In the fall of 1880, Tombstone, Arizona Territory, was a town where the line between lawman and outlaw often blurred, and where a single gunshot could decide a man’s fate. On the evening of October 28, a drunken commotion broke out in a dimly lit vacant area between Toughnut and Allen Streets, near where the Bird Cage Theater would later stand. Several of Curly Bill Brocius’s friends had fired their pistols into the air, and Tombstone’s Town Marshal, Fred White, moved in to disarm the notorious outlaw leader. White grabbed Brocius’s weapon by the barrel.
The gun discharged, striking White in the groin. Wyatt Earp, who had borrowed a pistol from Wells Fargo agent Fred Dodge, pistol-whipped Brocius and arrested him. At the preliminary hearing, Wyatt testified that he heard White say, “I am an officer, give me your pistol,” as he approached. He saw Brocius draw his pistol from its holster, and White grab it by the barrel.
When the gun went off, White fell wounded, and Wyatt subdued Brocius, who complained, “What have I done? I have not done anything to be arrested for. ”
White was carried to a doctor and initially seemed likely to recover. The next day he gave a statement exonerating Brocius of murder.
But that night his condition worsened. Brocius claimed the gun had discharged accidentally and reportedly said he regretted shooting White. Fearing a lynching, given White’s popularity as town marshal, Brocius waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was transported to Tucson by Pima County Deputy Sheriff Earp and George Collins. White died two days after being shot.
In his final moments, he testified that he believed the pistol had accidentally discharged and that Brocius had not shot him on purpose. Wyatt Earp supported this testimony, as did a demonstration showing the pistol could fire from half-cock. The gun was found to contain six rounds, with only one fired. After spending most of November and December in jail, Brocius was acquitted with a verdict of accidental death.
Many years later, Wyatt told his biographer, John H. Flood Jr. , that he believed Brocius had been unarmed at the time and had not noticed his pistol lying on the ground in the dark until Brocius was already down. Despite being responsible for the deaths of several other men in his life, Brocius had apparently personally liked White and always insisted his death had been a tragic accident.
William Brocius, better known as Curly Bill, was an American gunman, rustler, and outlaw cowboy who operated in the Cochise County area of Arizona Territory during the late 1870s and early 1880s. He arrived from either Texas or Missouri around 1878, after briefly visiting the San Carlos Reservation while herding cattle. Contemporary author Billy Breakenridge, in his book Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, described Brocius as the most deadly pistol shot of the Cowboys, able to hit running jackrabbits, shoot out candle flames without breaking the candles or lantern holders, and shoot quarters from between the fingers of volunteers when drunk. He was known for a mean sense of humor and practical jokes, such as using gunfire to make a preacher dance during a sermon, or forcing Mexicans at a community dance to strip and dance naked, both incidents reported by Wells Fargo agent Fred Dodge in his memoirs and referenced in newspapers of the era.
For a period, Brocius also served as a tax collector for Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, compelling other rustlers to pay taxes on their ill-gotten cattle, with the proceeds going into the sheriff’s treasury. On March 8, 1881, Brocius and his friend Johnny Ringo rode to Maxey, near Camp Thomas, Arizona. Cowboy Dick Lloyd, drunk and playing poker in O’Neal and Franklin’s Saloon, shot and wounded a man, then rode his horse into the saloon where Brocius was drinking. Brocius and several others resented the interruption, and about a dozen of them, including Brocius, shot Lloyd.
Owner O’Neil took the blame and was acquitted. On May 25, 1881, Brocius was drinking heavily in Gayville with his friend Jim Wallace, a seasoned veteran of the Lincoln County War, and several other cowboys. Trouble brewed when Wallace insulted Brocius’s comrade, Deputy Marshal Billy Breakenridge of Tombstone. Breakenridge ignored him, but Brocius took offense and insisted Wallace accompany him to apologize.
Though Wallace complied, Brocius continued to berate him. Wallace left the saloon, and Brocius pursued him. Feeling threatened, Wallace fired, striking Brocius in the cheek and neck. Breakenridge intervened and apprehended Wallace, but the court determined Wallace had acted in self-defense.
In July 1881, Bill Leonard and Harry Head attempted to rob a general store in Hachita, New Mexico, and were shot by the Haslett brothers. Some modern researchers state that Brocius and Johnny Ringo rode to New Mexico to avenge their friends’ deaths, but no eyewitnesses could corroborate the events or establish Brocius’s direct involvement in the Hasletts’ demise. Four months after being shot, on October 6, 1881, George Parsons, part of an Indian scouting party, rode through the McLaury Brothers Ranch in Sulphur Springs Valley. He noted that Brocius had not completely recuperated from his injury but was well enough to ride.
This led many historians to suspect Brocius had been involved in the Haslett killings in July. Some reports also say Brocius ambushed a Mexican trail herd in what became known as the Skeleton Canyon Massacre, in which six men lost their lives and surviving members were taken captive and possibly tortured before meeting their demise. Allegedly, Curly Bill sold the stolen Mexican beef to Newman Hayes Clanton. Ironically, when old man Clanton and four others were herding the stolen beef along the trail to Tombstone, they were ambushed in what is now called the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre, killed by Mexican assailants.
However, no credible reports confirmed Brocius’s direct involvement in these incidents, and he was still recovering from being shot in the face by Wallace only six weeks earlier. After the gunfight at the O. K. Corral on October 26, 1881, Brocius robbed the Tombstone-Bisbee stagecoach on January 6, 1882, and the Tombstone-Benson stage the next day.
