Ayoob Files: Lessons From Gunfighter Bud Ballew
Importance of a First Solid Hit
Situation: A fast hand with a sixgun teaches us survival lessons right up to the moment of his own death.
Lesson: Get the first solid hit. Get something between you and incoming fire. And don’t believe your own publicity and get in over your head.
According to one source, “The Dust Bowl era of Oklahoma was still very much the Wild West, and Bud Ballew was its most controversial and effective deputy sheriff. He spent a decade chasing criminals, making daily appearances in newspapers, and proving his determination and finesse with a revolver. Bud Ballew participated in more gun battles than Wyatt Earp and killed more men than Billy the Kid.” (1) Another writer tells us, “Though not as well-known as other Oklahoma lawmen, such as Heck Thomas or Bill Tilghman, Bud Ballew was just as respected as both a gunfighter and lawman.” (2)
Ballew was only 14 years old in 1890 when he left his native Texas and made his way to Oklahoma, settling in Ardmore. Smart and industrious, he soon had his own ranch and some oil leases. Perhaps to scratch an itch for adventure, he accepted when Carter County Sheriff Buck Garrett asked him to become a deputy circa 1913-1914. It was a tough area and the new deputy would soon get an initiation into the scary world of police use of deadly force.
First Gunfight
The town of Wirt in Carter County, also known as Ragtown, was particularly violent. One day, walking foot patrol Ballew saw customers rushing headlong out of a restaurant and, drawing one of the two Colt .45 revolvers he then carried, moved cautiously forward. He found an armed robbery in progress, and one perpetrator, Pete Bynum, 29, ambushed him. A bullet creased Ballew’s abdomen, and he rapidly returned fire, putting a mortally wounded Bynum down for the count. Unfortunately, one of the rookie deputy’s bullets — a miss or a pass-through, we don’t know which — pierced a wall and struck an unseen bystander in the abdomen. Tragically, that wound also proved fatal.
His next shooting took place in 1916. One Arch Campbell, an ex-cop in a personal downward spiral, was terrorizing a barber shop with his revolver. When Ballew and other deputies responded, Campbell opened fire on them, and one of his bullets hit Ballew in the left shoulder and went through the left lung and out his right side. Undaunted, the wounded deputy joined his two brother officers in generating a hail of return fire that killed Campbell. Ballew fully recovered.
Later in the year, Ballew showed early signs of poor anger management when he slapped a judge around on a public street, which cost him his badge for a while. Reinstated, he was assigned to shut down an illegal business belonging to one Steve Talkington, who was out on bond awaiting trial on a murder charge. The angry Talkington yelled to one of his employees, “Get my other gun!” and then turned on Ballew with a semiautomatic pistol in his hand. The deputy’s last two incidents had painfully taught him not to be the last to fire, and he pumped four .45 slugs into Talkington before the latter could shoot. The man collapsed, dying, his spinal cord cut in half: All of Ballew’s bullets had struck home.
1918 found Ballew up against one Rufus Highnote who, nearing 60 years of age, claimed to be something of a freelance crime-fighter and bounty hunter who had killed 20 men. At one point, he was, in fact, a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Highnote was reported to have terrorized at least three citizens at gunpoint, and the sheriff sent Ballew to relieve him of badge and gun. Biographer Elmer McInnes tells us what happened next:
“Highnote suddenly spun around, with his left hand drawing a revolver from one of his two holsters strapped around his waist. Alertly, Ballew crowded close to Highnote, grabbing the man’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger. The shot whizzed past Ballew’s head. Ballew swiftly drew his own revolver as Highnote came up with another cocked .45 in his right hand. Ballew’s gun came into play first as he pumped three bullets into Highnote’s body. The doomed man was dead before he hit the ground. W.A. Richards, one of the first men on the scene following the shooting, reported seeing three revolvers on the dead man.
1919 brought what may have been the most controversial shooting of Ballew’s career. One Dow Braziel, a former bootlegger who had managed to become a deputy U.S. Marshal, was a skilled gunman who had killed at least one adversary in a face-to-face quick-draw contest. He had orchestrated a raid that went badly and resulted in the death of a young policeman Ballew had liked, and for that reason, among others, he and Braziel hated each other. On the day in question, Ballew entered a restaurant of which Braziel was part owner, accompanied by Chief of Police Lesley Segler. As they came through the door, Braziel fired two shots at them, one of which grazed the chief. Ballew drew and emptied his revolver into Braziel, who fell dead. Reporters noted a 100% hit ratio: six hits for six shots, according to some reports, and five out of five, according to others. Given Ballew’s preference for the Colt single action, normally carried with an empty chamber, the latter seems more likely. It was the third time he had shot a man who carried, or formerly carried, a badge.
That same year, Ballew went up against a tough little armed robbery suspect named Rusty Mills. Sheriff Garrett had pulled over an automobile containing Mills and his partner in crime, Charles Thomas. Thomas jumped Garrett, each of those two going for his own gun and simultaneously grabbing the other man’s weapon. They went to the ground, struggling. Mills drew a semiautomatic pistol and circled around them, trying to get an angle to shoot the sheriff without hitting his partner, just as Ballew pulled up in his own vehicle behind them. Mills turned toward Ballew and fired two shots at him.
