Gunfighter Clay Allison

 

Clay Allison amused himself shooting up small towns and dancehalls, and 
making gentlemen dance barefoot to the accompaniement of his bullets

Clay Allison’s “trigger finger was the busiest in the early 80s,” wrote the Albuquerque Morning Journal. “His record was twenty-one dead men, whose graves were scattered from Dodge City to Santa Fe.”

The article said, “Clay spent his time amusing himself shooting up small towns and dance halls, and making gentlemen dance barefoot to the accompaniment of his bullets.”

One of Allison’s first kills was a desperado named Chunk. They met up at Red River Station in New Mexico on January 7, 1874. Chunk was out to get Allison because Clay had killed his uncle.

The two men sat on opposite sides of the dinner table, each man itching for an opportunity to draw. Chunk made the first move. He dropped his knife on the floor and reached below the table to grab it. Allison didn’t miss a beat—he pulled his pistol and let Chunk have it—right between the eyes. The Evening Star said, “A little red spot between Chunk’s eye showed where the bullet had entered, and the man, swaying from side to side, bent gradually over and soon was perfectly still, with his face buried in the dish.”

Witnesses said Allison went on with his dinner as if nothing had happened. When he finished eating, he walked out, mounted his horse, and rode away.

Marshal Sam Durnin, of Pecos County, Texas, learned a lesson he’d never forget. Clay Allison was loyal to his friends—dead or alive.

Durnin killed one of Allison’s friends in a “honakatonk” melee. When Clay learned about it, he vowed to show the marshal a thing or two. Two months later, things came to a head in Curt Munson’s saloon. Durnin wasn’t taking any chances. He hid in a back room of the saloon for a full half-hour, keeping Allison covered with his Winchester. Finally, Durnin walked up to Allison and pointed a .45 at his heart when he couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

Clay Allison dragged Marshal Durnin from behind by both ears, knned him forward
and out of the saloon, and prodded him through the streets of Durango

“Like the dab of a cat’s paw, Allison reached out and caught the wrist of Durnin’s hand that held the gun. A man of bull’s strength, he leaped over the table and twisted that wrist of Durnin’s until the marshal had to drop the gun to the floor and gasp with pain.”

Allison kicked the gun out of the marshal’s reach as he snatched his other gun out of its holster. “Then Allison put his knee in the small of the helpless marshal’s back, grabbed him from behind by both ears, kneed him forward and out of the saloon, and in that way, he prodded Marshal Sam Durnin, a bad man himself, all over the streets of Durango.”

The Washington Evening Star said Durnin survived the night, but the humiliation he suffered that day dogged him for the remainder of his life.

Another time in Las Animas, Allison was drunk and whirling his revolver around his finger at a dancehall. For one reason or another, he got a bug up his butt and screamed for everyone to take their hats off. Most men complied, knowing Allison’s reputation for being a homicidal maniac when drinking.

Deputy Marshal Mace Bowman wasn’t in the mood to give in so easily. He told Clay, “All the Allisons in Tennessee couldn’t make him take his hat off.”

Things got so quiet after that; you could’ve heard a mouse fart. Allison sipped his whisky as the crowd edged away.

“Let’s lay our guns on the bar and take our places across the room,” Allison challenged Mace. “At the word, each man goes for his gun. The one that doesn’t get there first is out of luck.”

They laid their revolvers on the bar with muzzles crossed.

At the word “Bowman sprang across the room like a panther,” said the report in the Yorkville Enquirer. Allison found the muzzles of both revolvers in his face.

“How do you like the color of it?” asked Bowman.

Clay Allison played the Mexican, giving Pancho plenty of time to think he
could make his move. Seconds later, Allison reached for his guns. Two shots rang out.

“It’s all right, Mace,” said Allison, throwing up his hands. “You’re the best man.”

That was the end of it. Both men had another drink and walked away.

Like most Western badmen, many good things and many bad things were said about Clay Allison—most of them published after his death, so he had no say in setting the record straight.

New Mexico cattleman Frank Councelle said Clay Allison was “one of the worst men that ever saddled a cayuse in the Pecos country of Texas.” The Yorkville Enquirer took Allison’s side, writing, “There was a long list of casualties to Clay Allison’s pistol, but they all occurred in face-to-face encounters, with no working up of the drop or any unfair advantage on his part.”

By all accounts, Allison was a good-hearted man, a steady friend, and a homicidal drunk. Smart men—who wanted to live, would steer clear of Allison when he was on a bender.

On election day in Cimarron, Allison hung around the polls all day. When the polls closed, he began drinking with a group of fellows at Lambert’s barroom. Allison pulled his revolver and bashed a man named Caton over the head. “No explanations were asked or offered.” The man carried out was a bloody mess.

In 1878, Allison took down a Mexican named Pancho in the same bar. The two men stood in a corner. Pancho held his sombrero in his hand in front of him while he talked to Allison. While he talked, Pancho was inching his hand down towards his pistol. Allison played the Mexican, giving Pancho plenty of time to think he could make his move. Seconds later, Allison reached for his guns. Two shots rang out. The lights in the barroom went dark during the fight and were never relit. Allison was seen to get on his horse and ride away. Everyone else headed home.

When Lambert arrived at the bar the following day, he noticed Pancho asleep in a chair. Or, at least, he thought he was asleep. But when he tried to wake him, Lambert discovered the Mexican was dead—with one bullet in his head and another bullet in his heart.

Another man said to have met his maker at the muzzle of Clay Allison’s revolver was Charles Faber, a city marshal of Las Animas. The marshal dropped Allison’s brother with a shotgun, and before he could make his getaway, Clay let him have it. And, as if he hadn’t made his point by killing the man, he dragged the dead body over to where his brother lay bleeding and told him, “Here’s the fellow that shot you.”

As he aged, Allison became more philosophical. The Anaconda Standard said he met an old enemy in town, and rather than take off shooting, they drank and talked about politics and cattle as they toasted each other. Then, finally, the conversation turned to baptism. Although Allison said he favored sprinkling, the other man insisted immersion was the best method to be saved. Then he called Allison some names and reached for his pistol.

For most of his life, Clay Allison lived by the gun, driven by liquor to gunplay,
misdeeds and murder

“Perhaps Allison was not posted on theological questions,” said the reporter, but he “was adept with a .45, and he killed his antagonist before he had his gun in a position to shoot.”

Not long after that incident, Allison found religion of a sort.

He married the widow McSwayne, who had a large spread about twenty miles outside Cimarron. He gave up drink and gunplay and became a respectable cattleman from then on.

Newspaper accounts after that talk about his business acumen and how he held out for this or that price. The word is he soon had a herd of over ten thousand cattle, making him one of the wealthiest ranchers thereabouts.

Clay Allison died four or five years later after falling from a freighter’s six-mule wagon. The wheels passed over his head and crushed the life out of him.

 For most of his life, Clay Allison lived by the gun, driven by liquor to gunplay, misdeeds, and murder. When he was free of the drink, he was the good-humored friend everyone wanted to be around. But after he had a few drinks in him, Allison transformed into a demon—sometimes playful, more often deadly.

The St. John’s Herald pegged Allison best when they quipped, “Clay was a good friend and a bad enemy.”

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