Horn, Tom (AKA: James Hicks), 1860-1903, U.S., lawman-outlaw.
Tom Horn was a legendary western scout, Pinkerton detective, and range
detective. When his luck ran out, he hired his gun to the highest bidder for
murder and for this, he went to the gallows. Born in Memphis, Mo., on Nov. 21,
1860, Horn was raised on a farm. As a youth he liked the outdoors, but hated
school and was often truant. His father, a strict disciplinarian, took the boy
aside when he was fourteen and gave him such a severe whipping that Horn ran
away from home, going west. He worked on the railroad, drove wagons for a
freight company, and later became a stagecoach driver.
Horn was a scout for the army at age sixteen and was involved in many campaigns
for more than a decade. In 1885, Horn replaced the celebrated Al Sieber as
chief of scouts in the Southwest and he was involved in the historic Geronimo
campaign in 1886. It was the intrepid Horn who, as chief of scouts, tracked
Geronimo and his band to his hideout in the Sierra Gordo outside of Sonora,
Mex. He rode into the Indian camp alone and negotiated Geronimo's surrender.
Geronimo, with Horn guiding him and his tribe, crossed the border, officially
surrendering, and ending the last great Indian war in America.
After quitting his post as chief of scouts, Horn wandered through the gold
fields and then became a ranch hand. He proved himself to be a great cowboy,
entering the rodeo at Globe, Ariz., in 1888 and winning the world's
championship in steer roping. Horn joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency in
1890 and used his gun with lethal effectiveness. He worked out of the agency's
Denver offices, chasing bank robbers and train thieves throughout Colorado and
Wyoming. He was fearless (some said mad) and would face any outlaw or gunman.
On one occasion, Horn rode into the outlaw hideout known as Hole-in-the-Wall
and single-handedly captured the notorious Peg-Leg Watson (alias McCoy) who had
recently robbed a mail train with others. Horn tracked Watson to a high
mountain cabin and called out to him, telling the outlaw that he was coming for
him.
Watson stepped from the cabin with two six-guns in his hands. He watched, open
-mouthed, as Horn walked resolutely toward him across an open field, his
Winchester carried limply at his side. Watson never fired a shot and Horn took
him to jail without a struggle, bragging that Watson "didn't give me too much
trouble." This feat was heralded across the West and Horn became a living
legend. Still, working for the Pinkertons bothered Horn. He had reportedly
killed seventeen men as an agent. Hunting down men very much like himself
upset the lawman, however, and he quit, saying: "I have no stomach for it
anymore." Yet Horn had enough stomach to hire out as a gunman in 1892 to the
Wyoming Cattle Growers' Association.
It was Horn's job to recruit gunmen for the association and he put together a
formidable army which later attacked and slaughtered homesteaders in the bloody
Johnson County War, although there is no indication that Horn participated in
this one-sided battle. In 1894, Horn was working as a horse breaker for the
Swan Land and Cattle Company. His real duties were to track down and kill
rustlers and hector settlers homesteading on the range. He demanded and got
$600 for each rustler he shot and killed. Horn proved to be a methodical
manhunter and ruthless killer.
He would spend several days tracking a rustler, learning the man's habits and
observing him as the rustler made camp each night. Finally, using a high
-powered, long-distance Buffalo gun, Horn would lay a careful ambush and kill
his man with a single, well-aimed bullet. Horn was no longer the stand-up
gunman who faced his adversaries in a fair fight. He killed from hiding and he
killed often. Rustlers, more than a dozen, were found shot to death on the
range. Beneath each man's head was a large rock. This was Horn's trademark.
"Killing men is my business," he announced one night in a saloon when
questioned about his activities. Tom Horn's legend changed to that of a
fearsome murderer, one who killed with the law behind him and one who
apparently enjoyed taking lives. The residents of Cheyenne came to know and
fear him as a blood-stained slayer.
