The Life and Adventures of Nat Love: Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"Love, Nat
History
The Life and Adventures of Nat Love: Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick"
Love, Nat
African American cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- Biography; Cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- Biography; Love, Nat, 1854-1921; West (U.S.) -- Biography
We had a small herd of horses to take to Dodge City, where we arrived
after an uneventful trip, and after disposing of the horses we started
out to do the town as usual. But in this we met an unexpected snag. Our
bookkeeper, Jack Zimick, got into a poker game and lost all the money he
had to pay the cowboys off with, which amounted to about two thousand
dollars, and also about the same amount of the boss' money. The boys had
about one and a half years' wages coming to them, and consequently they
were in a rather bad humor when they heard this bit of news. They at
once got after Zimick so hard that he took me and went to Kinsely, Kas.,
where Mr. Gorman was. Arriving there he went to the Smith saloon to get
a room, as Smith ran a rooming house over his saloon, and it was the
custom for all the cattle men to make it their headquarters when in the
city. Here he met Mr. Gorman, and we were sitting around the room and
Zimick had only told Mr. Gorman a few things, when all of a sudden
Zimick drew his 45 colt revolver remarking as he did so, "Here is the
last of Jack Zimick." He placed the gun to his head and before we could
reach him he pulled the trigger, and his brains were scattered all over
the room.
They arrested Mr. Gorman and myself and held up for a short time until
things could be explained. Mr. Gorman was very much overcome by the act,
as Jack was one of his best men, and had been with him a long time. Mr.
Gorman had the body sent to Zimick's friends in Boston, and he
personally paid off all the boys, taking the money out of his own pocket
to do so, but when the boys heard of Jack's rash deed they said they
would rather have lost every dollar they had, rather than have had Jack
kill himself, as he was a favorite among all the cowboys, especially so
among those in Mr. Gorman's employ. Zimick had been in the employ of
Gorman and company for over ten years and he was Mr. Gorman's right hand
man, and this was the first time he ever went wrong. Jack did not have
the nerve to face his comrades again, and so I suppose he concluded that
his colt 45 was the only friend he had to help him out of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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