49. CHAPTER XLIX.
AN extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish
a photograph that can need no embellishment:
FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.—An affray occurred, last
evening, in a billiard saloon on C street,
between Deputy Marshal Jack Williams and
Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate death of the
latter. There had been some difficulty between the parties for
several months.
An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony
adduced:
Officer GEO. BIRDSALL, sworn, says:—I was told Wm.
Brown was drunk and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I
heard that I started for the parties to prevent a collision; went into
the billiard saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying if
anybody had anything against him to show cause; he was talking in
a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to the other end of
the room to talk to him; Brown came back to me; remarked to me
that he thought he was as good as anybody, and knew how to take
care of himself; he passed by me and went to the bar; don't know
whether he drank or not; Williams was at the end of the
billiard-table, next to the stairway; Brown, after going to the bar,
came back and said he was as good as any man in the world; he
had then walked out to the end of the first billiard-table from the
bar; I moved closer to them, supposing there would be a fight; as
Brown drew his pistol I caught hold of it; he had fired one shot at
Williams; don't know the effect of it; caught hold of him with one
hand, and took hold of the pistol and turned it up; think he fired
once after I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched the pistol from
him; walked to the end of the billiard-table and told a party that I
had Brown's pistol, and to stop shooting; I think four shots were
fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster remarked that Brown was
shot dead.
Oh, there was no excitement about it—he merely "remarked"
the small circumstance!
Four months later the following item appeared in the same
paper (the Enterprise). In this
item the name of one of the
city officers above referred to (
Deputy Marshal
Jack Williams) occurs again:
ROBBERY AND DESPERATE AFFRAY.—On Tuesday night,
a German named Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver City,
came to this place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on B street.
The music, dancing and Teutonic maidens awakened memories of
Faderland until our German friend was carried away with rapture.
He evidently had money, and was spending if freely. Late in the
evening Jack Williams and Andy Blessington invited him down
stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams proposed a game of cards
and went up stairs to procure a deck, but not finding any returned.
On the stairway he met the German, and drawing his pistol
knocked him down and rifled his pockets of some seventy dollars.
Hurtzal dared give no alarm, as he was told, with a pistol at his
head, if he made any noise or exposed them, they would blow his
brains out. So effectually was he frightened that he made no
complaint, until his friends forced him. Yesterday a warrant was
issued, but the culprits had disappeared.
This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common
reputation of being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It
was said that he had several times drawn his revolver and levied
money contributions on citizens at dead of night in the public
streets of Virginia.
Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was
assassinated while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was
thrust through the crack of the door and Williams dropped from
his chair riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, that Williams
had been for some time aware that a party of his own sort
(desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it was generally
believed among the people that Williams's friends and enemies
would make the assassination memorable—and useful, too—by a
wholesale destruction of each other.*
It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the
next twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed by
a pistol shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man
named Reeder was also disposed of permanently. Some matters in
the Enterprise account
of the killing of Reeder are worth nothing—especially the
accommodating complaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace.
The italics in the following narrative are mine:
MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.—The devil seems to
have again broken loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and
knives gleam in our streets as in early times. When there has been
a long season of quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in blood;
but once blood is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy. Night
before last Jack Williams was assassinated, and yesterday
forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of the killing of
Williams, and on the same street in which he met his death. It
appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams, and George
Gumbert were talking, at the meat market of the latter, about the
killing of Williams the previous night, when Reeder said it was a
most cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way, giving him "no
show." Gumbert said that Williams had "as good a show as he
gave Billy Brown," meaning the man killed by Williams last
March. Reeder said it was a d—d lie, that Williams had no show at
all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting
him in two places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut into the
sleeve of Reeder's coat and passed downward in a slanting
direction through his clothing, and entered his body at the small of
the back; another blow struck more squarely, and made a much
more dangerous wound. Gumbert gave himself up to the officers
of justice, and was shortly after discharged by Justice
Atwill, on his own recognizance, to
appear for trial at six o'clock in the evening. In the meantime
Reeder had been taken into the office of Dr. Owens, where his
wounds were properly dressed. One of his
wounds was considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by
many that it would prove
fatal. But being considerably under the
influence of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he otherwise
would, and he got up and went into the street. He
went to the meat market and renewed his quarrel with
Gumbert, threatening his life. Friends tried to interfere to put a
stop to the quarrel and get the parties away from each other. In the
Fashion Saloon Reeder made threats against the life of Gumbert,
saying he would kill him, and it is said that
he
requested the officers not to arrest Gumbert, as he intended to kill
him. After these threats Gumbert went off and procured a
double-barreled shot gun, loaded with buck-shot or revolver balls,
and went after Reeder. Two or three persons were assisting him
along the street, trying to get him home, and had him just in front
of the store of Klopstock & Harris, when Gumbert came
across toward him from the opposite side of the street with his
gun. He came up within about ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and
called out to those with him to "look out! get out of the way!" and
they had only time to heed the warning, when he fired. Reeder
was at the time attempting to screen himself behind a large cask,
which stood against the awning post of Klopstock & Harris's
store, but some of the balls took effect in the lower part of his
breast, and he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask.
