CHAPTER XX.
RUBE’S LAST DESPERATE ACT—ESCAPE FROM JAIL—THE
DEADLY DUEL ON THE STREETS OF LINDEN—THE
OUTLAW KILLED.
On arrival at Linden, the sheriff being absent with the keys, the prisoner was taken to a room of the jail. The ropes still bound his hands, heavy iron shackles were locked around his ankles, and the chain uniting them was securely fastened to the floor.
McDuffie repaired to the telephone office and reported the capture to the express officials at Demopolis. After obtaining a full description of the outlaw from McDuffie, and being satisfied the right man had been captured, McDuffie was asked:
“How many pistols had he?”
“Only one,” said McDuffie.
“There must be some mistake,” answered the express official; “he had three when he crossed the Alabama River.”
“Rube says he has sold the other two,” was the answer.
“Rube never sells pistols,” replied the official, and knowing from the reports received that Rube always carried a sack, the inquiry was:
“What’s in the sack?”
“Nothing but provisions,” answered McDuffie.
The official then instructed McDuffie to handcuff and shackle the prisoner, put him in a cell of the jail and place half dozen men on guard.
McDuffie replied: “There are forty men on guard.”
Indeed, the whole town of Linden surrounded the jail, and McDuffie’s answer was not, perhaps, exaggerated.
When Rube’s supper was brought his hands were untied that he might eat and they were not again manacled. Rube sat and joked with his guards and visitors, entertaining them with his droll humor, which seemed never to forsake him. His shoes were badly worn, and a visitor remarking it, said:
“Rube, your shoes are badly run down—you need a new pair.”
“Yes,” replied Rube, “some people always praise their shoes up, but I always run mine down.”
One by one the visitors dropped out, and at midnight John McDuffie, Jesse Hildreth and Frank Marshall were left in charge of the prisoner. Carter, not feeling well, had retired to Glass’ store, just across the street from the jail. He had possession of Rube’s rifle and money.
George Ford, in whose cabin the capture occurred, found, after the departure of the prisoner, a greasy cloth sack, and knowing it to be the property of Rube, carried it to Linden, arriving some half hour after the prisoner. He deposited the sack on the steps of the court-house and reported the fact to the colored men, who informed McDuffie. It was said to contain provisions.
About four o’clock A. M. Rube complained that he was hungry. McDuffie said:
“You will have to await the usual hour for breakfast. I can not get anything to eat now.”
“Where is my grub sack?” said Rube.
“George left it on the court-house steps,” said Frank.
“Mr. McDuffie, please send Frank for it. I have some ginger snaps and some candy in it, and I will give the boys some; I reckon they are hungry, too,” said Rube.
McDuffie consented, and when Frank returned he did not even look to see what was handed Rube. For full half an hour the wily prisoner sat eating ginger snaps and candy from the sack, which he occasionally shared with the colored men. Watching his chance, Rube suddenly pulled from the sack one of his trusty pistols, and covering McDuffie, who sat only about ten feet away, said:
“If you make a move I will kill you.”
McDuffie’s pistol was lying in a chair beside him. Rube, turning to Jesse, said:
“Hand me that pistol quick, or I will shoot your head off.”
Jesse tremblingly obeyed, and Rube covered all three of the guards with the two pistols. He then bade Jesse unlock his shackles. This being done, he said:
“Now put them on McDuffie.”
McDuffie protested and made a motion to approach Rube, but seeing he was powerless, said:
“All right, Rube; you have the drop, and can have your way.”
Rube then made Jesse shackle McDuffie and Marshal together. Taking the key of the jail-yard door from the chair where McDuffie had placed it, Rube, jumping up about two feet from the floor, cracked his heels together and exclaimed:
“I have the big key to the jail. I am boss of the town, and as some people say I am not Rube Burrow, I will paint Linden red, and show them who I am.”
He then ordered Jesse to go with him to find Carter. Carter’s exact whereabouts were not known to either Rube or Jesse. To the hotel and thence to the sheriff’s office they journeyed, and spending nearly an hour in a fruitless search for Carter, Rube thought Jesse was purposely delaying him.
“I will kill you,” said Rube, “if I find you are fooling with me.”
Jesse, however, was innocent. He did not know where Carter could be found. Further inquiry developed that he was in Glass’ store. Rube knocked loudly on the door, and stepping aside, covered Jesse with his pistol, and in a stern whisper said:
“Tell him the express people have come, and McDuffie wants him at the jail quick.”
