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133 An O.K. Corral Obituary At the height of the rumors about cowboy retribution at Fronteras, it was rumored that the New Mexican outlaw “Billy the Kid” organized a gang to go “clean out” the Mexican village. By late July, the entire nation was enthralled by news of his death. He was shot through the heart at midnight by a lawman who had relentlessly hunted him down. The specifics of his life or the context of the lop-sided war within Lincoln County, New Mexico, remained unimportant. A notoriously dangerous killer who was scheduled to hang but made a bloody break from jail, Billy Bonney stole the limelight and his death spawned a legend. The sensational story was repeated again and again. “The Kid” personified many cowboy outlaws.1 In Cochise County, word of the cowboys’ brush with Mexicans on the border also began to find its way into print, many days after the event. Typically, the garbling of facts and the assumption that Mexicans were the perpetrators tended to skew the reporting: … about the 26th of last month, a party of Mexicans from Sonora made a raid into the Animas and adjoining valleys, and rounding up several hundred animals, started with them through the Guadaloupe Pass for Mexico. The Mexicans numbered about thirty all told. The cattlemen organized about twenty in number and pursuing the marauders , overtook them on the plains near the Pass. A running fight ensued, which resulted in the flight of the Mexicans, and the recovery of the cattle.2 Close on the heels of that border incident came news of another atrocity committed by a group of cowboys. The story of a “train” of Mexicans headed north leading burros loaded down with sacks of pesos had several versions. Did it happen in Skeleton Cañon in the Peconcillo Mountains? Did it take place at the bend in the road near Los Animas, near Fronteras in Sonora? If they were separate events, the stories shared a common thread. The Mexicans were smugglers. They had between $3,000 to $4,000 worth of silver in their Deadly Ambush Eighteen 134 The McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona saddlebags, and they were mercilessly ambushed by cowboys. The number of Mexicans killed may have been four. It may have been more.3 The number of cowboys who participated in the ambush is impossible to pin down and attempts to name them mostly an exercise in speculation. With dozens of secondary sources to cite, each one had a different list—the aggregate group reading like a who’s who among the cowboys and ranchers . The McLaurys were specifically mentioned in an accusation by Wyatt Earp, when he was defending himself on a charge of murder and compiling reasons why the McLaurys were dangerous. Could they have taken part in this killing spree? Yes, they could have, but there is no more certainty of this than any other name used after the fact. As in the reports of the “Fronteras Massacre,” even the contemporary reports were unreliable; yet, it was closely followed by two more incidents of cowboy mayhem. In one, the cowboys were thwarted while attempting to steal livestock from a dairy farm. On the same day, cowboys were reported attacking three Mexicans traveling south near Ochoaville in the upper San Pedro Valley. These Mexicans were headed back to General Pesquira in the mining camp of Cananea, Sonora. The cowboys killed a horse, wounded one man and murdered another. The murdered Mexican was robbed of $1,000 in gold and Mexican silver. The survivor was even able to describe the perpetrators: “One [was] a large man on a powerful bay horse, and the other a medium-sized man on a dark sorrel horse with a white face. … It is said that the Mexican who escaped recognized one of the bandits having seen him in Tombstone the day before.”4 Despite all the publicity surrounding the skirmishes with Mexicans, no one attempted to investigate or make an arrest. This emboldened the cowboys. Word of the Skeleton Cañon ambush met with mixed views. Some saw it as the just retribution that had been long awaited since the killings of the “lawabiding Americans.” The Nugget again expressed the ambivalence of many in Tombstone. “The Mexicans can make no complaint to the authorities, being engaged in an unlawful business themselves.” Others saw it as further descending into the morass of murder and robbery, the legacy of the “festive cowboy” that had been decried for...

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