JOHN "RED" HAMILTON

8/27/1898 - Mostly forgotten now, one of the critical figures in both the First and Second Dillinger Gangs is born into the large (he will have eight siblings) Byng Inlet, Ontario, Canada Irish family of John and Sarah Hamilton (a German-American emigrant from New York) ... John "Red" Hamilton (the nickname comes from the deep dark color of his hair).

Hamilton

Brought to the United States at three when his family moves to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Hamilton has a fairly normal childhood.  He attends McKinley Public School, where he is an above average student, and he is a regular Sunday attendee at the local Catholic church.  Like many in the region, he also takes full advantage of the many outdoor opportunities  of northeastern Michigan, becoming an excellent trapper, hunter, and most importantly for his upcoming career, an expert marksman with enough talent that he wins a number of local shooting competitions.  The only personality disorder of any kind that is evident is Hamilton's inclination to accept the dares and challenges of his companions ... he climbs up a 175-foot factory chimney for the reward of a single dime, and he is awarded another nickname that will be with him for the rest of his life when while sledding with friends near the town's railroad tracks he decides to demonstrate the speed of his hand/eye coordination by touching the spinning wheel of a passing train, a stunt that earns Hamilton the moniker "Three Finger Jack" after his audacious moment costs him the index and middle fingers on his right hand.

Sault Ste. Marie

A tenth grade education the terminus of his formal studies, Hamilton leaves school and works for a time as a lumberjack and as a deckhand on a freighter plying the Great Lakes.  In 1919, he gets together with two friends in Pontiac, Michigan and hustles freight for the Oakland Motor Company.  By 1921, Hamilton is back in Sault Ste. Marie and marries Mary Stephenson ... a pairing in which Hamilton soon discovers life as a farmer will not pay the bills of his "high life" loving wife or support the two sons, Howard and Orville, the couple brings into the world.  Bootlegging as a side job like countless others, Hamilton becomes a full time criminal when his illegal brewing still is discovered in the farm's chicken coop.  Arrested, Hamilton jumps bail in 1924 and joins the bandit gang of his wife's brother, Alvia, just in time to be part of the crew that takes a $33,000 payroll from the Lakey Foundry of Muskegon Heights.  Still not a full time crook, Hamilton and his family move to Detroit, where the young man works his "show" job as a carpenter while running rum from Canada down into the States.  And there is an attempted burglary of the Walter E. Miles Coal Company of Grand Rapids (Hamilton and his partner are discovered by police breaking into the company's safe, but flee out a back door after spotting a cop car in the parking lot, there take for the evening is a disappointing $200).  And of course, there is also his place as a member of the Stephenson Gang.  On January 3, 1927, the gang, composed of Hamilton, Raymond Lawrence, Clayton Powers (the husband of Mary's sister), Curtis Turner, and Mary's brothers, Alvia, John, George, and Joseph, hit the Kent State Bank of Grand Rapids for over $25,000.  Next up Hamilton and Lawrence get set to rob a South Bend, Indiana bank, but call it off when a hostage manages to escape and contacts the authorities ... forced to flee early, the pair leaves behind $48,500 in cash and $85,000 in securities.  Their escape does not last long and both men are arrested when local Chief of Police James J. Hatt investigates a report of a man putting Wisconsin car plates on a Michigan car.  Saying nothing while Lawrence spills his guts on his criminal adventures with the Stephenson crew, less than 36 hours after the bungled bank job, pleading guilty to avoid a life sentence, Hamilton is sent away to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City to begin serving a sentence of 25-years behind bars (not pleased, Mary divorces him, marries a Toledo, Ohio man, and dies in childbirth in 1930 ... Hamilton's two sons are raised in Ohio by his mother-in-law). 