A clerk answered the call to the door, and to him Jesse repeated the order in a voice loud enough to be heard by Carter, who was in the rear part of the store. Carter’s footsteps could be distinctly heard as he came across the floor. Just as he appeared in the doorway Rube threw himself in front of him, and placing his pistol within a few inches of Carter’s breast, commanded:
“Give me my rifle and my money, or I will shoot your head off.”
Carter, instantly taking in the situation, replied, “All right,” and placing his hand in his hip pocket, pulled a thirty-two caliber Smith & Wesson pistol.
The hour was just at dawn of day. The two men stood face to face, the one gleaming with rage and thirsting for revenge, the other cool, fearless and determined, with law and justice on his side, not to accede to the outlaw’s demand.
When the sheen of Carter’s pistol flashed upon Rube’s vision the outlaw fired, and Carter, anticipating the shot, threw his body to the right. The ball pierced the left shoulder, just above the collar bone, making a painful wound. Carter’s intrepid courage was not dashed by his wound, and he instantly returned the fire.
Rube, for the first time in all his career of crime, was called to stand and fight. He had “held the drop” on many a field of rencontre, but here was an even gauge of battle, with the qui vive as the vantage ground for him.
Carter boldly advanced upon the outlaw, and, with steady nerve, pressed the trigger of his faithful revolver, but Rube backed away after the first shot from Carter’s pistol, and continued backing and firing until he had retreated some thirty paces, and until he himself had fired five shots. Just as Carter fired his fourth round, Rube turned, and running some ten paces, leaped a few feet in the air and fell prostrate upon the earth, stone dead.
After falling upon his knees, from loss of blood, Carter managed to fire a fifth shot. The fourth shot from Carter’s pistol, however, had entered the upper abdomen, and cutting the portal artery, caused instant death. This was the only shot that hit Rube.
McDuffie and Marshal, meantime, by means of a duplicate key, had liberated themselves, and had visited several places in the town in the endeavor to secure fire-arms with which to recapture Rube. Being unsuccessful, they reached the store just as the duel was ended.
Rube had given to Jesse the fateful sack as they started from the jail, and while the duel between Carter and Rube was in progress Jesse opened the sack, drew out a pistol, and rushing to Carter’s assistance, commenced firing.
“Stand up to him, Mr. Carter; I’m gwine to be wid you,” said the heroic Jesse. He fired two shots, without effect, however, and was the first man to reach the dead outlaw and take from his hand his smoking revolver. All honor to Jesse Hildreth. He has written his name in the annals of his race and times as a hero.
Rube’s conduct in seeking out Carter and demanding his rifle and money has been reckoned as foolhardy. The truth is, however, that McDuffie had recited to him the details of the chase, and Rube knew that the detectives of the Southern Express Company were within a few miles, and that under their guidance armed possees were scouring the country in search of him. He had been told that the ferry landings were guarded, and that if his arrest had not been effected in the cabin he would have been captured on his arrival at the river landing for which he was en route.
Rube knew that blood-hounds were in leash, ready to be set upon his trail, and that it would be impossible to escape without his Marlin rifle, which was in Carter’s possession. With this weapon, which chambered sixteen cartridges, he could have held a dozen men at bay, and perhaps might have effected his escape. His attempt to regain possession of it, therefore, was not foolhardy, but it was a dernier resort.
Jefferson Davis Carter, who fought the duel unto death with the great outlaw, was named in honor of the President of the Confederacy. His ancestors, who moved from South Carolina to Alabama in 1832, distinguished themselves as soldiers both during the American Revolution and the late civil war. Young Carter was born in 1860, is unmarried, and is a prosperous merchant in the village of Myrtlewood, Ala. He is quiet and modest in his demeanor, and his encounter with Rube Burrow is the only time he was ever engaged in serious combat.
A very general interest has been manifested as to the condition of Carter’s wound, and universal sympathy has been expressed in his behalf. He is now under surgical treatment at Mobile, and will remain there for some time. The ball from Burrow’s pistol, a forty-five caliber, pierced the upper part of the shoulder, passing through the brachial plexus of nerves, and complete paralysis of the left arm has followed. It is possible that under careful antiseptic treatment the functions of the nerves may be restored, and the use of the arm fully regained. His general health has been restored, but he still carries his wounded arm supported by a bandage.