Gumbert then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which
missed Reeder and entered the ground. At the time that this
occurred, there were a great many persons on the street in the
vicinity, and a number of them called out to Gumbert, when they
saw him raise his gun, to "hold on," and "don't shoot!" The cutting
took place about ten o'clock and the shooting about twelve. After
the shooting the street was instantly crowded with the inhabitants
of that part of the town, some appearing much excited and
laughing—declaring that it looked like the "good old times of '60."
Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall were near when the shooting
occurred, and Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun
taken from him, when he was marched off to jail. Many persons
who were attracted to the spot where this bloody work had just
taken place, looked bewildered and seemed to be asking
themselves what was to happen next, appearing in doubt as to
whether the killing mania had reached its climax, or whether we
were to turn in and have a grand killing spell, shooting whoever
might have given us offence. It was whispered around that it was
not all over yet—five or six more were to be killed before night.
Reeder was taken to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in
to examine his wounds. They found that two or three balls had
entered his right side; one of them appeared to have passed
through the substance of the lungs, while another passed into the
liver. Two balls were also found to have struck one of his legs. As
some of the balls struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were
probably from these, glancing downwards, though they might have
been caused by the second shot fired. After being shot, Reeder
said when he got on his feet—smiling as he spoke—"It will take
better shooting than that to kill me." The doctors consider it
almost impossible for him to recover, but as he has an excellent
constitution he may survive, notwithstanding the number and
dangerous character of the wounds he has received. The town
appears to
be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late stormy times had
cleared our moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter
clouds are lowering or plots ripening?
Reeder—or at least what was left of him—survived his wounds
two days! Nothing was ever done with Gumbert.
Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know
what a palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a
good thing no doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have
been murdered in Nevada—perhaps I would be within bounds if I
said three hundred—and as far as I can learn, only two persons have
suffered the death penalty there. However, four or five who had
no money and no political influence have been punished by
imprisonment—one languished in prison as much as eight months, I
think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant—it may have
been less.
[*]
However, one prophecy was verified, at
any rate. It was asserted by the desperadoes that one of their
brethren (Joe McGee,
a special policeman) was
known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate
Williams; and they also asserted that doom had been pronounced
against McGee, and that he would be assassinated in exactly the
same manner that had been adopted for the destruction of
Williams—a prophecy which came true a year later. After twelve
months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied assassin in every man
that approached him), he made the last of many efforts to get out
of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat down in a
saloon to wait for the stage—it would leave at four in the morning.
But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy,
and told the bar-keeper that assassins were on his track. The
bar-keeper told him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and
not go near the door, or the window by the stove. But a fatal
fascination seduced him to the neighborhood of the stove every
now and then, and repeatedly the bar-keeper brought him back to
the middle of the room and warned him to remain there. But he
could not. At three in the morning he again returned to the stove
and sat own by a stranger. Before the bar-keeper could get to him
with another warning whisper, some one outside fired through the
window and riddled McGee's breast with slugs, killing him almost
instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee's side also
received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or three
days.