Michigan City 

Course now decided, the quiet, intelligent 28-year-old outlaw keeps out of obvious trouble, with his worst offense being skipping rope in the shirt shop in 1932.  Despite his "good behavior," yearly his pleas for clemency are denied as the parole board identifies the convict for exactly what he is ... a dangerous man.  Fellow inmates at the institution also see Hamilton the same way and he is soon a member of a group of felons that daily discuss their strong-arm experiences, the bank robbing techniques of Baron Herman Lamm (known as the father of modern bank robbing), and a variety of plots to escape the prison ... "Handsome" Harry "Pete" Pierpont, a bank robber serving a 10-21 year sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder, Russell Lee "Boobie" Clark, a genial outlaw until crossed serving a 20-year sentence for robbing multiple banks in 1927 (an acute discipline problem for the prison, Clark will try three escape attempts, and is a ringleader when the convicts strike for better conditions at the institution in 1929), and "Fat" Charles Omer Makley, a bootlegger and armed robber from Ohio serving a 10-20 year sentence for robbing a bank in Hammond, Indiana.  As a member of the group, in exchange for his help coordinating an escape from the prison, in 1929 Hamilton contributes to criminal education of a recent transfer to the prison from the state's Pendleton Reformatory ... a 26-year-old nobody serving a 10-20 year beef (the judge decides to make an example of the young man) for the bungled robbery of a Mooresville grocer Frank Morgan in 1924 ... a convict named John Herbert Dillinger.

Pierpont

Clark

Makley

Dillinger

Dillinger comes through for his friends by sneaking three guns into the prison in a 200-pound box of thread from the Gordon Shirt Company for the institution's shirt shop (marked by a red "X" in one corner of the box), before being arrested himself in Ohio for some of the robberies that bankrolled the breakout.  Out on, Hamilton is one of three men that receive .45 automatics for the break (Pierpont and Makley are the other two), which takes place on September 26, 1933.  Ten men in all leave the prison  that afternoon, silently taking guard hostages as they make their way to and then out of the front gate.  Once outside, the men split into two groups, steal two cars and vanish into the countryside.  Pierpont, Makley, Clark, Hamilton, and Eddie Shouse (a former race car speedster the gang has settled on to be their getaway driver on future jobs) make it to the hideaway Dillinger, former convict Harry Copeland, and Pierpont's girlfriend, Mary Kinder have set up in Hamilton, Ohio (on the way there, Dillinger's former cellmate, murderer Jim Jenkins falls out of the car when it makes a sudden and violent turn to avoid a posse on the road and he is killed by a shotgun blast to the chest and head by another posse looking for the escapees).  Party time, the men shower and shave, receive new clothes, and enjoy their first home cooked meal in ages before discussing how they are going to free Dillinger from the barred confines of his Lima, Ohio cell.  Money required first to put any plot they come up with in motion, at the suggestion of Makley, the gang decides that their first caper will be to rob the First National Bank of Makley's boyhood hometown of St. Mary's, Ohio.  On October 3, 1933, with Hamilton taking on the assignment of making sure no one on the outside interferes with the job (a large crowd has gathered at a poolroom across the street to listen to the opening radio broadcast of the World Series taking place between the Washington Senators and the New York Giants), the gang successfully robs the St. Mary's bank of $14,000 in cash (brand new bills, Kinder will spend several days applying soil and water to the bills and then ironing them to make the cash appear worn).  Nine days later, on Columbus Day, they arrive in Lima to free their buddy.

Kinder

Hamilton

Springing Dillinger, while Pierpont, Makley, and Clark go inside the Lima jail to get their buddy out (killing Sheriff Jesse Saber in the process), Hamilton is stationed a few hundred feet from the jail at the entrance to the town's Ohio Theater, where he makes sure no trouble comes to the team inside.  Reunited with the young thief, the gang (the press will call this group of outlaws "The Terror Gang," or in a misbegotten notion that they can cause trouble between the veteran bandits, "The John Dillinger Gang"), along with their girlfriends, makes their base in Chicago and begins the robberies that will bring them national infamy and will vault Dillinger into Public Enemy #1 in 1934 ... outside lookout as "tiger" again, Hamilton is at the Greencastle, Indiana robbery of the Central National bank that puts $74,782.09 in the pockets of the outlaws, and during the robbery of the American Bank and Trust Company of Racine, Wisconsin, Hamilton is part of the inside crew that includes Pierponnt, Dillinger, and Makley and has the responsibility of emptying the bank teller's cages of cash (the bank is a $28,000 payday for the gang)  During this time period, Hamilton kills Sgt. William T. Shanley when the officer surprises the outlaw when he goes to a Chicago garage to pick up a newly repaired Auburn automobile in the company of his latest girlfriend, Elaine Dent ... 42-year-old Shanley is a 20-year veteran of the force that leaves behind a wife, two sons, and two daughters (the murder will cause the city to create a 40-man Dillinger Squad, a group of lawmen on call 24/7, dedicated to bringing down the gang). Heat on in Chicago, along with the rest of the gang, Hamilton takes a vacation in Florida that includes laughs, booze, all-night poker games, and ringing in the New Year by shooting machine guns at the moon.  Round Two of the gang's vacation a meeting in the Wild West town of Tucson, Arizona, Hamilton first drives back to Chicago with Dillinger, hoping to make nightclub dancer Patricia Cherrington his newest girlfriend.

