George Brown was the 10th man to accept the position of city marshal in the booming cattle town of Caldwell, Kan. The town was founded on the Chisholm Trail just above the border with Indian Territory in 1871. Texas cowboys roamed the streets at will and violence was never far away. Marshal Brown had been on the job a few months when some of Big Jim Ellison’s trail hands hit town the morning of June 22, 1882, to blow off steam.

Marshal Brown was alerted that men had been seen entering the saloon wearing six-shooters. A little after 9 a.m., Marshal Brown and Constable Metcalf headed for the infamous Red Light Saloon and Dance Hall.

The officers learned that the Texas men were upstairs. Brown and Metcalf started up the outdoor staircase leading to the upper rooms. At the top of the stairs, Brown met Jess Green with a pistol in his hand.

In the flash of reflexes, Marshal Brown grasped Green’s gun hand and threw the man and gun against the wall. A cry of, “Let go of me!” roared from the trail hand, but Brown held tight.

At the same time, Green’s brother, Steve, grabbed Constable Metcalf by the throat and backed him into a corner. A third cowboy pulled a pistol and ordered Metcalf to throw up his hands.

Suddenly, a fourth cowboy stepped from a room to the right of Marshal Brown. A command of “turn him loose” caused Brown to turn his head toward the distraction. In that moment, Jess Green pivoted his wrist to bring the muzzle of the pistol around toward Brown’s head and pulled the trigger. The newspaper reported that Marshal Brown “fell to the floor dead, without a struggle or a groan.” George Brown was 28 years old. In the resulting chaos, the cowboys left the Red Light, mounted horses and easily escaped into Indian Territory.

The Green brothers made it to the Ellison cow camp around 6 p.m. that evening. Once their supply of ammunition was replenished and fresh horses were saddled, the fugitives lit out in a southeasterly direction. Apparently, no one pursued them beyond the cow camp as the Caldwell Commercial reported. “…if any efforts have been put forth in that direction, the fact is kept a profound secret.”

At the cow camp the posse learned that the Green brothers had been employed as herders for the past several years. The trail boss described them as “…desperate men, who did not seem to care for danger, but rather coveted it, but that they were good hands, doing work faithfully and well.”

Kansas Governor John P. St. John offered a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of each man. Sumner County Sheriff Joe Thralls added another $400 to the pot.

Nothing was heard of the Green brothers for the next four months until they were caught up in a wild gunfight in Wise County, Texas, on Oct. 19, 1882. Steve Green was killed. Jess was severely wounded and was not expected to live. As it turned out, Steve was actually Ed Bean and Jess was Jim Bean. Jim didn’t think he would live and told his captors that he had killed Marshal Brown in Caldwell.

However, Jim/Jess was a tough hombre. He continued to live and was returned to the Sumner County Seat at Wellington, Kan., Saturday, Oct. 25. He carried buckshot in his brain and others in each arm, two in each leg and apparently a whole charge in the breast, a shot in the neck and a dangerous wound in his abdomen made by a Winchester rifle.

The editor of the Caldwell Commercial visited Jess Green, now referred to as Jim Bean, in his Sumner County cell. Bean was lying on a mattress on the floor. He had a pillow propped under his shoulder “…to keep his (ghastly) wounds from coming into contact with the bed clothes.” But Bean would not allow anyone to tend to them. He explained that the wounds hurt worse if they were bound up. “He certainly has more nerve than anyone we ever saw, and while talking with us his voice was strong, full and without a quaver, and if his wounds do not heal up too suddenly, he will probably live long enough to be hanged in good shape.”

On Saturday, Nov. 2, 1882, Bean suddenly fell into unconsciousness. He died the next morning, cheating Caldwell citizens out of the satisfaction of seeing Marshal Brown’s murderer hung on the gallows. An examination revealed “that one buck shot, of small size, entered his forehead and passed through the lower part of his brain and stopped near the back part of head.” Infection formed along the course of the ball, “which caused his death.”

Few could argue that Jim Bean was anything but tough. Bean seemed to have no fear of death, having taken his wounds boldly with little concern for the fate that had befallen him on The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.