March 2018 36 RANGE WARS MAGNET FOR TOUGH Arizona Cowboy Part 1 Tucker was in the first deadly confrontation of the famed feud, the shootout at Middleton cabin. Tucker had sided with the Graham faction which lost the Middleton cabin shootout decisively. It was Tucker’s first and last participation in the Pleasant Valley war. He was shot so severely it is amazing he lived to tell about it. Ten Second Barrage On August 10th, 1887, four Hashknife cowboys from the Aztec Land and Cattle Company near Holbrook, three Graham cowboys, Robert Carrington and Hampton Blevins, rode up to the Middleton Ranch cabin, long abandoned by Middleton and his family after repeated Apache attacks. They said later they were out searching for Martin Blevins, the head of the Blevins clan who had disappeared without a trace some weeks earlier. It is more likely that the cowboys were enforcing a Cattlemen’s Association order for everyone to clear out of the area of the range claimed by the Tewksbury clan. They spotted the horses of Ed Tewksbury, Jim Roberts, Joseph Boyer and perhaps one or two more men in front of the cabin. Tom Tucker apparently led the group siding with Graham as it rode up to the tall, stockade type fence surrounding the small log cabin. The Hashknife cowboys were Tucker, John Paine, and Robert Glasspie. Tucker reportedly was hired by the huge Aztec Land and Cattle Company because of his reputation as a gunman. Graham had ordered there was to be no violence in the clash with the Tewksbury faction, but his orders were bound to be ignored in the bitterness that had seized Pleasant Valley in those years. Tucker, a man not known for his truthfulness, later said the cowboys were hungry and just stopped “for supper” at the Middleton cabin. Jim Roberts, who was known for his word when he became a famed lawman after the Pleasant Valley conflict, said there would have Like several Hashknife brand cowboys in the late 1880’s, Tom Tucker was drawn down the trail from Holbrook to Pleasant Valley. He was looking for action in the famed feud between the Tewksburys and Grahams… one of the bloodiest range wars of the west. been no shooting that day but John Paine drew his gun. That act set off the barrage from the cabin. Paine was known around the Hashknife as the “fighting Texan” who was hired to drive sheep off of the pasture land in Pleasant Valley where the Hashknife wanted to graze cattle. Got Action They Wanted The barrage lasted about ten sections. Hampton Blevins took a bullet through the brain and pitched off his horse to the ground as the Winchesters barked from the cabin. Jim Tewksbury was still just outside the cabin door. Paine had drawn his gun and fired at Tewksbury who jumped inside and avoided the slug. Jim Payne’s horse was shot from under him and he fell with the animal pinning his leg. As he struggled to free himself, a shot from Jim Roberts rifle took off his ear. He got free and started to run for cover. Jim Tewksbury’s rifle cracked and Paine fell dead next to Blevins. Tom Tucker spun his horse around to flee the withering fire. As he did, a Winchester slug caught him under one arm, plowed through his lungs, and exited under the other arm. His horse already had started to run and somehow, Tucker managed to stay on the galloping animal. Glasspie and Carrington were also galloping off, each having escaped with minor flesh wounds. Tucker’s Amazing Survival Tucker’s horse continued in a dead run with its critically wounded owner slumped on its back until it tired. When the horse stopped, Tucker slid to the ground, unconscious and bleeding profusely. He came to sometime that night to find himself laying in a rain and hail storm on soaking ground. He began to drag himself through the cold and mud toward a cabin he knew about several miles away. It was a horrifying sight that greeted Robert Sigsby when he opened the cabin door that night after hearing scratching sounds. He pulled Tucker inside and began to clean him up the best he could. Tucker’s wounds had been blown by flies that swarmed on him during the time he was unconscious in the hot afternoon sun where he slid from his horse. Maggots were already visible in the wounds. Sigsby doctored the nearly dead man as best he could in frontier fashion. He dressed and packed the wounds with axle grease from his wagon to stop the bleeding, washed the blood and mud away and wrapped Tucker’s chest with torn rags. He put Tucker in bed, covering the shivering man heavily, and tried to get hot broth down him. Tucker had lost a lot of blood and was in shock. The tough little cowboy with the big six-shooter remained feverish and in a partial coma for days, with Sigsby tending his wounds and needs constantly. Yavapai County Sheriff Bill Mulvenon rode up with a posse to investigate the shootout and issue subpoenas to all involved. When he saw Tucker’s condition, he shook his head and just ignored the critically injured cowboy, figuring Tucker would not live until the Grand Jury met in Prescott. It took several months, but Tucker recovered well enough to ride out of Pleasant Valley and meet up with Glasspie at the Hashknife camp by Big Dry Lake. The two then rode out of Arizona Territory and into New Mexico, having had enough of the range war in Pleasant Valley. Tucker in New Mexico Tucker showed up in Tularosa near the White Sands in 1888. He joined up with a man named Oliver Lee who was to carve a controversial page in early New Mexico territory history. Lee and his family were locked in a range war with John Good and his family. Lee and his wife lived in a two-room adobe on a flat 20 miles from the White Sands and due west of Dog Canyon. Mrs. Oliver’s niece, Nettie Fry, lived with them. Nettie was dating a young man named George McDonald. George and Oliver had grown up together in Texas. John Good had come into this country from Texas ahead of Lee and owned almost everything around Tularosa and La Luz. Good had a tall, lanky son named Walter who had a reputation for being no good. The first blood let in this conflict, which was basically over water on the range was that of George McDonald. During roundup that fall on common range, George McDonald and Walter Good clashed over a calf McDonald was continued on page 39 Hashknife cowboys Billy Wilson (left) and Tom Tucker Cowboys of the Hashknife Outfit