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The Notorious Luke Short
Sporting Man of the Wild West
By Jack DeMattos, Chuck Parsons University of North Texas Press
Copyright © 2015 Jack DeMattos and Chuck Parsons
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57441-602-2
CHAPTER 1
The Cowboy by Birth
"[Abilene] was a paradise of variety shows and gambling establishments. Every thing was wide open and every thing went."
— Dallas Morning News, September 9, 1893.
The well-dressed man relaxed as the boot black polished his shoes at the White Elephant, the most elegant saloon-gambling house in Fort Worth. He always made it a point when at work to dress immaculately, to set the tone for others to follow. This night, February 8, 1887, was no exception. Luke Short was known by nearly everyone in that section of the Lone Star State as a polished but dangerous gambler who seemed to always be in control of his emotions and environment.
Now a friend approached and asked, "Luke, anything between you and Jim Courtright?" Short, never loquacious, simply thought a moment and answered, "Nothing." The matter was forgotten.
With shoes polished Short approached the bar to converse with a couple of friends. Then someone called out to him, a note of concern in his voice, "Oh, Luke." This was no doubt the typical annoyance that frequently plagued important people, someone always disturbing your quiet time.
Out into the vestibule Luke Short walked, calmly, then noticed Jim Courtright and Jake Johnson conversing, the former an acquaintance who had a reputation as a dangerous man with a gun, the latter among Luke's closest friends. What could the matter be now?
Short joined Johnson and Courtright on the sidewalk in front of the White Elephant. During their conversation Luke hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, then dropped them to adjust his clothing. One always had to appear neatly dressed, no matter the occasion. Then Courtright said, "Well, you needn't reach for your gun" and immediately reached for his own revolver. When Short saw that movement, he knew the calm verbal exchange was over and it now was a matter of life and death. Luke pulled his pistol and began shooting — once, twice, three times, and then a fourth time. Courtright, for all his reputation as a deadly gunfighter and having initiated the gun play, failed to fire a single shot, yet he had anticipated the gunfight! How could he be not ready? Courtright fell at the first fire, his torso in the entrance to Ella Blackwell's shooting gallery. His feet were on the sidewalk. How ironic.
Jim Courtright, the notorious two gun gambler-gunfighter with a reputation of having killed several men, now lay dying. Luke Short, who also had a reputation as a gunfighter-gambler, stood over the dying man, pondering why he couldn't be left alone.
* * *
There is seemingly no end to the long trail of erroneous information concerning Luke L. Short. Rather appropriately, it starts with controversy over the actual date and place of his birth. In 1961 William R. Cox published his biography of Short, claiming that Luke had been born in Mississippi. After the publication of the Cox book nearly every historian writing on Luke L. Short gave Luke's birthplace as Mississippi.
The Mississippi connection was amplified in 1980 with the appearance of a then seventy-one-year-old man who claimed that Luke L. Short was his grandfather. According to that man, who called himself "Luke Lamar Short II," the original "Luke Lamar Short" was born on February 19, 1854, near Laurel, Mississippi. None of this turned out to be true. The man calling himself Luke L. Short's grandson was an imposter. The real Luke L. Short was not born anywhere in Mississippi. He was not born on February 19, 1854, and there is absolutely no proof, beyond the claims of a bogus grandson, that Luke L. Short's middle name was Lamar.
In 1996 a second biography of Luke L. Short appeared.It was written by Wayne Short, the grandson of Henry Jenkins Short (1859–1917), Luke's younger brother. The book reads more like a novel than a biography. Wayne Short readily admitted on his opening page that he had "recreated dialogue in places in the interest of the story." Wayne Short does give the correct state where Luke was born. This is ironic, considering that he was the man supposedly responsible for the Mississippi information contained in the William R. Cox biography.
According to his own testimony, Luke L. Short was born in Polk County, Arkansas, on January 22, 1854. His parents, Josiah Washington Short and Hetty Brumley, were both born in Tennessee. They were married in Arkansas City, Arkansas, during 1846. As it happens, Arkansas City is located near the border of Mississippi. This would be as close to Mississippi came to playing any role in the story of Luke L. Short's birth.
Soon after their wedding Josiah and Hetty Short moved to Polk County, Arkansas. Polk County is located on the western side of Arkansas, on the border of present-day Oklahoma. Josiah and Hetty's first child, Martha Francis Short, was born in Polk County April 10, 1847. She was followed by John Pleasant Short, born there in Polk County on September 5, 1848. The four members of the Short family that then existed were recorded on the 1850 United States Federal Census.