Saber

Racine - Bank Is At Center On Corner

Shanley

Hamilton & Cherrington

Though never proven in a court of law that either man participates in the robbery, Hamilton and Dillinger (and a third man that is never identified), with no preparation, rob the First National Bank of East Chicago in January of 1934.  What should have been a five to six man job of course turns into a debacle in which Dillinger sends a lethal burst of machine gun fire into the chest of 43-year-old detective Patrick O'Malley while he and Hamilton are leaving the bank (with Hamilton wounded so badly that he will remain in Chicago being nursed by Cherrington) for a payday of $20,000.  The electric chair is now in play for Dillinger, Hamilton, Pierpont, Clark, and Makley.  Everyone arrested that visits Tucson, Hamilton is thrust into the job of providing assistance to Dillinger for yet another prison break, a job he achieves by contacting former Pendleton and Michigan City pal, Homer Van Meter, about Dillinger joining Baby Face Nelson's gang of outlaws if Nelson can help him out of jail.  Wooden gun escape from the Crown Point, Indiana jail accomplished on March 3, 1934, Dillinger and Hamilton become members of what will be known as "The Second Dillinger Gang," along with Baby Face Nelson (real name Lester Joseph Gillis, a runtish, 25-year-old psychopath), Tommy Carroll (a 33-year-old bank robber and murderer), John Paul Chase (a 32-year-old bootlegger from San Francisco, California), Homer Virgil Van Meter (Dillinger's Pendleton and Michigan City, 28-year-old chum), and 35-year-old jug-marker (he finds banks to hit, creates robbery plans, and sets up escape routes), Harold Eugene "Eddie" Green.  Emptying teller cages again, Hamilton participates in the March 6, 1934 robbery of the Security National Bank & Trust of Sioux Falls, South Dakota that nets the gang $49,500 (and has Baby Face Nelson gunning down, with delirious screams of "I got one!  I got one!," motorcycle cop Hale Keith), and helps the outlaws escape the job by sprinkling roofing nails all over the Route 77 road.  On the March 13, 1934 robbery of the First National Bank of Mason City, Iowa, Hamilton duels with a tear gas firing bank guard in an overhead bullet-proof cage, shoves teller cage money into a sack, and is forced to leave over $200,000 in the bank's vault when the gang runs out of time for the robbery (leaving with $52,000, in the gun battle that takes place outside, Baby Face Nelson wounds several individuals, and Dillinger, Van Meter, and Hamilton all take wounding bullet hits (they will get doctoring later that night from Dr. Nels Mortensen of St. Paul).