Deputy U. S. Marshal Wyatt Earp organized a posse to pursue the culprits, but their search in the Chiricahua Mountains proved fruitless. Brocius reappeared in Tombstone on March 17.
He was implicated by Marietta Duarte, the wife of Pete Spence, as a participant in the assassination of Morgan Earp. However, Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer rejected her testimony as hearsay, and because she could not testify against her husband, the prosecution dropped all charges against the cowboys. On March 20, 1882, Deputy U. S.
Marshal Wyatt Earp shot and killed outlaw cowboy Frank Stilwell in Tucson while guarding his brother Virgil, who was on route to California. On March 24, 1882, the Earp party expected to meet Charlie Smith at Iron Springs, later known as Mescal Springs, in the Whetstone Mountains. Smith was bringing cash from Tombstone, about twenty miles to the east, to help pay posse expenses. As they surmounted the edge of a wash near the springs, they stumbled upon Brocius’s pony deal: Johnny Barnes, Frank Patterson, Milt Hicks, Bill Hicks, Bill Johnson, Ed Lyle, and Johnny Lyle, all cooking a meal alongside the spring.
According to Wyatt Earp’s account and an anonymous report submitted to the Tombstone Epitaph, he led the posse as they stumbled upon the cowboys’ camp. From less than thirty feet behind an embankment, the cowboys opened fire just as Earp dismounted. They initially believed they had hit him, but they had struck his saddle horn instead. Texas Jack Vermillion, whose horse fell victim to the gunfire, remained composed and closely shadowed Wyatt during the ensuing firefight.
Doc Holliday, Johnson, and McMaster returned fire and sought refuge. Warren Earp was away on an errand at the time. Eighteen months earlier, Wyatt Earp had protected Brocius against a mob ready to lynch him for killing Town Marshal Fred White, and he had provided testimony that spared Brocius from a murder conviction. Now Brocius aimed his shotgun at Earp from about fifty feet but missed.
In retaliation, Earp returned fire over his horse, using a twenty-two-inch, ten-gauge shotgun, fatally striking Brocius in the stomach with a blast of buckshot that nearly severed him in two. Brocius collapsed at the water’s edge by the spring. The cowboys unleashed a volley of shots at the Earp party, but the lawmen’s fire was so intense that those cowboys who could left. Bullets punctured both sides of Earp’s long coat, with one striking his boot heel and another grazing his saddle horn, scorching the saddle hide and narrowly missing him.
Engaging his pistol, Earp shot Johnny Barnes in the chest and Milt Hicks in the arm. Vermillion tried to retrieve his rifle wedged in the scabbard under his fallen horse, exposing himself to the cowboys’ gunfire, and Doc Holliday helped him gain cover. Earp had trouble remounting his horse due to a cartridge belt that had slipped down his legs but finally got on and retreated. McMaster was grazed by a bullet that cut through the straps of his field glasses.
Earp’s biographer John Flood wrote that the cowboys interred Brocius’s remains on Frank Patterson’s nearby ranch, located along the Babocomari River, close to the original McLaury Ranch site about five miles west of Fairbank, before the McLaurys moved to Sulphur Springs Valley in late 1880. Brocius’s grave site has never been identified. Fred J. Dodge, an undercover agent employed by Wells Fargo in Tombstone, conducted inquiries into Brocius’s demise.
In his account, he mentioned conversing with J. B. Ayers, a saloon proprietor in Charleston, a locale frequented by outlaws and rustlers. Ayers relayed that individuals present during the encounter had told him Curly Bill met his end at the hands of Wyatt Earp.
They purportedly removed Brocius’s lifeless body that very night and laid him to rest on Patterson’s Ranch along the Babocomari. The Tombstone Nugget first put up a $1,000 reward for proof Curly Bill lived, and the Tombstone Epitaph countered with a $2,000 reward. Neither was ever collected. Brocius was not a wanted man in the eyes of Arizona law enforcement, and if he was not dead, he had no reason to disappear.
Returning to Texas, where according to Wyatt Earp’s recollection he may still have faced murder charges, seemed highly improbable. Because of his nickname, Curly Bill Brocius has been confused with Curly Bill Graham, a different outlaw of the same geographical region and time period. Graham was killed in a gunfight by Deputy Sheriff James D. Houck on October 17, 1887, and buried in Young, Arizona, and is not considered by historians to be the same Curly Bill of Charleston and Tombstone.
Brocius’s birth date, birth name, and birthplace are not known. In newspapers of the time, he was known alternately as Curly Bill and Curly Bill Brocius. His surname has also been spelled Brocius, although that was the spelling used for his mail drop in Arizona Territory. Historical research into his death turned up two possible earlier identities.
Dennis McLaflin, in the Encyclopedia of the Old West, reports that Brocius was from Missouri and named William B. Graham, riding for various Texas cow outfits and known in Kansas. Historian Robert M. Utley suggests that Robert Martin was a member of the Jesse Evans gang of outlaws in New Mexico during the mid to late 1870s.
Billy the Kid briefly joined this group before going to work for John Tunstall. Evans’s gang, a loose-knit consortium of desperados known as the Boys, ended up fighting against the Regulators during the Lincoln County War. Because of the time frame, the location, and his friendship with Martin, Curly Bill Brocius may have been a member of the Evans gang as well.