Clifton
Left without a gang to be a part of after the Daltons are wiped out trying to rob two Coffeyville, Kansas banks on 10/5/1892, Bill Doolin puts together a new band of killer cowboys that will include Clifton (the band's co-leader is Bill Dalton). His early years mostly a mystery (it is believed he is born in Texas around 1865), by 1892 Clifton has a criminal resume that includes cattle rustling around Pauls Valley in the Chickasaw Nation, the town of Ardmore, and along Oklahoma's border with Texas, safe cracking, and whiskey peddling, and surviving an Osage gunfight with U.S. Deputy Marshal Lafayette "Lafe" Shadley that leaves the outlaw with a permanent scar the size of a silver half-dollar where one of the lawman's wounding bullets needs to be cut out of his neck. His moniker of "Dynamite Dick" is said to come from his explosive temper, or from blowing himself out of a train trying to break into a safe, or his younger days as a miner, or from his penchant for modifying his bullets into explosive rounds. And or is also attached to the identifying characteristic of having three fingers blown off his right hand, or is it his left, and do the digits leave in a childhood accident, or leave thanks to a safe cracking error, or do lawmen blow them off during the 1893 Battle of Ingalls in which U.S. Deputy Marshals Thomas Hueston, Richard Speed, and Lafayette Shadley are all killed.
Dead Outlaws - L-to-R - Bill Powers, Bob
Dalton, Grat Dalton, Dick Broadwell
Doolin
Shadley
Quite the coming-out party, Clifton's first gun moment with the Doolin-Dalton Gang is the Battle of Ingalls (about fifty-four miles west of Tulsa, Oklahoma). Drinking and playing poker with other members of the gang in Ransom's Saloon, Clifton is as surprised as any of the other outlaws when the quiet of the morning is broken by lawman bullets being fired at Bittercreek Newcomb. Gun out and firing back at the lawmen positioned about the town (there are thirteen before the deaths begin), Saloon beginning to be shot to pieces, Clifton, along with Tulsa Jack Blake, provides cover fire for Doolin, Bill Dalton, and Red Buck Waightman as the outlaws run to the nearby barn where their horses are stabled, then with their covering fire, moves there himself with Tulsa Jack. Horse bridled, though wounded in the hand, with Doolin, Clifton mounts up and spurs his horse out of the barn's back door (the three remaining bandits charge out the front door), dashes down a draw to the southwest, and quickly vacates the town, eventually arriving at the town of Alfred. Wanted for murder like the rest of the boys, Dynamite Dick is now a full fledged member of the outlaw gang.
Barn Dash
Wounds somewhat healed, and in need of cash, Doolin and Clifton next rob a businessman named Mr. Higginbotham in the town Blackwell on November 16, 1893 ... the robbery is problematic though as the man has only two dollars on him, and not wanting to clean him out, Doolin gives him one of his dollars back. Attempting a much more respectable haul, on May 20, 1895, at 3:00 in the afternoon, the gang robs the Southwest City Bank of Southwest City, relieving the financial institution of $3,700, but the ill gotten proceeds are not won easily. Slugs flying about as the bandits leave the bank, Oscar Seaborn is wounded, while the same bullet kills his brother, former Missouri State Senator J. C. Seaborn, standing in Baker's saloon, M. V. Hembre is struck in the ankle by a bullet and loses his foot, U.S. Deputy Marshal Simpson Melton is shot in the leg, Doolin is bloodily wounded in the left temple, and three outlaw horses are hit (about a hundred shots are fired during the holdup). Hiding out in a dugout at the "Rock Fort" of the Dunn Brothers, Clifton is one of eight gunmen that don't kill U.S. Deputy Marshal William Tilghman when the lawman shows up at the hideout alone (Doolin is suppose to have said, "Bill Tilghman is too good a man to shoot in the back.").
