ArizonaRealCountry.com 33 February 2018 CHECK OUR FACEBOOK ABOUT RANCH SORTING AND LESSONS! ALL GIRLS TIMED EVENT CHALLENGE JANUARY 14TH & 28TH Breakaway roping, goat tying, Barrel racing OPEN BULL AND STEER RIDING every Saturday and Sunday the Phoenix side of the depression and the greasewood bushes grow here in abundance. Someone, on that March 19, had cut some of this greasewood and added it to the greasewood that lined the trail, making the trail brush thicker. Behind this thickened greasewood cover along the trail, several men laid in wait. Another man concealed himself in a small pit about 200 yards ahead on the trail from where his comrades hid behind the greasewood. Quick & Deadly Ambush Charlie Doolittle rode by the men concealed behind the dense greasewood blind, on through the depression and up onto the level desert. Johnson drove the black mares into the depression and toward the greasewood blind. Gribble, gun in lap, bounced on the seat next to him. When the light rig passed the greasewood blind and neared the gradual hill leading out of the dip, both Johnson and Gribble were riddled with a barrage of bullets from the greasewood brush. At the same instance, Doolittle was cut down by rifle fire from the pit at the top of the hill. All three men lay dead on the trail. So did the off mare of the team. Gribble had raised his shotgun from his lap when the first bullets hit him and managed to pull the trigger, his last living act. The blast hit the off mare from behind. Both mares broke into a dead run up the trail until about 20 yards from the top of the hill, the off mare died of her wound. The other mare kept going, dragging her dead companion, but the weight of the dead mare upset the buggy, tossing Gribble and Johnson’s bodies onto the trail. Charlie Doolittle had been riding a big sorrel he had borrowed from Jim Hammond for the trip. Bullion and Horse Missing A traveler on the trail found the three bodies and the wrecked wagon. The horse Doolittle had been riding was gone. So was the bullion from the Vulture. When the traveler got to Phoenix, he informed the Sheriff of the murders. A posse was immediately formed and headed for the murder scene about 40 miles to the west. Tracks at the scene determined five men were in the holdup gang. They had headed west toward the Hassayampa and by now had an 80 mile lead on the posse and were well into the Harguahalla desert. It was a couple of days of hard riding later that the posse began to close in on the bandits. The posse was closing so fast the bandits decided to abandon their plans to escape to the Colorado River and instead head north. The bandits had taken cover in a wood camp about 10 miles from the Vulture. The posse thought they had them pinned down there until it became apparent the gang had slipped past the posse during the night and were headed over the Vulture mountains toward Wickenburg. The Chase Closes Reinforcements had joined the posse by morning, bringing fresh men and horses. The chase was now close. At times the bandits fired at posse members, who returned the fire. It was so close that two of the fugitives slipped off their horses and escaped on foot through the rocks, leaving no tracks. Three of the bandits were recognized by posse members. One was Francisco Vega, another was a man named Martinez and a third was named Valenzuela. The latter was riding Hammond’s big sorrel. Both the bandits and the posse in hot pursuit were scattered now. Valenzuela doubled back toward the Vulture. There he was fed quickly by a woman friend. He then rode to the wood camp, where the gang had buried the bullion the previous night. Valenzuela dug up the bar and headed for the Gila River, double-crossing his comrades, who were to split the gold evenly. The flood-swollen Gila was a torrent when Valenzuela arrived. Undeterred, he plunged the big sorrel into the stream. The horse charged into the water, then became bogged down in the sand and broke The single gravestone of the Martin family reads: Barney Martin 40; Rosie 32; John 13; William 11. Murdered July 22, 1866. The gravesite is located at the Hassayampa River Preserve near Wickenburg. continued on page 34