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| Luke Short stuck the muzzle of his pistol against Charlie Storm's heart and pulled the trigger. He pulled the trigger again, and Storms fell to the ground. |
“Luke Short was a little fellow, so to speak,” said Bat
Masterson. He was “about five feet six inches in height, and weighing in the
neighborhood of one hundred and forty pounds.” And he was nothing more than “a
white Indian.”
The
Omaha Daily Bee said Short was a
scout for General Crook’s cavalry in 1876 and 1877 during his Black Hills
campaign. He was chased by fifteen Sioux on one mission and single-handedly
killed five of them while escaping. As the
Indians chased him, “Short returned their fire and dropped the three
foremost in quick succession with as many bullets.” Two Indians raced after him.
“Deliberately checking his horse’s pace, Short turned in his saddle and dropped
the two Indians one after the other.”
That
was the beginning of his legend.
In
1878, he killed two noted horse thieves over a game of Spanish Monte. After
they lost all their money to Short, the gamblers demanded Short give it back.
When he refused, they pulled their guns. “Short was too quick for them,” reported
the Omaha Daily Bee. Both men dropped
to the ground—dead, without a chance to pull the trigger.
On
Friday, February 21, 1881, Luke Short got
into a gunfight at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona.
Short
was sitting lookout at the Faro table when Charlie Storms burst in with a mean drunk on. Witnesses said Charlie was itching
for a fight. He started out by abusing Lou Rickabaugh, the owner of the saloon.
After Rickabaugh slipped out a side door to escape Storms’ harassment, Storms
turned his attention to Luke Short.
 |
| The men in Luke Short's party read like a lundry list of characters from 1940s and 1950s B-movies |
Bat Masterson, who was good friends with both men, was there that night. When Storms challenged Short, Masterson said, “I jumped between them and grabbed Storms, at the same time requesting Luke not to shoot.” After that, Masterson walked Storms to the street and told him to sleep it off.
It
should have ended there, but...
“I was just explaining to Luke,” said
Masterson, “that Storms was a very decent sort of man when, lo-and-behold! There he stood
before us, without saying a word, he took hold of Luke’s arm and pulled him off
the sidewalk, where he had been standing, at the same time pulling his pistol,
a Colt’s cut-off, 45 caliber, single-action; but like the Leadvillian, he was
too slow, although he succeeded in getting his pistol out. Luke stuck
the muzzle of his pistol against Storm’s heart and pulled the trigger. The
bullet tore the heart asunder and, as he was falling, Luke shot him again.
Storms was dead when he hit the ground.”
Short was
arrested and later acquitted. The shooting was ruled self-defense.
In
1883, Short operated the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City. One of his rivals,
W. H. Harris, convinced the city council to pass certain restrictions on
gambling houses. Short’s problem was that they only
enforced the restrictions against the Long Branch, not against anyone
else. It didn’t take Short long to see how the wind was blowing. He closed the
Long Branch and headed off to Kansas
City.
Jim Courtwright took offense at something Luke Short said and pull his gun. Short
pulled his pistol and began shooting. When the shooting was done, Courtwright had
three bulletts in him.
If
Harris thought he’d outfoxed Short, he soon discovered that wasn’t the case.
Within days of his arrival in Kansas City, newspapers reported Short was
plotting his return to Dodge City. The Wheeling
Daily Intelligencer (WV) reported Short was assembling a band of “eight
men: a greater portion of them are said to be the most desperate characters in
the west.” The men in Short’s party read like a laundry list of characters from
the 1940s and 1950s B-westerns—Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Earp, Virgil
Earp, Doc Holliday, Curly Bill, Shotgun Collins, and Charlie Bassett.
Within
three weeks of leaving Dodge City, Short and his crew reopened the Long Branch.
This time, business flourished, and no one dared to challenge him. After that,
Luke Short ran Dodge City from the barrel of a Winchester. He was the victor of
the “so-called” Dodge City War.