Mills missed.
Ballew didn’t. He fired a single shot from his revolver, striking Mills in the brain and killing him instantly. He then rushed forward to end the chief’s deadly struggle with Thomas, who by now had fired four shots, all amazingly missing the sheriff, who shouted at Ballew to shoot.
The deputy obliged. He carefully put a .45 slug into Thomas’ face, smashing the outlaw’s jaw. Thomas rolled off the sheriff and fired twice from his downed position; both Garrett and Ballew opened up on him, nailing the would-be cop-killer to the ground and stopping when he dropped his gun. Though riddled with police bullets, Thomas survived to face trial.
1919 was a gunsmoke year for Ballew, including his final fatal shooting. A man named Johnnie Pierce had shot a local lawman named Jake Williams and, before long was captured by Oklahoma City police. Ballew and a still-recovering Williams were sent by train to extradite him. At a stop, Pierce broke and ran. Ballew and William both opened fire, and the running man was brought down by a bullet through the neck that proved fatal.
The Last Gunfight
The toughness of Sheriff Garrett and of Ballew, now his chief deputy, was admired by some but hated by others, and after heated legal debate, both were suddenly, unceremoniously dismissed from their law enforcement duties in 1921.
In a subsequent meeting that devolved from the ouster, someone pulled a gun and started firing, resulting in a hellacious shootout. Struck multiple times in the chest and saved by his concealed steel vest, Ballew returned fire and shot two of his antagonists. Several men were wounded in the melee, but none were killed, though Ballew caught two bullets in the thigh.
Even prior to these events, booze had gotten to Ballew, who was known to get drunk and ride his horse through town, shooting into the sky. After the ouster, his alcohol-fueled behavior became worse, setting the stage for the end of his story.
The Curtain Falls
May of 1922 saw Bud Ballew on a bender of epic proportions in Wichita Falls, Texas. Reports came into the local police of Ballew, sticking his gun in people’s faces, firing his .45 into the ceiling of one establishment, and generally terrorizing the community. According to witnesses, when one acquaintance asked him how he was doing, he yelled back, “All right, Clancy, but I’m awful drunk.”
Though reluctant to jack up a legendary lawman, Police Chief J.W. McCormick knew by this point that he had to do something. Reinforced by two of his men, one of them Chief of Detectives Jack Miller, McCormick formulated a plan. As the chief walked directly toward the drunken ex-cop, each of the others would surreptitiously approach him from 90º angles, ready to grab his arms.
Elmer McInnes relates the event.
“‘Bud, you’re under arrest. Give me your gun,’ the police chief commanded. At this point, Ballew froze. ‘Put up your hands, and I’ll get it myself,’ McCormick said while Miller reached in to find Ballew’s revolver.
“According to the later testimony of McCormick and Miller, at this point, Ballew turned halfway around. ‘Oh no, buddy, you’ve got the wrong man this time,’ a smiling Ballew snarled. ‘You’re out of luck.’ At this time, Ballew reached to his side in an apparent attempt to draw his revolver.
“McCormick either had his S&W .38 in his hand or made a quick draw that beat Ballew. At any rate, before Ballew managed to draw his pistol, McCormick began firing at him. Miller jumped back, his right hand powder-burned by one of the chief’s shots as he reached for Ballew’s gun. Two bullets slammed into Ballew’s chest just above the heart. One shot exited out his back while the other deflected off a rib and lodged just under the skin behind his left shoulder.
“According to McCormick, when Ballew remained on his feet, the thought flashed through the police chief’s mind that his opponent might have been wearing a bullet-proof vest. Aiming the revolver at Ballew’s head, McCormick squeezed the trigger again. The slug entered the right corner of Ballew’s mouth, plowed through his skull and smashed its way out behind his left ear. Though Ballew neglected to don his ‘steel vest’ this time, the shot to the head made that a moot point. As the fatally wounded man finally began to topple to the floor, McCormick fired two more shots at him. These two bullets struck Ballew high up on the left side and emerged from his chest. Bud Ballew fell to the floor beside a domino table, a dead man at the age of 44. Not only had he failed to fire a shot, he had not even drawn his gun.”
On May 16, 1922, a headline in the New York Times announced, “POLICE CHIEF KILLS EIGHT NOTCH GUN MAN: Wichita Falls, Texas, May 5: Former Deputy Sheriff Bud Ballew, noted for numerous gunfights in his career as a peace officer and wounded on one or two occasions, was shot and killed today when the police visited Domino Parlor, where a disturbance had been reported.” The body was flown back to Ardmore — a highly unusual way to transport corpses at that time — and it was reported that thousands of Oklahomans passed Ballew’s coffin to pay their respects.
The Guns Of Bud Ballew
His biographers wrote, “In many ways, Bud Ballew was a man of his time. He had grown up on the cattle ranges of Texas during the 1880s and ’90s when cowboys still rode the backcountry with loaded revolvers on their hips and loaded Winchesters in their scabbards. Throughout his law enforcement career in Carter County, Ballew would favor the Colt .45 rather than the new automatic pistols, which were considered the height of firearms technology.” While Colt .45 double actions had been around for some time in various forms, it is believed that Ballew’s choice was the classic Peacemaker of 1873, the Single Action Army.