The next child to arrive was Josiah Short, born in Polk County on May 30, 1851. He was followed by Young P. Short, born during November of 1852. Luke L. Short was next in line, born there on January 22, 1854. Catherine came next on February 19, 1856, followed by Henry Jenkins on February 15, 1859. He was the last of the Short children born in Polk County. Shortly after his birth the Short family, now consisting of nine members, moved to Montague County, Texas, two counties north of Tarrant County, where Luke Short would gain fame as a sporting man in county seat Fort Worth. The family was recorded there on the 1860 Federal Census.
The final three Short children were all born in Texas: George Washington, born March 8, 1863; Belle Nannie, born March 24, 1864; and William B., born October 21, 1867. Two family members were unaccounted for when the 1870 census was taken. The family then consisted of ten members living at home. It is noteworthy that the 1850, 1860, and 1870 Federal Census records support the Short family residence in Arkansas. There is no mention of the family living in Mississippi in any of those official records. In addition the 1860 and 1870 census records clearly state that Luke L. Short was born in Arkansas.
Luke Short never wrote an autobiography — but he did sit for two separate interviews in which he provided biographical sketches of his early life. The first occasion was on March 19, 1886, when he gave six pages of dictation to George H. Morrison, a researcher employed by historian Hubert Howe Bancroft (see appendix A). The second occasion came when Short agreed to provide information for an article to be published in the March 15, 1890, issue of the National Police Gazette. When published, it profiled "Luke L. Short, the Famed Indian Fighter and Sporting Man," and offered "A History of His Life" (see appendix C). These remain especially valuable documents as they present the earliest known accounts of Luke's boyhood years in Texas, 1855–1869, and are probably more accurate than any written after his death.
Luke told the reporter that he had gone to Texas in 1858 at the age of four years, and gave his birth date as January 22, 1854. Curiously, the interview appeared in the third person, as if perhaps the National Police Gazette reporter took notes during the conversation and later presented it as such rather than providing it verbatim. "His parents settled in Gainesville, in Cooke County, then a small trading post" one learns, when the "country was full of Indians" including Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche, "all of the most warlike character." Due to living in these surroundings young Luke Short "was very early inured to hardships and twice, when a mere boy, saw his father severely wounded by marauding Indians." J. W. Short, Luke's father, "purchased a large block of land lying on Elm Fork of the Trinity River ... and went into the cattle business. Soon after he moved to the adjoining county of Montague." Only two years after the Civil War ended a greater fear covered the lands where white settlers intended to make their homes. In 1867 a raid resulted in many atrocities, which had a deep effect on young Luke Short. A family, "consisting of a mother and four girls was captured, and the mother and the three older girls [were] parceled out to three other tribes. The baby girl was brained in sight of a few settlers, who were intrenched [sic] within a stockade." It is not clear if Luke Short witnessed this atrocity or if he merely learned of it later.
If he had not witnessed any of this slaughter he certainly recalled the one he did witness, which was in 1862. Luke's first encounter with Indians, according to the interview, "never left his mind. His father had gone out some distance from the house, when he was attacked by Indians." An elder brother, whether it was John, Josiah, or Young P. Short was not made clear to the Gazette reporter, went to his father's assistance, "but found that the bullets in the pouch which he carried did not fit the rifle. The father had been wounded twice in the head with arrows and severely lanced in the back." When young Short reached his father with the rifle he had to explain that the bullets did not fit. The father, thinking fast, took the rifle and told his son to go back to the house for the other gun; then "[f]einting at the savages with the useless rifle, the father stood them off." While this action took place Luke was in the yard and saw his brother come up, yelling for the rifle. But the "nervy little fellow ran into the house and finding he could not lift the rifle dragged it out and got it to his brother. His father came up about this time bleeding of wounds and Luke was so horrified that he started to run into the house, but seeing his mother run to his father's assistance he went also." The elder brother and his father then managed to drive the Indians away. It was in 1869 when Luke was old enough to take part in his first Indian fight, "when the red skins burned houses, killed women and children and devastated the country. After that he was in over thirty Indian engagements and became noted as a splendid shot, cool and nervy man, and brave to a fault."
Luke, in 1869, was fifteen and began work as a cowboy as so many young men did in Texas at that time. It was the most logical start for a "cool and nervy man, and brave to a fault" as any individual who knew him would verify. In addition to beginning his working experience as a cowboy he began to deal in and speculate in livestock and cotton. This would not be unusual for a young ambitious man in his mid-teens like Luke Short in 1869. Indeed, from 1869 to 1875 Luke was engaged in the cattle business and made several drives to Kansas. In those days being a drover was quite a desperate undertaking, with "both Indians and cowboys being pretty wild."