Short
shot and killed Jim Courtwright outside the White Elephant Saloon a few minutes
past 8 p.m. on February 10, 1887.
Officer
“Bony” Tucker said he first learned about the fight when a man approached him
and asked to borrow a gun. He said, “There was going to be trouble between Jim
Courtwright and Luke Short.” Before he could say anything else, shots rang out.
“We
[Tucker and his brother] ran toward the firing, and about the time John
Stewart’s corner was reached, another shot was
heard. Two more reports were heard
in quick succession, and then a fifth and the last just as I came upon Luke
Short...Fearing that he might shoot me in the excitement of the moment, I
dodged around him and grabbed his pistol. It was a Colt’s 45-caliber.”
Jim
Courtwright lay dying on the street corner, still grasping a “gun in one hand,
a ’45.’ The chambers were full of cartridges showing that he failed to get in a
shot.” A later examination showed that the cylinder failed to revolve.
Luke Short's Spanish Monte gunfight
The paper said, Courtwright “was as quick, too, as lightning. It was singular then that he failed to fire his revolver at all, and it is owing beyond a doubt to the failure of his gun to operate smoothly that the tragedy was not a double one.”
When
questioned, Short said he was talking to Courtwright and Jake Johnson outside
the White Elephant Saloon. Courtwright
took offense at something he said and “immediately put his hand to his
hip-pocket and pulled his [gun]. When I saw him do that, I pulled my pistol
from my hip-pocket, too, and began shooting.” Courtwright had three bullets in
him. One through his heart, another through his shoulder, and the third broke
his right thumb.
At
the trial, Jake Johnson, the only witness to the shooting and a good friend to
both men, testified that Courtwright drew first. The shooting was ruled
self-defense.
Luke
Short’s next gunfight took place at the Bank Saloon
in Fort Worth on December 23, 1890.
Short strode into the Bank Saloon about 9:30. He grabbed a colored porter
and forced him to walk ahead of him, using him as a shield while he made his
way through the building. When he reached the gambling room, Short showed his
revolver and commanded everyone to “skin out of here.”
As “Luke Short stepped out in the hall, and had
only proceeded a half-dozen steps when the shooting took place.” Witness, Louie
De Mouche, “saw a hand extended through the door, instantly followed by the
discharge of Short’s pistol.” Then, a shotgun blast crashed through the window.
Short took a buckshot wound in his hip; that
tore through some of the outside muscles. Several of his fingers were badly
injured, and his thumb was torn off at the joint.
Deputy Marshal
Ben Evans arrested Charlie Wright at his saloon. Short’s bullet tore through the flesh of his wrist.
When questioned, Short said, “I don’t want to
say much about the shooting.” When asked why he fired, Short responded, “Somebody
[Louis De Mouche] pulled me around just in time to see the gun go off. I do not
know who held it or who did the shooting.”
Charlie Wright fed the authorities the same
story. “I do not want to talk about the affair. I do not know who did the
shooting. When asked, “How did you get your wrist hurt?” He said, “I don’t
remember exactly. You see, I was a little excited.”
Both men were released later that evening after
posting a $1000 bond. When the affair came to trial, Wright testified, “He shot
first, but that he did so because of fear from being shot by Short.” Luke Short
was charged with aggravated assault and fined $150.
The Fort
Worth Daily Gazette made it seem like the public was cheated by not being
presented with a dead body. The paper said, “Short and (Charlie) Wright are men
of desperate nerve. It was expected, though, that when they did come together, there would be a case for the
undertaker.”
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Luke Short
died in bed. He succumbed to consumption in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 20,
1893, at 39.
Bat Masterson summed up Short’s life and death,
saying because he was “quickest at the critical moment,” he lived long enough
to die in bed. “When the time came for Luke Short to pass out of this life—to
render up the ghost as it were—he was able to lie down in bed in a home that
was his own, surrounded by wife and friends, and peacefully await the coming
end.”
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