Devils River: Treacherous Twin to the Pecos, 1535-1900

18 A POTENTIAL FOR SUDDEN DEATH

148 A POTENTIAL FOR SUDDEN DEATH c h a p t e r 18 Near Samuels Station, a lonely Southern Pacific siding forty miles by rail west of the Pecos, outlaws held up a train on September 1, 1891. Identified asThumbless JackWellington, John Flynt (or Flint),Tom Fields, and James Langston, the men gigged their horses east through desolate country with thousands of dollars. In the bluff below the mouth of the Pecos,Wellington later claimed, they hid $10,000 before pressing on for the Devils with mail sacks under their saddles as blankets. At every camp, the bandits celebrated their success by tearing open another money bundle, thereby leaving a trail ofWells-Fargo packaging. As Ranger Captain Frank Jones of Company D rode a weaving passenger train west for El Paso in October, authorities notified him that the gang was camped in the Devils country fifty miles from Comstock. Jones, his men, and their outfitted horses soon boarded an eastbound freight inAlpine and disembarked fifteen hours later at Comstock. By sundown the Rangers rode upon Hudson’s forlorn walls, and a day later they stormed the band’s camp and found it deserted. For five days Jones’ command and a sheriff’s posse tracked the riders west to Howard’sWell and on to the 7D outfit on upper Live Oak Creek, where they finally caught up with the unsuspecting fugitives October 16. Langston surrendered at once, and Fields after brief flight, but Wellington and Flynt put up a battle, even as they urged their ponies across mountainous terrain. As the chase persisted, an off-target bullet caughtWellington’s horse, forcing the train robber’s submission.Twenty-eight-year-old Flynt stayed determined, however, exchanging gunfire throughout a ten-mile race before a bullet ripped through his shoulder and chest and knocked him from his horse. He may have considered the wound fatal, for he chose to commit suicide rather than give himself up. A POTENTIAL FOR SUDDEN DEATH 149 Lawmen recovered only $1,100, almost half of which was Mexican money. As Wellington languished behind bars in Del Rio, however, he revealed to Bob Beverly and BillWelch the location of the cache near the mouth of the Pecos.Although the two cowhands combed the downstream bluff, they never uncovered the loot. Interestingly, Captain Jones describedWellington as “a gentleman” who possessed “fine blue eyes,” with a contemporary news dispatch adding that both Wellington and Fields were “rather dashing-looking”—lending credence to the notion that this brutal country sometimes hewed even the best of men in its own image. After almost ten months of incarceration at Del Rio and perhaps elsewhere , the two robbers boarded another train together, this time in shackles, in order to serve one-year sentences in federal prison.1 Beverly andWelch,returning to Comstock in late 1891 after their failed treasure quest, made plans to attend a wedding celebration in the section house during the Christmas season. Placing their horses in the nearby shipping pens, they spent the night in revelry, only to find their mounts and saddles gone the next morning.As they were to learn,two strangers had arrived on the evening train and stolen the animals. Securing fresh horses, Beverly andWelch located the tracks and set out with the kind of determination that later served Beverly well as Midland County sheriff .The trail led up the divide between the Devils and Cow Creek, a Rio Grande tributary coursing north to south for twenty-one miles midway between the DevEarly Comstock. Whitehead Memorial Museum, Del Rio,Texas. 150 DEVILS RIVER ils and Pecos.The trace eventually dropped into Johnsons Run and carried the cowhands to Ozona, by now a town of 400 people. With the help of Sam Perry, Crockett County sheriff, Beverly and Welch switched to fresh mounts and resumed the chase. Reaching the Pecos, they crossed the HAT outfit and finally reached Pecos City, where they learned that Sheriff Dave Allison of Midland andTexas Rangers had already apprehended the thieves and recovered the horses. A few nights after Beverly andWelch returned to the Devils area, Mexican nationals robbed the Comstock store and killed a clerk. Loading pack horses with goods wrapped in red soogans, or bedroll quilts, the murderers escaped into the night and crossed into Mexico at the mouth of the Pecos. A US Customs official named Cunningham quickly organized a four-man posse that included Beverly,and the...