Dave Rudabaugh, Border Ruffian

Dave Rudabaugh, one of the most intriguing characters of the American Wild West, is known today primarily for his association with Billy the Kid. He and Billy were apprehended on December 23, 1880, by Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett. Rudabaugh was wanted by the law at the time for the killing of Antonio Valdez, a jailer in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In this book, Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola, writing under the pen name F. Stanley, recounts Rudabaugh's life from his birth in Illinois in 1854 to his brutal death in Parral, Mexico, on February 18, 1886. On January 27, 1878, Rudabaugh with five armed companions held up the train at Kinsley, Kansas. Train robbing was still a rare and shocking crime. The "sensational" Kinsley Train Robbery, as it was reported in the newspapers, was a fiasco - the robbery was so badly carried out that the "take" was nothing. After he was caught, Rudabaugh confessed and turned "state's evidence." Asked to leave Kansas after the trial, Rudabaugh travelled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and became a city policeman. His commitment to the enforcement side of the law lasted only 18 months. On August 14, 1879, Rudabaugh with two other Las Vegas policemen robbed the Tecolote stage four miles south of Las Vegas. Three innocent men were convicted of their crime. On April 2, 1880, Rudabaugh and John J. Allen were visiting a friend in the Las Vegas jail when Allen shot and killed jailer Antonio Valdez. Both men fled after the shooting and were not caught by the posse that vigorously pursued them. It was while on the run from that killing that Rudabaugh joined up with Billy the Kid. Stanley details what happened to Rudabaugh after he was captured with Billy; his trial, conviction, and sentencing to death for Valdez's killing; and his fortuitous escape. He describes the events that led to Rudabaugh's death and gristly beheading in Parral. The book includes two pictures of Rudabaugh's severed head. This is an updated, annotated edition of Stanley's original publication with much added information, three new Appendices, and an index.