NOTE: Most of the following information
was taken from a book entitled ìThe Last of the Bandit Riders,î
written by Murray E. King in the 1930s, as told to him by Matt Warner himself.
Mr. King had the opportunity to spend much time with Matt, and during this
time Matt took him by horseback into many of the Robber's Roost hideouts
and over many of the trails used by western outlaws in their flight from
lawmen. Matt told Mr. King many stories of his own life on the outlaw trail,
some of which will be related in the following story, however there are
far too many stories to relate them all. This is believed to be the most
factual story available concerning Matt Warner, as it was related by him
to the author in the year of 1935.
This will be the first part of a two-part story
of Matt Warner, as related by him, to Murray E. King, the author.
ALIAS MATT WARNER
In 1935 he was described as one of the greatest horse
riding gun fighters who was ever produced in the West. At the time he was
seventy-one years old but looked more like a man of sixty-one. He didn't
fit the picture of the western outlaw, as a lanky, lean-faced, hawk-nosed,
stern-eyed silent gunman. He was the opposite of these qualities. He was
stocky, florid with a good-natured grin, blue-grey eyes set wide apart
. . . the kind of a man who roars his greetings, slaps his friends on the
back and jokes roughly but good-naturedly. He has the bow- legs of a man
who had spent most of his life in the saddle, and at seventy-one he made
the young men of the party ashamed of their deficiencies as horsemen. He
and his horse seemed to be kindred spirits who probably understood each
other better than do most human beings.
Matt had taken the writer, Murray E. King on a number
of trips into the badlands of Southern Utah and into the Robbersí Roost
country. Robbersí Roost is the name of a section of country beginning about
twenty miles east and southeast of Hanksville, Utah, in the southeastern
part of the State, covering the lower reaches of the San Rafael River.
It is approximately seventy miles long, running North and South, and about
fifty miles wide. It is probably the greatest natural rock fortress in
the United States. It is a jigsaw of deep, straight-walled canyons and
deep, narrow gorges with high mesas between. Some of these mesas are entirely
surrounded by straight rock walls, some over a thousand feet high. Many
of these mesa have no way to the top. Other may have only one way leading
up that could be used by the outlaws to get themselves and their horses
to the top and out of the bottoms of the canyons. If these mesas have some
high cliffs and on the upper end overlooking the mesa so that pursuers
couldn't get down on the outlaws, it would make a perfect natural rock
fort, better than anything that could be built by hand. When the outlaws
would get to such a place, with water on the top, they could "Roost" up
there until their trails got cold. Water in such places was usually the
result of rain storms which left rain water in "catch basins" of sandstone,
or "drip basins" in caves which were not as apt to dry up as the water
in the catch basins. The mesas were dotted with pinons and cedars, sagebrush,
yucca, cactus, wild flowers and plenty of good bunch grass which made good
horse feed.
There wasn't much chance that any deputy would find
such a hideout, and even if he did, a few bandits with Winchesters could
pretty well hold back an army and stay safe as long as their food and ammunition
lasted. It is a wild and beautiful country of every color from white through
pinks and reds to browns . . . a wild and lonely country. The outlaw element
knew this country much better than most officers of the law, making it
one of the greatest hideouts in the United States. In this country Matt
met many of the more notorious badmen, such as the Tidwells, a father and
son team, the two Green brothers, the notorious train robber and highwayman,
Bill "Silver Tip", and a number of others, such as Tom and Bill McCarty,
the leaders of the Blue Mountain gang which operated near Moab, Utah. (In
later years, Tom McCarty married Matt's sister.) During Matt's years as
an outlaw he followed the many bandit trails through Utah, Wyoming, Colorado,
Nevada, Arizona and into Mexico. He owned a ranch on Diamond Mountain,
just out of Brown's Hole and spent quite a bit of his time there.
