Faith in an old superstition regarding the effects of delirium tremens led the mountain folks to believe Ringo had taken off his boots under the hallucination that there were snakes in them. It seemed more probable that, sick and exhausted, he had removed his boots and tied them to his saddle before stretching out on the ground for a nap. While he slept, his horse doubtless had been frightened, broken its rope, and galloped away. Awaking to find horse and boots gone and forced now to travel on foot, Ringo evidently had used the torn pieces of his undershirt to protect his feet against stones and cactus. The cartridge belt on upside down was evidence of Ringo’s distracted state of mind.
Soon after Ringo’s death, a rumour became rife in Tombstone that Frank Leslie had murdered him. The story may have had its origin merely in Leslie’s reputation as a heartless killer. Or in the fact that Leslie followed Ringo out of town. Or in a statement credited to Billy Claibourne. But it was believed that Leslie had boasted of the deed. Such braggadocio would have been very dangerous; confessed murderers were going over the road to Yuma even in those lawless times. Old-timers can remember no such boasts. If Leslie ever said he killed Ringo, he must have made the statement in whispered confidence only to his closest friends. Leslie had no cause to kill Ringo, as far as anyone knew. No one had ever heard of any quarrel between them. To all appearances, the two men were friends. The manner of Ringo’s death seemed to preclude the possibility of Leslie’s having killed him. It is certain Ringo met death while sitting in the forks of the tree. The spattered brains proved that beyond question. And the single empty chamber in Ringo’s six-shooter seemed to prove that he had killed himself. But the story that Leslie murdered him remained definite and insistent. It passed into tradition, and most people in that country believe it implicitly today.
Despite the evidence of suicide, Henry Smith and his mother, who were the first to see Ringo’s body after Jim Morgan had discovered it, recall two details of the tragedy that are difficult to explain.
“I found no traces of powder burns around the wound in Ringo’s temple, though I looked carefully for them,” said Henry Smith. “If Ringo had shot himself, holding the muzzle of his gun against his head, the flesh around the wound would have been flame-burned and black with powder. Then the pieces of undershirt wrapped about Ringo’s feet were as clean as if he had just removed the shirt from his body. There was no mud—hardly any dirt—on them. There had been a hard early-morning thunderstorm in the canyon on the day we heard the shot that killed Ringo. It had left the ground very muddy. If Ringo had walked any distance to the oak tree, the foot bandages would have been soaked and coated with mud. Bill Knott, my brother-in-law, who was on the coroner’s jury and is still living, also declares the foot wrappings were clean, and there were no powder burns around the wound. He says the verdict of suicide was returned as the easiest and quickest way out of the affair. The jurors didn’t want to lose time in a long coroner’s investigation.”
Mrs. Smith corroborated her son’s story.
“I have never believed Ringo committed suicide,” said the venerable woman.
Bill Sanders’s story seemed to lend colour to the theory that Leslie killed Ringo. The point in the trail where Sanders said he met Leslie riding hard to overtake Ringo was only twelve miles or so from where Ringo was found dead.
However, only by an involved ratiocination can it be figured out how Leslie possibly could have killed Ringo. Leslie might have encountered Ringo just as Ringo had wrapped his feet in the fragments of undershirt. Leslie might have taken Ringo behind him on horseback to the oak tree. So the foot bandages would have remained free from mud or dirt. Once seated in the oak tree, Ringo might have fallen into a drunken stupor. Then Leslie might have killed him with Ringo’s own six-shooter without holding the weapon close enough to leave powder burns.
It seems ridiculous to imagine the tragedy occurred in this way. But before dismissing such a possible explanation as utterly absurd, it may be well to wait a while. Crimes are not always to be solved by logical deduction. Impossibilities have a queer way of changing into facts.
“The Widow Patterson,” said Henry Smith, “was convinced that John Ringo’s ghost haunted her home at Myers Cienega. She got so she wouldn’t go in a dark room alone for fear of seeing Ringo. When she’d drive over to spend the day with my mother, she’d tell how she’d seen Ringo standing in some dark corner and looking at her out of his black eyes so sorrowfully she had to weep. Almost every night she said she heard Ringo rummaging among the shelves of her kitchen pantry, still looking for whisky. When my mother would suggest rats, Widow Patterson would become indignant. ‘Rats nothing,’ she would say. ‘It’s John Ringo’s ghost.’
“For years there have been stories in the canyon that Ringo’s ghost was often seen under the live oak tree where he was killed and where he lies buried. Some people are
