My connection continued

There is an old saying that in Wyoming, you are only one person away from knowing everyone in the whole state.  This brings me to my brief story about my connection with the old west.  There was a gentleman by the name of Tom Horn.  Tom was the last man hung in Wyoming in 1903.

Tom Horn

Tom was a cowboy, US Army scout, and a stock detective.  There have been many books written about him (Blood On the Moon by Chip Carlson is one of the most recent).  There have also been two different movies with Steve McQueen and David Carradine playing the part of Tom.

Geronimo

Tom, according to his autobiography, Life of Tom Horn, government scout & interpreter Written by himself, University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN: 0-8061-1044-9, was the man who convinced Geronimo to surrender to the US Army.  To the day he died, he felt Geronimo was a great man.  Tom stopped the cattle rustling in Wyoming.  It is rumored that he was on the search party that chased Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as depicted in the movie of the same name.  Tom was hung for the murder of young Willie Nickell.  To this day people will argue over his guilt.  One thing is for sure, justice was done.

When Tom was hung, he was allowed to have a person of his choice stand next to him.  He chose T. Joe Cahill, the Laramie County clerk, a young manin his 20's.  The last words spoken by Tom were to T.Joe.

As a young stock boy, clerk and delivery boy, working at Hoy's Drug and Dairy in Cheyenne, I had an opportunity to meet most of the customers.  I even delivered prescriptions to people who were not able to get to the store.  I also delivered groceries.  I will never forget the elderly gentleman that everybody loved.  That friendly man was T. Joe.  T.Joe Cahill died in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1968.

Tom is buried next to his brother in the Columbine Cemetery here in Boulder.  Twice a year I put flowers on his grave.  Every Memorial Day and every Veterans Day there is a small American flag next to his head stone.