Elfego Baca: The man who would not die
Photo: Peter Potrowl. Creative Commons
It was a cool December afternoon when a drunk cowboy by the name of Charlie McCarty shot up the town of Frisco (now Reserve), New Mexico. Riding up and down the main plaza, he blasted storefronts and hotel windows, terrorizing peaceful citizens walking downtown. Something needed to be done. But McCarty had cowboy friends, and most folks were too intimidated by them to interfere. Even the local sheriff was reluctant to step up.
So, when a 19-year-old Hispano lad by the name of Elfego Baca volunteered to disarm the raucous cowboy and take him into custody, no one objected. The sheriff relinquished his own badge and made Baca a deputy.
Risking his life, Baca grabbed the reins of McCarty’s horse, seized his pistol and took him into custody. But, before he could get the now-subdued drunk to jail, McCarty’s cowboy friends arrived, outraged that this young Hispano had the temerity to arrest their Anglo friend. They surrounded Baca and told him to relinquish his prisoner. When Baca refused, they drew their guns.
But they underestimated the New Mexico deputy. Baca drew rapidly and fired twice. He hit one man in the knee while another was thrown from his horse and crushed to death. Baca held the group at bay and escorted his prisoner to the justice of the peace. But the justice, intimidated by the crowd, merely fined McCarty $5 and let him go. Meanwhile, McCarty’s pals surrounded the jail and demanded that Baca be turned over to them for murder. They were joined by at least 40 more cowboys led by ranch foreman Bert Hearne. They formed a lynch mob of 70-80 men, all determined to see this impertinent Hispano hang.
What happened next defies belief. Baca sought refuge in a nearby building owned by his friend, Geronimo Armijo. It was a flimsy jacal made of adobe and wooden poles, with a thatch roof. The crowd of cowboys, ranch hands and ruffians surrounded the house while Hearne ordered Baca to surrender. When he refused, Hearne kicked in the door and was shot in the stomach. There followed volley after volley from Springfield rifles and Colt 45s as the cowboys sought revenge. They fired into the adobe hut throughout the night and into the next afternoon until, finally, they ran out of ammunition. They set fire to the roof and, in a final effort, one cowboy ran up to the shack and tossed a stick of dynamite through the smashed window. He was killed for his efforts.
When they finally retreated, four of the ranch hands were dead and eight wounded, while Baca emerged without a scratch. Luckily, the floor of the jacal was a foot and a half below the ground, and Baca was able to fire up at the Texans and remain protected below. Still, it was something of a miracle that he wasn’t wounded. Four-thousand expended shells were recovered after the fight.
Baca, at the urging of his friend, surrendered to a marshal who had arrived at the scene. He was taken to Socorro and charged with murder. However, when his lawyer produced the door of the hut, with 400 bullet holes in it, the jury acquitted him of all charges, based on self-defense.
Baca was so impressed with his defense attorney that he vowed to pursue a legal career himself. He was as good as his word. After a two-year stint as a marshal in Socorro, he was appointed U.S. marshal, where he served for two years, then left to study law. He was admitted to the Texas Bar Association in 1894 and entered private practice in San Antonio. He was active in politics at both the state and national level, even running for a congressional seat in 1912. He lived to a ripe old age, dying Aug. 27, 1945, shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima.
From 1958 to 1960, Disney released a 10-part serial, “The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca.” It resonated with young Chicanos of the day, reminding them of the courage and tenacity of a man who saw injustice and sought to remedy it, who stood up to a group of racists intent on killing him and not only survived but prospered, through courage and determination.