Matt was born in 1864 in Ephraim, Utah. At the age
of five he recalled seeing the Ephraim Indian massacre. He saw a man and
a woman killed and remembered how he and his parents beat it on the run
for Nephi in their covered wagons as soon as they could drive the Indians
off. His name was not Matt Warner then. It was Willard Erastus Christianson,
the son of a Swede father and a German mother, good religious people who
had come to Utah as Mormon converts. They lived in a two room cabin and
lean-to in Levan, Utah, just fifteen miles south of Nephi. They had a small
farm just outside the village, and Matt's dad ran a little general store.
That left Matt and his brother to run the farm and take care of the livestock
and do the rough pioneer work of men the year around.
FIGHT OVER GIRL CHANGED HIS LIFE
Matt hit the outlaw trail when he was fourteen because
of a fight over a girl. He beat up a boy so badly, who was two years older
than him, that he believed he had killed him. Rather than answer to the
Levan marshal, he ran home, gathered up his few belongings, a hornless
saddle, a bridle, his rifle and ammunition, his coat and a loaf of bread
from the kitchen threw his saddle on his best pony and took off on a back
street headed North out of town. He figured he had about two hundred miles
to go and most of it was through Indian country. He listened close for
pursuers and had made up his mind if he heard any coming he would take
to the brush and if that trick failed he would fight until they shot him
to pieces. (Years later he found out the boy he fought and thought he had
killed, did not die, but by this time it was far too late for Matt Warner.)
Matt rode all night and about sun-up he hit the
Wagner Trail, just out of Indianola, an Indian village, and here he ran
into a Sanpete Valley freighter named Monson, and took a chance on asking
him for something to eat. Monson got curious while he was eating, seeing
a young boy riding so far from the white settlements, and asked him what
his name was. The first name that came to his mind was Matt Warner and
he used that name off and on from then on.
Later that evening Matt rode into a Denver and Rio
Grande Railroad construction camp. There was a big tent saloon and gambling
dive and about everybody was in the tent, drunk and trying to get rid of
their money. A drunken teamster hired Matt to take care of his horses and
then gave him six silver dollars. Matt then slipped out of camp and hit
the trail for Strawberry Valley just before daylight. By noon he was looking
down on the valley from the mountains and wondering if he could get through
without getting scalped. This was in the year of 1878 and Strawberry Valley,
at that time, was one of the last strongholds of the unsubdued Indians.
It was a big, open grassy valley, with the Duchesne River winding through
it, lined on both banks by willows. The mountains all around were timbered
with pines and quaking aspens. But Matt wasn't interested in the scenery.
He was more interested in a way to get across this valley without getting
caught by the Indians. He decided to stay high on the mountain and as close
to the timber as he could, and work his way around the valley, keeping
a sharp lookout for Indian villages and wandering Indians. When Matt finally
located an Indian camp it was down by the river and quite a ways away from
him. From where he was he figured a short ride further down the river and
he would be able to cross in the willows and not be seen.
"I'M HEAP HUNGRY!"
He was almost down into the valley when he was brought
up short by a deep angry growl that came out of the timber right behind
him and he knew right away it was the voice of an Indian. Matt's gun was
loaded and he whirled his horse quickly to face the sound with the rifle
cocked and ready. A tall, feathered, painted and fierce looking Indian
rode out of the trees. Matt was looking at him over the gunsights of his
rifle but the old warrior didn't give the slightest sign of being in danger.
He raised his hand as though to stop Matt from pulling the trigger and
rode right up to him. The Indian bellowed like a lion. "Why you here? This
my land, my horses, my deer. Where you go?" Matt figured from the language
this must be the chief and he was probably surrounded by Indians. He said,
"I ain't goiní to steal your country. I'm heap hungry," he said, rubbing
his stomach. "You sell ëem meat?" Matt heard the cracking of brush as a
whole group of Indians came riding out of the timber. They escorted him
to the village where the whole tribe came out to look at him. The chief
growled, "What you got?" Matt pulled one of his silver dollars out of his
pocket and showed it to him. The chief grunted and motioned to another
Indian who went into a wickiup and came out with a quarter of dried venison
and held out his hand for the dollar. Matt handed the dollar over to the
Indian, took the dried meat, tied it on behind his saddle and as he rode
off they raised their hands in friendly parting. In two more days he was
out of Indian country and into the Diamond Mountain cattle country near
the Wyoming line.