In a letter dated October 18th, 1890, Governor Seay, of Alabama, in tendering his congratulations to the officials of the Southern Express Company, writes:
“The running at large of the outlaw was a menace not only to the State but to this entire section of the country, and the ending of his career of crime is cause for congratulation to us all. Much as we would have preferred, by the regular course of law, to have marked a more ignominious end, his hardiness, his readiness and his desperation prevented this, but leaves to us the very satisfactory reflection that there was found in the lawful paths of life the courage, the presence of mind and the constancy which surpassed that of the outlaw himself.”
J. D. Carter’s name stands enrolled on the list of honor as the finest type of American courage and manhood exhibited in modern times.
Brave John McDuffie—what shall be said of him and of his discomfiture at being outwitted by his wily captive? McDuffie said to the express official, on his arrival at Linden, with whom he had talked through the telephone the previous night:
“I can not look you in the face, after all the caution you gave me last night.”
Taking his hand and pressing it warmly, the official said:
“Be of good cheer, McDuffie. Napoleon made a mistake at Waterloo, Lee made a mistake at Gettysburg, and the heroic Custer made one when he rode down to death in the valley of the Big Horn. Greater men have made greater mistakes on greater occasions, and but for you the chase would not be over and the battle won. ‘All is well that ends well.’”
McDuffie had joined Detective Jackson on the afternoon of October 2d. From that hour he had been to the fore, riding night and day in the arduous chase that followed. Worn and fagged with the toils of the pursuit, he was perhaps less watchful than otherwise he would have been. Humanus est errare.
A coroner’s inquest was held, and the body of Rube Burrow being thoroughly identified a verdict of death in the manner described was rendered. After treating the body with preservatives it was taken to Demopolis, Ala. Here hundreds of people assembled to view the remains of the great bandit.
On arrival at Birmingham, at three o’clock on the morning of the 9th of October, fully one thousand people were in waiting to get a glimpse at the body of the great train robber. Special officers were employed to keep the morbid crowd at bay. Photographs of the body were taken, and at seven o’clock A. M. the train leaving Birmingham for Memphis conveyed the remains to Sulligent, Ala. A telegram had been sent to Allen Burrow, stating that Rube’s dead body would be delivered to him at noon that day at Sulligent. The father was there to receive it. A representative of the Southern Express Company said to him:
“We are sorry to bring your boy back in this shape, but it was the best we could do.”
“I have no doubt,” answered Allen Burrow, “that he was mobbed.”
This sentiment was diffused among the friends of the outlaw, and finally found culmination in a sensational letter written from Vernon, Ala., and published in the Birmingham Age-Herald. The publication asserted that Rube had been mobbed, his neck horribly broken and his body shamefully mutilated. All this, despite the fact that the body had been viewed by newspaper correspondents at Demopolis and Birmingham, and by at least five thousand persons before it reached Sulligent. The body and face bore no marks of mutilation and no wound of any description, save the small bullet hole from Carter’s pistol.
The remains of the most famous bandit of modern times were buried among the hills of Lamar County, in the quiet graveyard of Fellowship Church, on the morning of the 10th of October, 1890, on the very spot where, a year before, he had enlisted Rube Smith as a member of his unlawful band—a strange coincidence, surely.
The train robber’s pistols, belt and Marlin rifle were taken to Memphis, Tenn., and the publication of the chase and capture by a Memphis journal, accompanied by illustrations of the pistols and cartridge belt, and the announcement that the arms would be on exhibition at its office that morning, created a remarkable and unexpected effect. The rush of visitors that ensued was extraordinary, and is mentioned here merely to show the wonderful interest with which the career of Rube Burrow imbued all classes of people. Early in the morning the first callers were the newsboys, porters and clerks. All wanted to see and handle the weapons of the great outlaw. Later, merchants, bankers, lawyers, shop-keepers, all alike interested, left their places of business to view the weapons. It became necessary to place the pistols and belt in a glass case and hang the rifle beyond reach, and still the crowd continued to gather.
The weapons were on exhibition for several days, during all of which time the influx of visitors never ceased. Rich and poor, male and female, black and white, all were possessed of the same curiosity, and the deeds of the outlaw were discussed by some with admiration for his courage, by others with an expression of detestation of his crimes—by all with a feeling of relief that he was dead.