Nelson

John Paul Chase  

Green

Tommy Carroll

Van Meter

Outside The Bank - Bandits Have Just Fled

St. Paul no longer a safe haven for the gang after a gun battle takes place outside the apartment Dillinger and his girlfriend, Billie Frechette, are using as a hideout (Van Meter also engages the FBI at the apartment complex), and the murder of Eddie Green at the hands of Federal agents, Hamilton and girlfriend Pat Cherrington are part of the outlaw group (Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Tommy Carroll, and Homer Van Meter) that travels to the Little Bohemia Lodge outside of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin for a few days of rest and relaxation in April of 1934 (and days before, believing his days as an outlaw are numbered and coming to an end, accompanied by Dillinger, Hamilton makes a brief visit to Sault Ste. Marie to see his sister, Mrs. Anna Steve, for a last time) ... very few days of rest and relaxation as it turns out!  Beginning the last days of his life, Hamilton escapes from a surprise FBI raid on the lodge by slipping out a back window of the lodge, jumping down into a snowbank, then, with Dillinger and Van Meter, fleeing into the surrounding wilderness in search of a car to steal to make their way back to the relative safety of St. Paul.  Ford coupe stolen from a local carpenter, the men make their way over backroads towards St. Paul, thinking to enter the town from the south, rather than as expected from the north.  A good plan that goes awry when they are spotted crossing the Mississippi River over the bridge at the town of Hastings, Minnesota.  In the gun battle that ensues before the bandits finally escape, the outlaws and authorities fire on each other while their vehicles reach speeds of more than 80 mph.  Hit in the back by a rifle round from Deputy Sheriff Norman Dieter, Hamilton's bloody wound necessitates immediate medical attention which can't be found in St. Paul with the town frothing over the latest events ... so the trio changes plans and after procuring another ride, heads for Chicago.

Little Bohemia Lodge

The Hastings Spiral Bridge

Finding themselves anathema in Chicago after mob boss puts out orders that no one is to help the outlaws, denied treatment by underworld doctor Joseph Moran (who will soon be shot to death by Freddy Barker), Dillinger is given help by the only group of men that can relate to the dangerous circumstances the bandit gang faces ... the Barker-Karpis Gang.  Bleeding from an oozing wound the size of a silver dollar, in horrible pain, Hamilton is taken to a house in Aurora, Illinois, where bank robber and kidnapper, Volney Davis, and his girlfriend, Edna "The Kissing Bandit" Murray, are hiding.  There, expecting the authorities to show up at any minute, the outlaws (Dock Barker, Volney Davis, Homer Van Meter, and John Dillinger) minister to the mortally wounded bandit as best they can as gangrene sets in.  Hamilton finally passes away at around 3:00 in the afternoon of Thursday, April 26, 1934.  That evening, Dock Barker, Volney Davis, Dillinger, and Van Meter take Hamilton's body to a rock quarry six miles south of Aurora.  Outlaw funeral in order, a shallow grave is dug in the quarry's gravel, Hamilton's right hand is cut off, then Dillinger covers the corpse in ten cans of lye provided by Davis as the nation's current Public Enemy #1 delivers a short eulogy, "Red, old pal, I hate to do this, but I know you'd do the same for me."  The body is then covered up by Dillinger and Van Meter, with Volney Davis putting some strands of barbed wire over the spot to mark the outlaw's final resting place, and the men vacate the site as they move forward to their own criminal endings.  But did Hamilton really die escaping from the Little Bohemia Lodge?

Dock

Volney Davis

Murray

With information provided by Davis after he is arrested, escapes, and then is arrested again for the 1934 kidnapping of St. Paul banker, Edward Bremer, the faceless muck that is suppose to be Hamilton is located on August 28, 1935, and using a single molar found at the site, the corpse is identified by the FBI as belonging to outlaw "Red" Hamilton (Hamilton's sister will pay to have the body buried in an Oswego cemetery.  Despite the identification though (some think the body actually belongs to Dr. Moran), for years the FBI receives information that Hamilton survived his back wound and used the wounding and reports of his death to retire from his life of crime and live out his days in the wilds of Michigan and Canada.  That is the story that underworld informant Fred Meyers tells the FBI in 1936.  And it is the tale the Hamilton Family will tell decades later.  John's nephew, Bruce Hamilton, describes a 1945 adventure in which the family recovers a stash of money left behind by the Dillinger Gang, a stash that Bruce's father, Wilton Hamilton, uses to buy a new car and pay off the mortgage on his home in South Bend, Indiana.  And when Bruce is fifteen, members of the family gather on the Canadian border for a vacation in which the youth is introduced to his Uncle John for the first time.  And shortly thereafter, when Hamilton brother Foye is released from prison, he suddenly comes in to enough money to build a machine shop in Rockford, Illinois, purchase a piece of Great Lakes property called Turtle Island, along with boats and a seaplane to get to and from the island (which John Hamilton will use as a hiding place until he dies in Canada in the 1970s).  Family secret revealed, before his death, Bruce's father will tell his son that Red was treated in Chicago by Dr. Harold Cassidy, recovers from the wound at the home of his brother, Sylvester, in East Gary, Indiana, and then, with the help of Hamilton's grandfather, William Hamilton, is taken to a hideout near a place called the Rum Village Woods.  Finally recuperated, Hamilton will work as an electrician at a family owned bowling alley in South Bend for two years, before moving to Canada and vanishing from history.