DIAMOND MOUNTAIN
It was sort of a flat-top mountain, rolling-like on
top, with grassy draws and ridges covered with pines and quaking aspens.
Matt rode into the first ranch he could find to ask for a job. It was a
bunch of log cabins and corrals in a draw near the top. Jim Warren, the
owner, inspected Matt and made him lie by asking too many questions. "All
right, kid," he said, "I guess you'll do. We'll see if we can make a wrangler
out of you."
Matt had only worked for Jim Warren for a week until
he knew that in running away from the law he had rode right into a half-outlaw
world. Diamond Mountain was a half-outlaw world because the ranchers there
made their living partly by regular ranch work and business and partly
by rustling. They were putting their brand and earmark on any beef or horse
they could find that had not been branded yet. It wasn't long until Warren
approached Matt and give him a small herd of cattle and told him he should
be working to build up a spread of his own. Matt knew right away that this
was his way of telling Matt to keep his mouth shut and so Matt became a
cattle rancher. It seemed the proper thing to do at the time and it seemed
that every ranch outfit on the mountain was doing the same thing.
Diamond Mountain was one of those out-of-the way
sections that remained wild and primitive without law long after other
sections of the Old West were settled. The nearest railroad point was
Springs, Wyoming, sixty miles to the North. To the East, over into Colorado,
was a nearly unsettled desert country for more than a hundred miles. South
there wasn't must but unsettled country clear down into Arizona. West of
Matt was the hundred mile wide wilderness he had just come through. The
only time there was any law on Diamond Mountain was when it rode in with
a sheriff's star pinned on it.
When a dispute couldn't be settled any other way,
it was settled with guns. Rustling was natural in this kind of country.
Cattle ranged far and wide.
HE TRAINED TO BE ONE OF THE FASTEST AND MOST
ACCURATE GUNMEN
Mat lived on Diamond Mountain from about the time he
was fifteen until he was twenty. It was a hard, rough and tumble five years
with many fist fights and some gun play. All this time Matt was training
with a six shooter and rifle to make himself one of the fastest and most
accurate men with a gun as possible. He used up bag after bag of ammunition
until he could draw and shoot accurately in a split second.
Matt had spent a lot of time shooting at targets
but had never had to shoot at a man, but this was not to last forever.
One day his favorite horse, a brown mare, disappeared, and Matt spent many
hours searching for her but couldn't locate her. One day he ran into a
friend, George Law, who told him he had seen a Mexican named Polito, riding
his mare the day before. Matt combed the range for over a month, trying
to find this Mexican and his horse with negative results. Then one day,
when he returned home, there was this Mexican Polito right on his doorstep,
talking to a bunch of his cowhands.
In the words of Matt Warner he described what
happened next:
"Polito was light-skinned for a Mex and good looking.
He had a little black mustache, dressed romantic-like to make a killing
with the ladies. The minute my eyes picked him out, bragging there among
the boys, I knew he wasn't going to back down on anything, and there was
going to be a gun fight. It come all over me in a split second and give
me a sorta thrill that here was the big chance I had looked forward to
and expected during several years of gun practice, to meet my first test,
and prove I was a good gunman.
"Of course I was some scared. I didn't know how
much I could depend on myself in a real gun fight, when a split second
means life or death. Polito had a bad reputation. The story on Diamond
Mountain was that he was a quick-trigger man and a killer and had been
chased out of Colorado for killing a man. If I could handle my gun in this
fight as well as I handled it in practicing, I felt sure I could win, but
if I fumbled it the least bit, I would be a goner."
