens. He, too, came up short with a ball from Owens’ deadly rifle; it hit him hip high. The situation must have been sheer pandemonium for everyone inside the house. Owens, on the other hand, was cold and calculating. The last of the occupants, Mose Roberts, crawled out through a window on the east side of the house. Owens heard him trying to escape and shot him in the chest. Roberts managed to muster enough strength to reenter the back of the house where he collapsed in the kitchen. There would be no escape this day. In about a minute, Sheriff Perry Owens walked away A lush green valley in the Sierra Anchas had been discovered, but due to its inaccessibility, it was not greatly populated. The valley, supplied with water mainly by Cherry Creek and Tonto Creek, became a haven for settlers. It also became a haven for rustlers and other unsavory hombres. This area was known as Pleasant Valley.