When you're a freelance magazine writer trying to make a name for yourself, life can take some pretty exciting turns.
Like I was living in Phoenix, AZ. trying to find some magazines that would accept my material when, lo and behold, I discovered Official Detective Magazine. The magazine was published in Philadelphia, PA. and the editors were looking for writers who could write stories about true crime incidents.
I was sitting in a restaurant, having biscuits and gravy, and leafing through a copy of Official Detective when a fellow reporter from the newspaper where I worked hurried over and said, 'Did you hear about the manhunt in Show Low, AZ?' I told him I hadn't and where was Show Low?
He told me the town was east of Payson, about a three-hour drive from Phoenix. Two escaped prisoners from Kansas had shot a deputy sheriff and were being pursued by a posse of about 50 cowboys and some Indians from the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation.
All I could say was, 'Wow!' I had found my crime story for Official Detective.
Friday after work I headed north for Show Low. I was driving a trim little MGA sports car and my younger brother, Legs, accompanied me. On the way to our destination, I leafed through some clippings on Show Low.
The town had been named after a card game held by two ranchers who didn't like each other. They shared a 100,000-acre ranch and decided one of them had to go. Whereupon they sat down at a table, opened a bottle of scotch, and decided to play 'Show Low,' meaning the man who drew the lowest card was the winner.
Corydon Cooley drew the deuce of clubs. His partner, Marion Clark, grunted and sold Cooley his share of the ranch. Cooley followed up by naming the town's main street Deuce of Clubs Street.
Cooley went on to become prominent in the territory, while Clark moved to Pinetop where he started a ranch. Friendly with the White Mountain Apaches, Cooley courted a daughter of Chief Pedro and married Molly. He later took her sister, Cora, as his second wife and the women became quite popular with the white settlers in the area, serving as midwife to many of the women.
Show Low is located in the Mogollon Rim Country where western author Zane Grey lived and wrote several of his novels that were later adapted into films. One was called 'Under The Tonto Rim.'
The Arizona Historical Society converted Grey's cabin into a historical site. Many years ago I visited the cabin on horseback and was deeply touched by the spirit of the author whose books had made such an impression on me in my early youth.
As Legs and I neared Show Low, we saw a herd of horses tied up off the highway. We pulled onto a dirt road and found the posse. They were just settling down for the evening meal and invited us to have a steak dinner with them.
The steak was cooked over an open campfire. There was homemade apple pie and cowboy coffee served in a tin pot that was burnt black by the flames from the fire. I have never had a better meal.
One of the cowboys, a wrangler named Bill, said they had caught one of the prison escapees and expected to catch the other one before the day's end.
'We're hot on his train,' he said. 'One of our guys wounded him so he can't travel that much farther.'
I scrawled his remarks in my notebook and when a posse member asked us to join them, my brother and I leaped at the chance.
Sure enough, late that afternoon as we watched from a nearby hilltop, the son of the sheriff on horseback ran down a lone figure in a field and bulldogged him. He just leaped off the horse and flattened the fleeing prisoner without a shot being fired.
My brother and I hurried down the hill as they handcuffed the bruised and bloodied prisoner. He had been captured, but he still snarled his defiance.
One of the cowboys said, 'You were wounded, been without food or water, and we been on your trail for two days. Just how much farther do you reckon you could have run?'
The captured prisoner smiled at him. 'Take these handcuffs off, give me a five minute start, and we'll see.'
'Official Detective' Magazine bought and published the article under the title, 'Show Low Manhunt.' As far as I can determine, the prisoner is still behind bars.