"WAS I A BORN FIGHTER?"
"This all came over me in the second I was spurring
my horse up to Polito, leaning forward in my saddle, looking him in the
eye, all keyed up for a quick draw. If I was a born fighter, I knew my
instinct would take care of me and I would win. If I wasn't a born fighter,
all my practicing wouldn't do me any good, and I would pay with my life.
I guess to the cowboy that first time is the big moment of his life.
"The cowpunchers could see a fight was coming and
scattered, leaving Polito standing alone. He had a cigarette in his hand.
He put it in his mouth, coolly took a deep draw, blew a smoke ring toward
the sky and smiled at me. I was close to him now and bent my face down
close to his and said, 'Polito, where's my brown mare?' The Mex was standing
in a kind of loose, careless way, with his hands hanging sort of loose-like.
The cigarette had dropped out of his right hand, and I noticed his right
arm was sorta tensed for a quick draw. But he was still smiling in a cool,
insolent, careless way as if my question was of no importance whatever.
You got to hand it to a lot of them Spaniards, especially this cuss, Polito.
A lot of stuff about them being sneaks and cowards ain't so. Some of the
smilingest, coolest hombres in a fight I ever saw was Spaniards.
"'I no see you brown hoss,' he drawled in a careless,
insulting way as if that settled the whole affair. But underneath his loose,
careless looks, I could sense a keg of dynamite ready to explode in my
face and blow me up. I knew what I was going to say next might touch it
off. Everything depended on me being quicker than this Spanish keg of dynamite.
I watched his eyes and his face. I had learned that trick from the cowboys.
They had told me that a man can't draw a gun with the intention of killing
you, without it showing a fraction of a second before the draw in his eyes
or in a sort of a death grin on his face. I was watching for this death
grin as my signal to draw. 'You know better,' says I. 'You been seen riding
her.' 'Mormon Keed,' says he, 'you a Gorr damn liar.'
"We shot practically together. Whether I saw that
warning glint or death grin I never could remember after. Somehow I knew
his intention to draw and kill me the split second Polito felt it, and
we drew and fired practically together. How in the hell he missed me at
that close range is more than I could ever understand. I think it was because
he sacrificed everything to speed. I guess I hit him because I was more
able to concentrate at the same time on speed and accuracy. Little points
like that in a man's makeup, and not courage and coolness altogether, make
up what we call race superiority. I shot him through the upper left tip
of a lung. He suddenly grew limber, leaned against the door frame, and
slid down in a huddle on the door jamb.
"Just before I shot I was never cooler in my life.
But the minute I saw him fall, hell broke loose in me. I had all I could
do to keep myself from emptying the five remaining shots in my six-shooter
into him. You would have thought I would have been satisfied and regretful
at that minute, but all the anger and hatred against the Mex, that had
been piling up in me for a month, broke loose. I jumped off my horse and
leaned over him with my smoking gun. 'You low-down coyote,' I yell. 'Tell
me where my mare is or I'll finish you.' 'Gracious Dios, Senor.' says he.
'Heem in Little Brown Park.'
"I was all over my rage as quick as it come and
I rode hell-for-leather for a doctor at Ashley, an Indian trading post
twenty miles down in the Uintah Basin. The doctor pulled Polito through
in a few weeks. He stayed on my ranch while he was getting better, as friendly-like
as you please, then disappeared, and I ain't seen him since."
MATT STARTS HIS
ROBBERIES & RUSTLING
Not long after the shooting on Diamond Mountain, Matt
left his ranch, and in company with various outlaws began a trail of robberies,
cattle and horse rustling, gambling and getting involved in a gun fight
now and then. He and his friends made several raids into Mexico, stealing
cattle, and bringing them back across the border where they sold the cattle
to the Chisholm Ranch for $3.50 a head. While there he claims to have met
Billy the Kid who was working for Chisholm at the time and who later turned
out to be one of the worst killers the West ever produced.
