My Friend Tommy Horn: The Life, Legends, and Lies

By Robert Gossett

This is in no way meant to be an accurate description of Tom Horns life. Rather, it was written as a novel about a man named Tom Horn. Some of his deeds are factual, others based on fact, while others were pure products of the authors imagination. My apologies to the history purists. But I hope they will read this book for its entertainment value.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524610906

Robert Gossett

Gossett lived in San Antonio for thirty years and traveled the state of Texas extensively, selling steel products. A lot of his customers were ranchers and were happy to share their stories with him. When attending a gun show in San Antonio he met a retired Texas Ranger, and they became friends. The Ranger also related a lot of his experiences. Stories from both of these sources are incorporated into this book. Though he now lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin he still maintains memberships in the American Legion Alamo Post number 2 and the Texas Library Association.

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© 2016 Robert Gossett. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 05/25/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1091-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1090-6 (e)

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Contents

Chapter 1: Childhood

Chapter 2: A Letter from Tommy

Chapter 3: Fort Lowell

Chapter 4: Trembling Mountain

Chapter 5: The Pinkertons

Chapter 6: The Ghost Robber

Chapter 7: Fay (Fat) Friel

Chapter 8: Tom Horn, Range Detective

Chapter 9: The Twins

Chapter 10: John Coble

Chapter 11: The Rawhiders

Chapter 12: Back with the Pinkertons

Chapter 13: The Swan Land and Cattle Company

Chapter 14: Mister Bigg

Chapter 15: The Killing

Chapter 16: The Trial

Chapter 17: The Execution

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

EPILOGUE

DEDICATION PAGE

This book is dedicated to the late Shirley Jane Ranker who convinced me to resume writing

My Friend, Tommy Horn: The Life, Legends, and Lies

By Robert J. Gossett

Chapter 1

Childhood

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Hello, thanks for dropping by. My name is Theresa Sivyer, and I grew up with Tommy Horn. Our farm abutted the Horn farm. I guess you could say we were neighbors, even if our farm houses were a mile apart. I always remembered Tommy’s birthday because he was born exactly one year and one day after I was. We were both delivered by the same midwife, Miss Parsons. We were both home-schooled, but sometimes his mother would ask me to come by and help him with a problem because I was a year older.

We grew up being friends and continued to be close as teenagers. Tom loved to talk, and I loved to hear him relate his experiences. Tommy’s father, Tom Senior, died in a terrible farm accident when Tommy was eleven. He was dynamiting stumps to prepare more fields for planting. He had dynamited many stumps before, but this day he forgot the first rule of setting off dynamite: if a fuse doesn’t go off, wait one hour before going to investigate. He only waited fifteen minutes, then went to check the dynamite. The dynamite exploded when he neared the stump and he was killed—blown to smithereens, as they said. Tommy was devastated. He and his father had been close, and Tom was developing into the spitting image of him.

Tommy was a big kid by eleven, and he assumed many of the farm chores to help out his mother and younger siblings. His mother remarried within a year to Dan Ryan, a man from Granger, a nearby town. At first things seemed fine, but gradually Tom became the target of Ryan’s rage. Tommy told me how mean Ryan had been to him on many evenings when he came to visit.

Into our early teen years, our friendship developed and we became lovers—except we were poor lovers. Although there was a lot of kissing, petting, feeling, and touching, we never went all the way. I was deathly afraid of becoming pregnant, so the most we did was mutual masturbation. We touched each other until we both climaxed, but not necessarily at the same time. Sometimes I would climax first, but we went on with the touching and I would climax again when Tommy did. This was a pleasant experience for both of us, but especially for Tommy because it got his mind off the troubles he was having at home.

One night Tommy came to see me, and I was appalled by his condition. His nose was bleeding; he had facial cuts and bruises and one black eye. I asked him what happened and he responded, That Ryan bastard. He hit my mother twice, then started beating on me. If I had not run away he might have beaten me to death. He enjoys beating on someone.

I called my mother to help me clean his wounds and she also asked, What happened to you?

My stepfather was drunk and beat on me and my mother. One of these days, when I am old enough, I am going to kill that no-good brute. Do you mind if I stay here until I am sure he has passed out?

Of course not, Tommy. You are welcome here anytime, Mother responded.

That night after my parents went to bed, we sat together on the porch and I made sure Tommy had the best climax he had ever had in his life. It was also very good for me.

It was about two months later, right after our birthdays, my fifteenth and Tommy’s fourteenth, that I was awakened before dawn by someone throwing pebbles at my window panes. Looking out, I saw it was Tommy, and he was signaling me to come down. I asked him, What are you doing here in the middle of the night?

I am leaving here forever. When I get settled somewhere out west, I’ll write you and give you my address and you can come to see me, and we’ll get married. Is that OK with you? Tommy replied. He sounded more like a grown man than a fourteen-year-old boy.

Of course that is fine with me. I will look for a letter every day. I love you, Tommy, I replied.

Tommy continued, I am stealing Ryan’s Colt, Winchester, saddle, and horse, so the Sheriff might be after me. Don’t tell anyone where I am going.

Of course, I won’t tell. But you wait here a few minutes. Mother made a large batch of beef jerky today, and I’ll go get some of it for you to take along.

In less than five minutes I came out with the jerky, biscuits, and three dollars I took from the sugar bowl. Tommy dismounted, took me in his arms, kissed me, and held me close. Then he said, Wait for me. I’ll write you as soon as I get settled somewhere. Then he mounted and rode away to the west.

