By the spring of 1872 Caldwell, Kan., was well on its way to success, having been established along the Chisholm Trail the year before.

The town’s location two miles north of the border with Indian Territory naturally made it an important trading center for trail herds coming north from Texas. Supply houses and saloons did a booming business.

City fathers located the town safely above two creeks just to the south. Fall Creek was just beyond the city limits. Bluff Creek was approximately a mile south.

Many drovers mistakenly thought that Bluff Creek was the Kansas state line. However, by the time they reached Bluff Creek they were already a mile inside of Kansas.

The confusion may have originated with a log saloon situated on the north side of Bluff Creek. The owner, John E. “Curly” Marshall, posted a sign, First Chance, to greet drovers as they crossed Bluff Creek from the south. Alcohol was prohibited in Indian Territory, making Marshall’s saloon the first chance to wet a man’s whistle after leaving “The Territory”.

As a rider rode in the opposite direction the words “Last Chance” were a reminder that it would be a long ride to Texas and another “drink”.

The First Chance, Last Chance was a lively place that offered an unwelcome challenge to businesses at Caldwell.

Questionable characters frequented the place, and the dance hall that Marshall was building next to the saloon promised even more trouble.

The folks in Caldwell could only look on as Marshall’s profits flourished.

One of Marshall’s customers was Mike McCarty, a strikingly handsome young Texan with curly brown hair and the build of a warrior. He lived in a dugout on Bluff Creek with Dan Fielder, a recent settler from Pottawatomie County. Both Fielder and McCarty dressed in typical frontier fashion and lived a decidedly rugged life.

McCarty’s greatest weakness was whiskey, and the penchant for fighting that came with it. He returned to the dugout one early March morning looking for a fight.

When McCarty found Dan Fielder sleeping he grabbed Fielder by the hair and drug him out of bed. Fielder tried to ignore his drunken friend but that only enraged McCarty more! Fielder finally gave in to McCarty’s demand to fight and promptly beat the poor drunk “to a bloody mess”.

A few days later, April 1, 1872, friends of Fielder warned him that McCarty was once again on a drunk. Hoping to avert another attack Fielder went to the dugout of John Reid, a short distance away on Fall Creek. But McCarty eventually showed up at Reid’s place.

Hearing McCarty call his name, Fielder answered,“Here I am. Come on in here if you want anything.” That was all McCarty needed.

Those were the days of black powder cap and ball pistols. Fielder fired the second McCarty came through the door, but the cunning Texan had wrapped a heavy blanket around his body.

Fielder’s lead ball failed to penetrate the blanket, however, through the black smoke McCarty’s ball struck and killed Fielder with perfect accuracy. Shocked by the turn of events Reid chided, “There, McCarty, you have killed that man.” McCarty replied “well, he is out of luck, that’s all”.

McCarty high-tailed it across the state line into Indian Territory. But McCarty couldn’t resist the lure of the fast life and returned to Caldwell on April 9.

McCarty now fancied himself “a bad man” and seeing Doc Anderson wearing a top hat remarked that he would put a hole through the hat. For a moment there was a lull in the activity until McCarty pulled his pistol and shot Anderson in the back of the head.

McCarty again fled south, but vigilantes believed the bad man had stopped at the Last Chance on Bluff Creek. When the proprietor barred their entry, the new dance hall was set on fire. Several men rushed out of the flaming building, but McCarty was not with them.

The next day, Boosey Nicholson, a known friend of McCarty, turned up at the Last Chance. According to a report in the Wichita City Eagle, vigilantes threatened to hang Nicholson if he did not lead them to McCarty. They found McCarty sleeping on the open prairie next to his horse. When they called to him to surrender, he jumped to his feet, firing a Sharps rifle, but as he reached for his horse a burst of buckshot crippled his right hand.

McCarty was disarmed and one of the vigilantes, a friend of Dan Fielder, took the pistol that had killed Fielder, put it to McCarty’s head and pulled the trigger. Leaving McCarty’s body where it fell, the vigilantes rode away. One more “bad man” had met his end the way he had lived on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.