Matt had ran into Tom McCarty and his pal Josh Sweat
of Panguitch, Utah, in a saloon in Wingate, Arizona and they teamed up
for the cattle raids into Mexico. Their first raid across the border was
carefully planed, keeping clear of all Mexican riders and villages. Of
course, Tom and Josh had been on Mexican cattle raids before and pretty
well knew the ropes. They knew how to slip through the Border Patrols.
They would seek ranges almost empty of human beings but with herds of unwatched
cattIe, size up the situation, round up a couple hundred head and push
them back over the border. They drove them straight to the Chisholm Ranch
where they would be paid off and they would then be ready for another raid
in a few days. It seemed so easy that the three of them were back into
Mexico within three days for their second raid. They picked up a couple
hundred head, pushed them over the border into the U.S.A. and then camped
for the night among a lot of long-leaf pines about fifty yards from a small
creek with its banks covered with willows. They pushed the cattle into
a side draw and took turns watching them. They turned their horses loose
on the grass except for one old gray mare which was picketed on grass close
to camp. In Matt's words .
"Josh Sweat was on the last watch. He had orders
to wake us before daylight so we could get clear of any American Patrols
while everything was dark and quite. Just before daylight Josh come into
camp, and Tom and me started to get breakfast. Josh went to get the mare
and found she had got loose. He found her near the creek bank about seventy
yards from camp. Just as he was reaching for her rope there was a roar
of guns right in his face that nearly split his ears and blew powder smoke
into his eyes. The bullets knocked the coffee pot and frying pan off the
fire where Tom and me were cooking. Josh was shot in three places, and
they nearly made a sieve out of that mare, but neither one of them fell.
Josh was shot in the upper part of his lungs and had flesh wounds in his
left arm and a leg. He come running to camp and fell over on his bed coughing
blood. Tom and me dove for our rifles by our beds.
"It was still dark, and every time they fired we
could see the flash of their guns along the top of the creek bank. We didn't
know whether we was up against American officers or bandits, but we knew
we was outnumbered. We was in a tight place and was so mad about being
ambushed that-a-way we didn't think of anything but walking right over
the ambush and blasting it out of existence. Tom took a tree on one side
of the fire and I took a tree on the other side. They was shooting our
fire right out. Tom and me was holding our fire till we decided what to
do. Josh was laying on his bed bleeding bad. We thought he was dying, and
the thought of them bushwhackers killing Josh filled us with wild rage
and a determination to wade in and wipe the whole outfit out. 'Gimme a
gun,' says Josh. 'I can still pull a trigger.' I threw Tom's six-shooter
and cartridge belt to him. Tom yells to me, 'Letís walk over 'em.' 'Hold
your horses,' I yelled back, 'till we can see to murder 'em.' 'Iím going
now,' says Tom. By this time Josh is popping away from his bed with his
six-shooter.
"Tom advanced straight toward ëem using the big
pines as cover and shooting with his Winchester at their flashes of fire.
I do the same. The minute I start to fight all fear that I felt leaves
me, and a kind of a killer madness takes hold of me. I guess it's always
that-a-way in a gun fight or there wouldn't be many fights.
"THAT'S THE FIRST TIME WE KNEW WE WERE FIGHTING
U.S. OFFICERS"
"It is soon light enough to see a hat, a hand, or a
shoulder over the edge of the bank. And we see it's white men we are fighting.
Every time Tom or me sees any such exposed part of a man, we take a bead
on it and fire. Our shooting must have been deadly, for when we are about
twenty yards from the bank, their shooting stops, and we can see the willows
move and hear ëem crack as the survivors run down the creek to get away.
In a minute we see three mounted U.S. Deputy marshals tear up the bank
down the creek a ways followed by several horses with empty saddles. We
look down from the top of the bank and see four dead and dying officers
of the law down there.