The time came when Ballew acquired a double action S&W Hand Ejector in .44 Special, and from then on, he often packed that gun in blue steel with jigged bone stocks. At least one of his Single Actions was a fancy sample, engraved and “silver mounted.” In his early days, he walked patrol in the Ardmore area of Oklahoma with two SAAs, one on each hip. At the time of his death, he was wearing the fancy Colt on one side and the S&W .44 on the other.
Guns didn’t constitute this lawman’s only fancy taste. He was noted for almost always wearing a large diamond tie-tack. He apparently also indulged himself in some practices that we would consider “Hollywood” today. McInnes reported that Ballew’s favorite fancy Colt carried six notches carved in the stocks. Moreover, he cites a contemporary story to the effect that Ballew may have been the only Western lawman who actually “fanned” the hammer of his single-action Colt with his support hand while holding the trigger back with his gun hand. We might wish to take the latter with a grain or more of salt: While that could be consistent with the errant shot that killed an innocent bystander in his first gunfight, it is not at all consistent with the rescue shot to the head he fired into the man who was entangled with his mentor and best friend, Sheriff Garrett.
About that steel vest: Ballew acquired it after his first shooting. Body armor was nothing new: In the 19th Century, the Western hitman Jim “Killer” Miller was known to wear one that saved his life more than once, and it was widely believed that the same was true of Wyatt Earp. Still, Ballew qualifies as an early adopter: He convinced the Sheriff to buy one for each deputy, and the city police bought into the deal, perhaps the first law enforcement agencies to ever buy armor for all their rank-and-file lawmen. He may have preferred revolvers over autos, but he was a forward thinker in other ways. In 1921, Ballew took a flight in a then relatively new airplane and on landing, pronounced it “something the officers need in helping them with their work.” Forward thinking, yes?
Lessons
The one who scores the first telling hit is usually on track to win the gunfight. After his first couple of incidents, Ballew seems to have learned this lesson.
A skilled shooter can make do with a low-capacity handgun … at least sometimes. Ballew wisely made a point of always carrying two revolvers and apparently never needed more than one. However, relatively few Good Guys and Gals are as famously skilled in defensive shooting as Bud Ballew.
When in harm’s way, it is wise to be armored. The primitive vests of that time were uncomfortable and hard to conceal from an opponent. Today’s are much more comfortable and discreetly concealable. Had the fast-handed Ballew been wearing one on his last day on earth, he might have been able to survive the encounter that killed him.
Expect to be harshly judged and even lied about after a shooting. Ballew faced various hassles but was never found legally culpable for any of his shootings. He went through one trial in which the jury found him Not Guilty after only 39 minutes of deliberation. His principal biographer, Elmer McInnes, considers him guilty of murder in the death of Pierce because the latter was an unarmed fleeing felon. Actually, in that time and place — and in many jurisdictions until the restrictions of the Supreme Court of the United States in their Tennessee v. Garner decision in 1985 — it was not unusual for police to use deadly force to stop fleeing felons. Pierce’s death might well have been justifiable even under Garner since Pierce was known to be a violent man whose continued freedom was likely to be a clear and present danger to innocent people.
At least, no one can claim Ballew was a racist. Pierce, an African-American, appears to have been the only non-white man Ballew ever shot. The Ku Klux Klan was at the height of its power in Oklahoma at that time — as evidenced by the contemptible Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 — and Ballew and his sheriff were bitter enemies of the KKK. The latter returned the hatred, and the Klan was very influential in the ouster of Sheriff Garrett and Chief Deputy Ballew.
There was also controversy after Ballew was killed by Chief McCormick. Former sheriff Garrett, Ballew’s mentor and best friend, loudly proclaimed that his former chief deputy had been shot in the back and with at least two different guns. The latter claim came about because the doctor who did the autopsy said one bullet was larger than the others. This grew from the fact that the doc had not removed the projectile for evidence, as would be standard protocol in modern times, but merely noted that the primitive X-ray of the time appeared to show one bullet larger than the others. The bullets that entered the side and out the chest as he was falling may indeed have entered behind the lateral midline when the “shootee’s” body turned rapidly while the shooter was still firing before the shooter could see that the man was going down.
One strong lesson is don’t come across as a badass. In his definitive biography, author McInnes quotes multiple people who believe that Ballew’s ego became so invested in his tough gunfighter image that it ruled his behavior. On his last day alive, Ballew learned that people you’ve made afraid of you are much more likely to kill you than they otherwise would be.
If you can’t hold your liquor, don’t carry a gun. Forgive my language, but some people should wear warning T-shirts that say “Instant Asshole, Just Add Alcohol.” It was his boozed-up bullying, more than anything else, that led to his life ending at age 45.
(1) McInnes, Elmer and McInnes, Lauretta Ritchie, Bud Ballew: Legendary Oklahoma Lawman, TwoDot Books, 2008. (2) From legendsofamerica.com, Bud Ballew – Gunfighter & Lawman of Oklahoma.