The Official Story

"BLACK FACE" CHARLEY LEAVES THE DALTON GANG

8/23/1891 - Bullet deaths coming for all the members of the notorious Dalton Gang except for Emmett, the outlaws lose their first member, "Black-Faced" Charley Bryant, when the bandit attempts to escape from the custody of U.S. Deputy Marshal Edward Short while under escort to the nearest Federal court in Wichita, Kansas..

Busted - True West Magazine

Vowing revenge from being fired from their jobs as lawmen (for horse rustling and selling liquor on Federal land) patrolling the Indian Territory, Bob Dalton forms what will be known as the Dalton Gang ... a group of hard cases that includes Bob, Bob's older brother Grat, his younger brother Emmett, and three of Emmett's friends from his days cowboying for Oscar D. Halsell's Bar X Bar Ranch along the Cimarron River, George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb (a cowboy from the age of 12, he picks up his nickname from his repeated singing of an old cowboy tune that includes the lyrics, "I'm a wild wolf from Bitter Creek and it's my night to howl!"); Bill McElhanie (an Arkansas native good with a gun and a branding iron), and "Black Face" Charley Bryant.

Bob Dalton

Halsell

Byrant is born in Wise County, Texas (the exact date is unknown) before the Civil War and is cowboying for a living by the time he is a teenager.  A hard case known to authorities, he is easy for victims to identify after crimes because he bears a souvenir of one of his wilder saloon evenings ... almost hit in the face at point-blank range in a drunken gunfight, Bryant is "Black Face" Charley because of the black spots all over his left cheek where the grains of black gunpowder from the near miss are embedded.  His first criminal job working for the Daltons is to supply the former lawmen with stolen horses.  When Bob Dalton decides to form a regular band of outlaws for train and bank robbery in the region, Black Face Charley is one of the first recruits and will be there when the gang makes its first robbery, taking the money from a Mexican gambling hall outside of Silver City, New Mexico that the men convince themselves has been cheating at faro (and the subsequent gun battle with a chasing posse), and at the band's first train job, the night robbery of a Santa Fe train just outside of Wharton in the Oklahoma Territory (about sixty miles south of the Kansas border) that nets the five outlaws involved only $500 (aware of what is going on, the quick thinking messenger in the train's express car hides money meant for Guthrie, Oklahoma's bank in the car's empty stove).  Told by Bob Dalton that there is to be no gun play during the robbery unless the men's lives are in jeopardy, Black Face Charley ignores the admonition and as he is riding out of town following the heist, takes a killing potshot at the young station agent and telegraph operator for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad when he sees the man silhouetted by the glow of the depot's kerosene lamps(Bryant will state he thought the man was sending a telegraph message about the robbery).  Later, when Bob rips into Bryant for not following orders, the gunman will try to justify his behavior by stating he hopes he goes out in "... one hell-firin' minute of smokin' action."  A fate he almost encounters again when he is one of the shooters at Skeleton Creek that kills Bill Starmer (after wounding another posse member, William Thompson, in the chest) when the posse man from Missouri rides into Oklahoma looking to reclaim 10 horses the gang has stolen.