"This was the first time we knew we was fighting
U.S. Officers. If we had known who they was at the start, we would have
tried to avoid a fight. It was a set policy with us to run rather than
fight Federal officers. In the long run it brings bad luck.
"This makes the situation desperate. Here we are
with maybe a dying partner, our horses and cattle stampeded clear out of
the neighborhood by the gunfire, and us afoot in the border patrol strip,
where the survivors of the fight are likely at any minute to connect with
patrols and crack down on us.
"Tom hoofs it to an American ranch not so very far
from there he knew about, calculating to steal some horses for us. I stay
and act as doctor and nursemaid for Josh. Cleaning and dressing his wounds
is the toughest job I ever tried, but it has
to be done. Josh never makes a whimper, but wisecracks
at me when I turn white around the gills and look like I am going to faint.
When I pass a handkerchief through a bullet hole, he grits his teeth and
rolls his eyes and, when it is over, comes back with one of his wisecracks.
In a little while Josh runs up a fever that plumb scares me. I can't leave
him that-a-way, and I feel sure a posse will be in on us any minute. But
Tom comes back pronto with three horses he steals from the ranch. We get
Josh into his saddle and ride like hell for Chisholm's Ranch, where we
hope to get a doctor, and Josh all the time gritting his teeth and sweating
and looking as white as a sheet.î
"The doctor had no more than pulled Josh Sweat through
his fever and the dangerous stages of his wounds, when a cowpuncher rides
into the Chisholm Ranch with his horse all lathered and nearly winded and
tells us to get the hell out of there. A big outfit of Federal officers
is headed for the ranch, hell-bent for breakfast. 'If they see you,' says
he, 'you ain't got a chance.' They are fixed for a long chase . . . extra
saddle horses, pack horses, everything. The Federal government has planned
to wipe out all Mexican cattle raiders. They will chase you clean to Canada
but what they get you.
"A Federal posse looks like sudden death or life
imprisonment to us. But if we take Josh with us, it may kill him, and if
we leave him, that may be his finish. He settles the question hisself.
'Iím going with you,í' says he. 'I can ride and fight as hard as either
one of you long-eared mavericks, right now, just as I am.' He throws the
cover off of him and sets up on the edge of the bed. It hurts him so he
turns white but never lets out a yeep. 'Get me my outfit,' he says. 'Iím
ready to go.'
"When we help him into his saddle, he nearly faints
but never stops grinning and when he can get his breath, keeps poking fun
at us old nursemaids. He was as game a man as I ever knew. But men had
to be that-a-way if they stayed on the bandit trail. You had to be ready
at all times to run or fight, no matter if the pain of moving killed you,
or if you was practically on your deathbed. And believe me the cowboy outlaw
could do just that and do it smiling.
"That was the beginning of the first chase by Federal
officers I was ever in. It covered the full length of Arizona from south
to north, about half of Utah and some of Nevada . . . at least six hundred
miles. It was like a prolonged war, with us using all our cowboy tricks
and knowledge of horses and the country against the skill, cunning, and
guns of the officers."
TO BE CONTINUED
PART TWO
. . . Or buy the new book by Dr. Steve Lacy, Last
of the Bandit Riders - Revisited, which includes the whole story of Butch
Cassidy and his buddy, Matt Warner, with lots of pictures and copies of
letters written by Butch. It is available now at all book stores or you
can purchase an autographed copy from Dr. Lacy .
Unsigned books are also available at the UPOA Office
for $24.95.
This is a great book.
-
The Utah Peace Officer
-
Service to the Law
Enforcement Community since 1922
-
Email your comments,
suggestions, or information requests
-
Call the UPOA at
1 801 313-0760; Toll free 1 800 968 UPOA
-
FAX 801 313-0761
-
-
upoa@upoa.org
-
-
UPOA
Home | Auxiliary |
Memorial
| Presidents | Contact
Us
-
-
|