When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Horn left the West and joined
the cavalry. He served with distinction in Cuba but saw little action, being
in charge of Teddy Roosevelt's pack trains. Following the war, Horn returned
to Wyoming and went to work for wealthy cattle baron, John Coble. He was once
again a hunter of rustlers and his tactics had changed little since he began
this bloody business a decade earlier. Typical of Horn's ambush techniques was
the manner in which he killed rustler Matt Rash. He tracked Rash to his cabin
near Cold Springs Mountain in Routt County, Colo., pretending to be a
prospector named James Hicks. Rash invited him to dinner and Horn joined him
on the evening of July 8, 1900. Following the meal, Horn excused himself and
went outside. He hid behind a tree, and as his host stepped outside, Horn
pumped three bullets into him. Horn then rode to Denver to set up an alibi.
Rash lived long enough to try to write the name of his killer with his own
blood, but wrote the alias Horn had given him and Horn was therefore not
immediately identified.
A black cowboy, Isom Dart, who, with a gang of five other black cowboys, had
been rustling cows, was found at his Routt County hideout by Horn on Oct. 3,
1900. Horn hid behind a large rock and, after Dart and his companions had
their breakfast and left their cabin to inspect the cattle pens that held their
rustled cattle, Horn fired two shots from a .30-.30 rifle. Both bullets struck
Dart's head, shattering his skull and killing him instantly. His five
companions raced back to the cabin and cowered there while Horn mounted his
horse and rode away.
Horn's last killing was his undoing. He had perfected the art of long-distance
murder, using powerful weapons that could bring down a target at a distance of
hundreds of yards. On the morning of July 18, 1901, on the Powder River Road
near Cheyenne, Wyo., Horn lay in wait for rancher Kels P. Nickell, who had been
marked for death by competing ranchers. He had only seen Nickell once from a
distance, so Horn did not recognize Willie Nickell, the rancher's tall 14-year
-old son, who appeared that morning, driving his father's wagon out of the
ranch yard. Willie wore his father's coat and hat and when he got down from
the wagon to open a gate, Horn fired a shot that struck the boy. Willie
Nickell staggered to his feet and tried to get back to the wagon but Horn fired
another shot, striking him in the back of the head and killing him.
Though this killing was immediately attributed to Horn because of its method,
no real proof could link him to the murder. Joe Lefors, one of the great
lawmen of the West, resolved to uncover the truth and bring Horn to justice.
Herode to Denver and there got Horn drunk in a small saloon. While using a
crude listening device, Lefors' deputies hid in a back room while Horn talked
about the Nickell killing, describing it in such detail that his words amounted
to a confession. Lefors arrested Horn for the killing and returned him to
Cheyenne where he was later tried and condemned to death. The wealthy
cattleman, Coble, along with Glendolene Kimmel, a schoolteacher whose father
was also a cattle baron and who was Horn's sweetheart, attempted to obtain a
commutation for Horn, but public resentment against the hired killer was so
intense that none was forthcoming.
Horn, realizing that he would soon face the hangman, broke out of the Cheyenne
Jail with another prisoner, Jim McCloud. They leaped on Deputy Sheriff Richard
Proctor, struggling for his gun in a hallway of the jail. Proctor squeezed off
four shots, wounding McCloud, before he was overpowered. McCloud ran outside
and leaped on the only available horse, riding wildly out of town. Horn fled
on foot, followed by O.M. Eldrich, a citizen. Eldrich fired several shots at
Horn, one of these grazing his head. As he struggled to work the jammed gun he
had taken from Proctor, Eldrich and other residents charged up to Horn and
knocked him to the ground. They began beating him with sticks and clubs until
Proctor arrived and stopped them. Horn was restrained and returned to his
cell, and McCloud was also recaptured and taken back to the Cheyenne Jail.
Horn resigned himself to his death, spending his last months writing his
memoirs and weaving a rope that was later used to hang him. The hired killer
mounted the gallows in Cheyenne on Nov. 20, 1903. His sweetheart, Kimmel, and
his employer John Coble stood by as witnesses. Tom Horn looked down at them
and then turned to the executioner, telling him to "hurry it up. I got nothing
more to say." He was promptly hanged.
From the Encyclopedia of Western Lawmen and Outlaws Back
Horn, Tom (AKA: James Hicks), 1860-1903, U.S., lawman-outlaw.