Black Face Charley - True West Magazine   

In July of 1891, the bandits are camped out near Buffalo Springs, Oklahoma, readying for their next raid when Byrant becomes sick ... no one sure what the cause of his chills, sweats, and tormented bowels is, the bandit is either suffering from malaria or some form of venereal disease.  Already mulling over whether to kick Bryant out of the gang and replace him with a young hooligan named Bill Doolin, with a $1,000 reward now on Byrant's head for killing the depot agent, Bob Dalton is glad to send the ailing desperado off to recuperate from his illness at the nearby home of his brother, Jim Bryant, in the town of Mulhall (the rest of the family is still in Texas).  Headed for his brother's place with two single-action Colt .45 revolvers, a Winchester rifle, and 100 rounds of ammunition, Bryant makes it as far as the small town of Hennessey when his illness grabs him again and instead of proceeding on, he leaves his horse at the local livery stable, books himself into a second floor room (he is so sick he uses his own name to register) at the Rock Island Railroad Hotel (run by an old friend named Ben Thorne and his kid sister Jean, whom Bryant is rumored to be having an affair with), contacts the local doctor, and stripped down to his underwear, gets into bed with his weapons.  A mistake on Bryant's part, seeking succor from his sickness has placed him within the reach of 27-year-old United States Deputy Marshal, Charles Edwin "Ed" Short.

Bill Doolin

Short

Ed Short is born in New Marion, Indiana on October 27, 1864.  Looking for something different than being a farmer in rural Indiana, as a 17-year-old teenager, Short heads west and settles first in Emporia, Kansas, becoming a cowboy.  Next stop is a ranching job near the cowtown of Hunnewell, Kansas, on the state's border with Oklahoma.  By 1888, Short is in Stevens County, Kansas, serving as the town marshal of Woodsdale (and heavily involved in the vicious Stevens County Seat War that will see four men murdered and a number more wounded).  No nonsense reputation gained, in 1890 when William C. Grimes is appointed United States Marshal for the Oklahoma territory, one of his first appointments is to make Short a deputy marshal and assign him the task of reining in the Daltons (the Daily Oklahoman will describe the large blonde lawman as a "fearless gunman).  A born detective, though the raiders wore bandanna masks, Short uses witness testimony (which also mentions the gunman having a Texas accent) to identify the Wharton robber with a gunpowder smudge on his face as Black Face Charley Bryant ... an identification that Short connects to the outlaw once working with Emmett Dalton as a cow puncher on the Bar X Bar, and that Byrant's brother is homesteading near the town of Mulhall, and that information then leads to knowledge of Bryant's friendship with Ben Thorne and his sister, Jean.  Making the town of Hennessy his base of operations for duties within the Second Judicial District of Oklahoma (comprised of the counties of Kingfisher, Canadian, Washita, Roger Mills, Day, and Beaver), Short believes that sooner or later Bryant (and maybe some Daltons too as their mother's farm is also located in Kingfisher County, only a couple miles north of the town of Kingfisher, she is also aunt of outlaws Jim, John, Cole, and Bob Younger) will show up in the area to see his friends ... and Short is right.

Grimes

Receiving word that Bryant is staying at the Rock Island Railway Hotel, Short secretly watches the hotel and the rooms Jean Thorne is serving.  Seeing she is taking lunch up to a second room that is suppose to be unoccupied, Short slips out of his boots, and in socks, quietly follows Thorne upstairs to where she is serving the outlaw lunch.  Bursting into the room at the most opportune time as Thorne is laying out the bandit's simple meal of soup, bread, and ice cold water, Short gets the drop on the obviously ill Bryant with his six-shooter (for a moment, Bryant weighs the odds of grabbing his own pistol from where it is concealed beneath a pillow on the bed) and makes his arrest (a support posseman shows up shortly afterwards).  But there is a problem, the town of Hennessy has no jail and the nearest place of confinement is in the town of Guthrie, where Bryant and the Daltons have a slew of friends who would probably try and free the killer.  Those two options negated, Short decides the only rational move is to take Bryant to Wichita, Kansas on the next day's northbound, late afternoon train.  Waiting for tomorrow to arrive, Bryant is cuffed to his bed and then watched throughout the night by wither Short or his partner.