I waited for two years and still had not received a letter from Tommy. I needed to write him and tell him of all the happenings taking place. I knew he would like to know that someone had gunned Ryan down and the Sheriff was having a tough time finding the killer. The Sheriff talked to me because he knew that Tommy and I were close, and he was a suspect. I told him I had not heard a word from him, and all I knew was that two years ago he was headed west.

Every night when I said my prayers, I asked God to let me get a letter from Tommy. I needed to tell him that I had matured into a young lady who still lived at home, and that after I finished my schooling, I got a job as a clerk at the court house. I also wanted him to know that I had a few young men interested in taking me out on a date, but I had told them that I was promised to a man already. I promised Tommy I would wait for him, and I intended to keep that promise.

Chapter 2

A Letter from Tommy

Exactly one month later, I finally got a letter from Tommy. He had kept his word. The return address was Tom Horn, Fort Lowell, New Mexico. It was a very long letter. It read:

My Dear Theresa,

I am very sorry to be so long in writing, but I have been on the move. I am just trying to stay alive, one day at a time, since I last saw you. I made it through Missouri on the money you gave me, and then I did odd jobs for farmers. Then in Kansas, I signed on as a guard on a wagon train carrying a lot of Kansas farmers to the gold fields in California. The wagon master was a man named Morris Smith. He was a large, raw- boned, bully of a man who delighted in putting down anyone smaller than he was. He called me farm boy, kid, or little britches and I grew tired of it, and in Colorado, I quit. I told him I was leaving before I killed him. He must have believed me because he released me from my contract.

After that I spent a year working for Wells Fargo. First I worked as a shotgun guard, then as a driver. The pay was good, but the job was monotonous. It was the same road every day from Denver to Santa Fe, three days off, then back to Denver. We saw a lot of Apache hunting parties, but we carried nothing of interest to them. Only once did a small band of Mescalero Apaches attack us, but we got rid of them after we killed three of them. I think I got one of them with my sawed-off shotgun. The only other excitement was one day, going from Denver to Santa Fe, unbeknownst to us, one of the passengers was a U.S. Marshal. He was returning a bank robber to Santa Fe to stand trial. Some of the robber’s confederates tried to hold us up to release the prisoner. They did manage to hold me and the driver at gun point before the marshal killed all three of them. He was one tough man, and I sure wouldn’t want to tangle with him. I will remember the name: Wyatt Earp.

After about a year, I quit that job and took a job as a mule skinner, or wagon driver. I met a Mexican named Jose Torres, and we took a job to deliver a load of barbed wire to Monterrey, Mexico. Jose and I became good friends, and on the way to Mexico he taught me how to speak Spanish. Our boss told us not to expect any trouble with the Apaches but to be on the lookout for Mexican banditos. He explained that the Apaches had no use for barbed wire but that the banditos would steal anything of value so that they could sell it in Mexico. Our boss’s words were so prophetic. We were three days into Mexico when we were attacked by Mexican banditos. We managed to down two of them, but we were so outnumbered that they killed poor Jose and shot me in the shoulder. I played dead and the banditos threw us from the wagon seat, took the load, and disappeared. I lay there, slowly bleeding to death and praying for God to save me. My prayers were answered when a band of Apaches stumbled upon us. They were a raiding a party returning from a raid in Mexico to rescue their friends who were doing forced labor in a silver mine. Thinking we were both Mexicans, they stopped to take our scalps. They did scalp poor Jose, but when they came to me, they saw that I was still alive and also that I was a white man, so they tied me to a horse, and after putting tree moss on my wound, they took me to their village.

Our benefactor turned out to be Four Bears, a grandson of their Chief Cochise. In the village, a medicine man put salve on my wound, then danced around me saying Indian-style prayers. It must have worked because in two weeks, I was up and moving around.

During the year I lived with the Apaches, I learned that they are not the bloodthirsty savages the white people make them out to be. They live in a family oriented, well-disciplined society where women and the elderly are respected, even honored. Their children are taught to be mannerly and to respect their parents and elders.

Four Bears and I became fast friends. He was only a few years older than me, and we learned respect for each other. He taught me many things. I learned how to track any animal or human. He taught me how to weave a rope from a plant they called hemp, which grew wild everywhere. At first I was allowed only to work with the women of the tribe. I learned how to chew hides to make them tender enough to turn them into clothes. I became proficient at pitching a teepee and even at sewing together hides to make a new teepee. Four Bears also taught me a lot of words in Apache. After several months, I became proficient in carrying on a conversation with the tribe.

I only met Cochise twice. Once he came to visit Four Bears to see his new son who had just been born. Anxious to show him that I knew his language, I carried on a conversation with him. At first I spoke Apache, then Mexican. He then gave me the name Man Who Talks.

Once the tribe learned that I could be trusted, I was allowed to accompany them on a raid into Mexico. We were raiding to steal horses and kill as many Mexicans as possible. The Apaches hated Mexicans because when the Mexicans raided Apache camps, they stole children to raise as Mexicans, men to work in silver mines, and women to force into prostitution. The night we raided was a dark and moonless one. An Apache sub-chief, called Geronimo, was the leader of the raiding party. He had previously selected the area and led us all directly to the Gonzalez ranch. One of the Apaches quickly and silently killed the night guard with an arrow. Then the Apaches began herding the horses together while I relieved the dead guard of his Colt pistol and Winchester model 73 rifle in 30/30 caliber. I also took his horse. The herd was assembled, and we drove them across the Rio Grande River into New Mexico, then to Cochise’s camp in the mountains. There they would be safe from the Mexicans and the US Army, who harassed