One of the cowboys who could be "pretty wild" — if not the wildest of them all — was John Wesley Hardin. Both the eighteen-year-old "Wes" Hardin and the seventeen-year-old Luke Short were cowboys on cattle drives from Texas to Abilene, Kansas, in 1871. They rode with different outfits, and while one is tempted to consider them at least acquaintances, there is no proof that they ever met. A person Hardin and Short both knew, however, was Jacob Christopher "Jake" Johnson, a twenty-three-year-old cattleman in 1871, who was Hardin's boss. Fifteen years later Jake Johnson was one of Fort Worth's wealthiest citizens and a business partner of Luke Short; Hardin then was a prisoner in Huntsville penitentiary.
The earliest known account of Luke Short's activities in Abilene appeared in one of his obituaries, which offered this description of the town. "Abilene ... was a great town not so many years ago" the account began. "It was the cattle outfitting station for the panhandle and the Indian Territory. Thither went the cowboy of the early times to blow in his wages and blow up the town. It was a paradise of variety shows and gambling establishments. Everything was wide open and everything went." In the 1890s John Wesley Hardin recorded his memoirs of the cowboy days and his description of Abilene was similar. "I have seen many fast towns," Hardin recalled, "but I think Abilene beat them all. The town was filled with sporting men and women, gamblers, cowboys, desperadoes, and the like. It was well supplied with bar rooms, hotels, barber shops, and gambling houses, and every thing was open."
Like Wes Hardin, Luke Short was, "scarcely more than a boy, took his chances with the rest" in the wild town of Abilene. Short, assured the reporter, "was known even then as a daring gambler who would stake his last cent on the turn of a card. He was a man of unquestioned courage, capable of holding his own with the wild spirits who resorted there." Short had a "quiet, easy manner [which] made him friends. He never sought a quarrel, but he never allowed anybody to tread on his toes, and once the fighting spirit was aroused there was nothing more to be dreaded than Luke Short." With a hint of regret, the reporter concluded his obituary stating that there was no record of Short getting into any serious trouble in Abilene, but possibly a few shooting scrapes "such as were common in those days is all. Nobody was killed."Apparently, in this reporter's mind, if there was not a corpse following a gunfight it did not amount to "serious trouble."
It is impossible to accurately chart Luke Short's youthful travels during his cowboy period. He moved around a lot, as he would throughout his life, and often turned up in unlikely places. One incident that attracted attention took place in New Mexico when he was still a teenager. The exact date cannot be determined, but the incident in question most likely happened sometime in 1872. Years afterward a Chicago newspaper reporter recalled the event, which unfortunately leaves numerous questions that cannot be answered.
"It was in New Mexico that Luke Short first attracted public attention by a cool display of bravery" the Inter Ocean reporter began his tale. The first United States Court in New Mexico was established at Socorro, located in Socorro County. "In this border town and the surrounding country" he wrote, setting the stage, "were hundreds of rough men who had lived so long outside the pale of civilization that they were almost as savage as the Apache and Comanche Indians who inhabited that part of the country." If the reader did not yet appreciate the conditions, the reporter made it clear that those characters "had been in the habit of making and enforcing their own laws." Finally the court was organized, which consisted of a judge from Arkansas, a young lawyer from Kansas, who was to act as the U.S. attorney, and a deputy marshal from an unidentified New Mexico mining camp. The first case was speedily concluded. After several days of additional court matters running "smoothly," a case was called which, if testimony was presented honestly and accurately, would "result in the punishment of a prominent citizen for murder." The case supposedly hinged on the testimony of one man who was friendly to the prosecution, and of course when called to the stand great excitement was evident in the rude courtroom. Tension filled the air. When a question of "vital importance" was posed the witness "hesitated, and seemed not fully to understand what had been asked of him." The judge ordered the attorney to ask the question again and make it "more explicit."
Then a voice came from "a miner of powerful build" who was among friends in the crowd, only a few feet from the prosecutor. The miner stated firmly: "If you ask that question again you will not live to hear the answer." As this miner spoke, a half-dozen men drew their revolvers, cocking them, which seemingly gave great emphasis to the words he had uttered. Then there was silence in the courtroom. The young attorney slowly turned. He now faced the uncouth audience, thought a few moments before speaking and said: "When I came here, I fully realized the danger that strict fidelity to duty would bring upon me. I left at home a young wife, whom I had hoped to see again, but if there is a man here who will tell her that I died doing my duty, I will repeat the question." Did any man in that courtroom realize the significance of those brave words?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Notorious Luke Short by Jack DeMattos, Chuck Parsons. Copyright © 2015 Jack DeMattos and Chuck Parsons. Excerpted by permission of University of North Texas Press.
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