Just A Train Ride Away From Safety

On Sunday afternoon, shortly after noon, deciding to leave his assistant behind to man the office and that he can manage his sick captive alone, Short and a handcuffed Bryant make their way on to the train heading for Wichita, but grabbing their seats, Short notices that the other passengers are viewing the presence of the lawman and his sick charge with revulsion.  Changing plans on the fly, Short convinces Conductor James Collins to allow him to hold Bryant out of sight in the baggage car.  Moving to their new location, Bryant complains about the pain he is suffering having his hands cuffed behind his back and Short makes the mistake of changing the bondage to Bryant having his hands cuffed in front of him ... a major mistake that will lead to the gunfight that takes place.  Arriving at the baggage car, Bryant, pretending to still be almost nonfunctional with his sickness, collapses on a pile of mail bags and appears to go to sleep, but he is actually watching and waiting for the right moment to escape.  The moment arrives as the train starts slowing for a brief stop thirteen miles north of Hennessy at the town of Waukomis.  Thinking it might be the perfect spot for the Daltons to mount an escape attempt, Short gives the messenger working the baggage car a pistol and tells him to watch Bryant (along with directions to kill the outlaw if he tries anything) while he steps on to the car's platform with his Winchester to reconnoiter whether any trouble is about.  Still having a major load of sorting work to do, the messenger watches Bryant for a few seconds, then thinking him out with the sweats, he puts the weapon in a pigeonhole in his desk and goes back to putting the car's mail in order.  Watching, as soon as Bryant sees no one between him and the gun, the bandit is suddenly well enough to jump up from the bags on the floor of the car and grab the pistol.  Armed, Bryant tells the railroad employee to stay quiet or he'll blow his head off, and then quietly goes looking for Short, who arrives just as Bryant is opening the door to the baggage car.

Colt .45 Revolver

Bryant's minute of "smokin' action" has arrived (though it actually lasts only seconds).  From only a few feet apart Bryant fires at Short, and Short triggers his rifle from waist level at the outlaw.  Deadly shooting, Bryant empties all six chambers of his gun and punctures the vitals of the lawman, while Short fires eight rifle slugs at Bryant, one of which severs the outlaw's spine.  Going down first, Bryant falls forward and then Short collapses next to him, but still trying to do his job, he reaches forward and grabs Bryant's ankle and croaks "Help me!" as if he is still fearful of Bryant escaping.  "I have got him, and he has got me," Short whispers to the conductor as he helps pull Bryant back into the baggage car.  Laying beside the outlaw he has brought down, Short's last words before death are "I want to see my mother!' (an outcome that will not happen, but the grieving woman does receive $500 in reward money for Bryant being taken out by her son).  Two minutes after the gunfight breaks out, as the train comes to a halt at the Waukomis station, both men are dead.

Waukomis

Outlaw And Lawman - True West Magazine 

Dead Charley

Journey not quite over yet, Short's body will be sent back to his family in Indiana for burial in the town of Osgood, while Bryant is buried in an unmarked family grave in Boonsville, Texas.  The first killings in what will be over a dozen outlaw and lawman deaths in the coming years, Bob and Grat Dalton will be killed trying to rob two banks at the same time in their hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas (also killed will be outlaws Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell), also at Coffeyville, Emmett Dalton will be shot to pieces trying to rescue his older brother Bob, survive, and be sentenced to life in prison, Bittercreek Newcomb and Charlie Pierce (who will join the gang for their next raid) are assassinated for reward money by supposed friends in the Dunn Family (Newcomb is dating Rosa Dunn at the time, the famous Rose of Cimarron), a bitter Bill Dalton will become a bandit too after failing at ranching and politics in California, and will be killed at his home in Pooleville, Oklahoma by a posse after robbing a bank in 1894, and Bill Doolin, who misses Coffeyville when his horse goes lame on the ride into town, will be blasted into eternity by Deputy United States Marshal Heck Thomas and a posse when, after escaping from jail, he visits his wife in Lawton, Oklahoma on August 24, 1896.  Only Bill McElhanie escapes becoming a bullet resident of Boot Hill ... wounded in the arm fleeing the Silver City faro posse, he decides being an outlaw isn't for him, and once he heals, he returns to Arkansas and cow punching, never to be heard from again for breaking the law.

Casket Time In Coffeyville

Wounded Emmett

Newcomb And Pierce

Dead Bill Dalton

Dead Doolin