Dynamite Dick
Next on the gang's dance card is the robbery of the Rock Island Railroad at the town of Dover. Engineer and fireman covered by Clifton and Little Dick West, a robbery that is said to net the Doolin Gang (by 1895, Bill Dalton has been killed by a posse) $35,000, but puts U.S. Deputy Marshal Chris Madsen on their trail, an eventuality that will result in the death of Texas Jack when the fleeing outlaws are found by the lawman's posse (after a pitched battle of almost an hour in which over 200 rounds are exchanged, the gang is able to escape without further damage). Using Texas Jack's sacrifice, Doolin, Little Dick West, and Clifton take up cowboying for awhile at the Rhodes Ranch in the San Andres Mountains of New Mexico, and Dynamite Dick also hides in the Arizona camp of a couple of Mexican sheepherders ... until they have a spat and the outlaw kills both men and heads back to Oklahoma.
Texas Jake Trophy Shot
Back in Oklahoma, Clifton is instantly once more a target of law enforcement, and he doesn't help matters by being arrested by two Federal marshals on bringing illegal whiskey into the territory as a crook named Dan Wiley. Tip received Wiley is actually Clifton, U.S. Deputy Marshal Frank Canton rides to Paris, Texas, correctly identifies Wiley as Dynamite Dick, then takes charge of the prisoner and returns him to Guthrie, Oklahoma to stand charges for murder. There is a problem though, in taking Clifton to Guthrie, Canton has reunited Dynamite Dick with Bill Doolin, also in the local jail after being arrested by U.S. Deputy Marshal Bill Tilghman in a Eureka Springs, Arkansas bathhouse. Bad news to have the outlaws together, the men soon come up with a plan to escape which they launch on the evening of July 5, 1896. Using the way water is distributed to the prisoners inside their cells and the gun of night guard J. W. Miller, Doolin, Clifton, and twelve other bad eggs take control of the jail (it is about 9:00 in the evening), slip down the structure's steel stairs, and vacate the premises, with Doolin and Clifton (for awhile they are accompanied by a hatchet holding counterfeiter named Bill Jones) highjacking a buggy from Alva W. Koontz (a county clerk) and Miss Winifred Warner (a local schoolteacher) as they make their way north and east out of town. Despite the search for the fugitives being the biggest manhunt in the history of the territory, the desperadoes gain tobacco, whiskey, and $50 by robbing a bar in the town of Morrison (when the bartender at the establishment protests, Doolin shoots off the man's ear), before making their way to an old hideout about twelve miles west of Ingalls on the north side of the Cimarron River, where they once more hook up with Little Dick West. Free, but not for long, returning from a night visit with his wife, Doolin is killed on August 24, 1896, by a posse led by U.S. Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas.
Canton
Doolin
Leaderless, West and Clifton foolishly continue operating in Oklahoma, with Dynamite Dick almost cashing in his chips when he and two other outlaws are found camped in a ravine twenty miles west of Sapulpa, Oklahoma by a Heck Thomas posse but mange to shoot their way out of danger. Use to being members of a gang (there is now a $3,500 reward, dead or alive, for Clifton), West and Clifton hook up with the Jennings Gang, consisting of novice bandits Al and Frank Jennings, and Morris and Pat O'Malley. Hoping for more major robberies, the Doolin alumnists are sadly disappointed at the chump change they lift from The Corner Saloon of Pottawatomie County, and their failed train robbery outside of Edmond in which they are unable to blow open the Wells Fargo safe holding the cash they want ... twice.
Al Jennings
The end of the trail finally comes for Clifton on a Sunday in November. Under the direction of Chris Madsen, U.S. Deputy Marshals George Lawson and W. H. Bussey locate the refuge of Dynamite Dick on the Sid Williams farm near Checotah. Surprising the outlaw on the trail, the marshals call for Clifton's surrender, the outlaw refuses and goes for his guns, and the lawmen open fire, with a round from Lawson's rifle breaking the outlaw's arm and knocking him out of the saddle ... where he escapes on foot into the brush. But not for long! Tracking the outlaw, the lawmen discover Clifton in a remote, forest sheltered cabin. Cornered, just as night is beginning to fall, Dynamite Dick bursts out of the door of the cabin, firing as best he can at his opponents with his one good arm ... which is not good enough. Ready for the request surrender to be refused again, the officers gun down the bandit before he can make it back into the woods and Clifton dies a few minutes later.
The End Of Dynamite Dick Clifton
No comments:
Post a Comment