Deputy Breakenridge and the three others of the posse started from Tombstone for the Stockton ranch at one o’clock in the morning. A bloodless capture was still in Breakenridge’s mind. He planned to surround the place in the darkness and wait until morning, when he hoped to arrest the outlaws as they came outside to feed their horses or get wood for the breakfast fire. Near the ranch, the four posseman hitched their horses in the mesquite brush and closed in on foot. The first white streaks of dawn were showing above the distant Chiricahuas, and the ranch house stood dark and silent. Breakenridge posted Gillespie and Young behind a wood pile commanding the back door with strict instructions to remain in their hiding place until daylight. Breakenridge and Allen started for the front of the house to go into ambush beneath the low bank of Shoot-’Em-Up Creek that ran among oak trees past the front door.
But Breakenridge’s careful plans went quickly to smash in anticlimax when Gillespie disobeyed orders. Breakenridge and Allen had not reached the creek bank when Gillespie thumped loudly on the back door.
“Who’s there?” asked a startled voice inside.
“The sheriff,” thundered Gillespie. “Open the door.”
There was silence for an instant. Breakenridge and Allen sprang behind oak trees in front of the house. The back door flew open and from the cavernous darkness Hunt fired twice. Gillespie fell dead. Young dropped with a bullet through his thigh. At the same moment the front door was flung wide. Bull Lewis came marching out holding his hands above his head.
“Don’t shoot me,” he shouted. “I’ve done nothing.”
From behind him Grounds fired. The bullet struck Allen in the shoulder and knocked him down the creek embankment. Grounds’ second bullet peeled the bark from the tree behind which Breakenridge was standing. Breakenridge returned the fire and Grounds fell lifeless in the doorway.
Hunt darted out the back door, leaping over Gillespie’s body, crying to Grounds, “Come on, Billy.” As he ran up the creek over a bit of rising ground, he came out in momentary black relief against the white dawn in the eastern sky. Breakenridge and Allen, who had clambered back up the bank, both fired at him. One bullet—Breakenridge’s, it was believed—struck Hunt between the shoulder blades and passed through the lungs, bringing him down. But the outlaw was up in a flash and, dashing on, was quickly lost to sight in the brush. The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds, according to Breakenridge, and two men had been killed and three wounded.
Breakenridge and Allen, accompanied by Bull Lewis, began a slow stalk up the creek on Hunt’s trail. They had gone a hundred yards when Breakenridge heard a rustle in the bear grass.
“Come out of there,” he cried, with his gun at level, though he saw no one. “And come with your hands in the air.”
“I’m dying,” a feeble voice answered. “Come and get me.”
Then, in the dim light, Breakenridge saw Hunt lying on the ground.
“Roll over on your face,” ordered Breakenridge, “and stretch your hands out beyond your head.”
This was a new way of making a man throw up his hands, but Breakenridge was taking no chances. Hunt did as he was told and Bull Lewis went up and disarmed him.
The dead and wounded were taken to Tombstone in a ranch wagon, Breakenridge, alone unscathed, riding alongside. Allen and Young soon recovered from their injuries. Hunt, dangerously hurt, was placed in a hospital. Several weeks later, when Hunt was convalescent, Billy Hughes, one of his old San Simon pals, drove up to the hospital in a buggy. He would, he said, take the invalid for a pleasant little ride for his health’s sake. Hunt was helped into the buggy, and the two drove off eastward. They never came back.
Much mystery enveloped Hunt from the time of his escape. A reward was offered for him. Buckskin Frank Leslie took the trail but returned to Tombstone in a day or two, and why this sleuth hound abandoned the pursuit was not known. A posse went out but came back, unable to trail an invalid who had to travel in a buggy, and the perfunctory chase was soon given over.
Billy Hughes and Hunt camped on a sugar-loaf hill above Antelope Springs for a day or two. Then Hughes and Coley Finley took Hunt in a covered spring wagon to Frank Buckles’s ranch in Pole Bridge Canyon in the Chiricahuas. Here Hunt was joined by his brother, Hugh Hunt, who came out from Texas. After Zwing Hunt had recuperated for three weeks at Buckles’s, the two brothers, mounted and with a pack horse, headed south, announcing they were going to Mexico. The next heard of them was when Hugh Hunt rode alone into Camp Price at the southern end of the Chiricahuas and told Lieutenant Clark that Zwing Hunt had been killed by Indians.
When the two brothers arrived at the Point of Mountains at the north end of the Swisshelms, according to Hugh Hunt’s story, Zwing Hunt was fagged out, and they went into camp beside a spring in a canyon. Five Apaches coming through the Narrows between the Chiricahuas and the Swisshelms, saw the smoke of the camp fire and crawled upon the camp. Hugh was cooking breakfast. Zwing was struck in the pit of the stomach by a bullet at the first fire.
“Are you badly hurt?” asked Hugh.
“Never mind me,” answered Zwing. “You fight.”
Zwing rolled over on his breast and with his rifle killed an Indian running toward him just before he himself was killed by a bullet through the head. Hugh leaped on his pony hobbled near camp and escaped with lead singing about his ears. For two miles Hugh rode his pony with the
