Chimney Wells Roundup
Elzy Lay vs. Cicero Stewart's Posse
By: Bob Boze Bell 09/01/2008
August 14, 1899
Near dusk, two members of the Wild Bunch, Will Carver and Elzy Lay, ride into Virgil Lusk’s cow camp near Chimney Wells, New Mexico, and inquire if Lusk has seen some stray horses in the area.
Cowman Lusk tells them he has seen strays on his range. (He keeps to himself his strong suspicion that these strays were turned loose by horse thieves.) Since it is too dark to look for the horses, Lusk invites the two strangers to overnight at his camp. The outlaws beg off, telling of a suitable camp nearby. They do accept an invite to join the crew in the morning for biscuits and hot coffee.
After the two men ride off, Lusk dispatches his oldest son John to inform the sheriff about the visitors.
Riding to town under the cover of darkness and at a full gallop, John reins up at Eddy County Sheriff Cicero Stewart’s office and tells him two heavily armed strangers are camped near Chimney Wells and that his father thinks they are wanted outlaws.
Stewart deputizes two locals, Rufus “Rufe” Thomas and cowman John D. Cantrell, and the three head for Chimney Wells, arriving at the Lusk cow camp around four in the morning of August 15. Hobbling their horses out of sight in an arroyo, the trio throws tarps over the saddles. Each one takes up supine positions where they can keep an eye on the Lusk cook tent.
Not long after sunrise, one of the outlaws rides out of a distant arroyo, ambling toward breakfast. It’s Elzy Lay. Will Carver allegedly watches from a ridge with binoculars, while a third outlaw, Tom Capehart, has been sent into Carlsbad for supplies.
Leaving his rifle in the scabbard, Lay dismounts and enters the cook tent where he is served breakfast. As he gobbles his food, he hears approaching boots coming at a run. Lay apprises the situation in a flash; he jerks his pistol as he turns to Lusk and screams, “Did you do this?” properly guessing Lusk must have informed the authorities.
Firing as he lunges out of the tent flap, Lay’s bullet hits Lusk in the wrist. Outside, the lawmen all point their weapons at the outlaw and demand his surrender. Running to the far side of the tent, Lay opens fire, hitting Rufe Thomas’s outstretched left arm, with the shot coming out near the armpit and entering under the shoulder blade.
Sheriff Stewart returns fire and the outlaw drops, as if shot (although not actually hit; the outlaw later claimed one of Stewart’s rifle bullets passed so close to his head “as to stun him for a moment”).
Running up to Lay’s position, the lawmen disarm Lay. As they search him, the outlaw slugs the sheriff and tries to grab his pistol out of his scabbard. But the tough sheriff slaps leather, grabbing his own pistol and bringing the barrel down on Lay’s head, knocking him temporarily unconscious to the ground.
The wily outlaw is literally run to ground, but his story is long from over.
Comments (1)
Is the previously mentioned Tom Capehart the same Capehart who was shot by a posse which later claimed that he was really Harvey Logan, deadly killer of the Wild Bunch? Also, was the Capehart who was gunned down by the posse conclusively identified as Harvey Logan?
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