Tom Pickett

Thomas Pickett
In the dusty sprawl of the Wild West, where the sun scorched the earth and legends were carved with grit and gunpowder, Tomas “Tom” Pickett came into the world near Clarksville, Texas. Most folks reckon he was born at Camp Throckmorton, Wise County, on May 27, 1856, and raised in the rough-and-tumble town of Decatur. Barely seventeen, young Tom found himself in a heap of trouble, nabbed for rustlin’ cattle. Word around the campfire was that his pa, a big shot in the Texas legislature, had to hock the family homestead to spring his boy from the hoosegow. Some claimed his father was Col. Edward B. Pickett, but no one’s turned up a lick of proof to back that tale.
Accordin’ to the latest yarn spun about Commander John B. Jones, Tom saddled up with the Texas Rangers in Company B, ridin’ from April 1876 to August 1877. Durin’ his stint, he got tangled in a mess when his six-shooter went off by mistake, blastin’ some property to bits. A local judge tried to pin him down, but a Ranger inquiry cleared his name. Still, Tom and that judge never saw eye to eye, so he lit out, leavin’ Decatur in his dust.
Tom joined a cattle drive bound for Kansas, where the wide-open plains called to his restless spirit, and later turned his hand to professional gamblin’, livin’ by his wits and a deck of cards.
In Kansas, Tom crossed trails with Dave Rudabaugh and a posse of other rough characters. When Dave hightailed it to Las Vegas, New Mexico, Tom wasn’t far behind. There, he threw in with the Dodge City Gang, ridin’ alongside Dave and takin’ on the title of “peace officer,” pinned on him by Hoodoo Brown, the Justice of the Peace and the gang’s ringleader. But Tom’s reputation in Vegas turned sour as week-old whiskey, and whispers of a bounty on his head started circulatin’. When Dave skipped town after a deputy sheriff’s murder, Tom followed, ridin’ hard for Fort Sumner. There, the two found work at the Yerby ranch, but it wasn’t long before they fell in with the Rustlers, a band of outlaws led by none other than Billy the Kid.Tom was right in the thick of it when things went sideways for the Rustlers on December 19 and 23, 1880.
Sheriff Pat Garrett’s posse came down like a thunderstorm, cuttin’ down Tom Folliard and Charlie Bowdre in a hail of lead. At Stinking Springs, Tom and the survivin’ Rustlers were rounded up by Garrett’s crew and hauled to Las Vegas. Tom posted $300 bail and didn’t stick around to see how the cards would fall. He lit out for Arizona, joinin’ another cattle-rustlin’ outfit that later included Billy Wilson, fresh off his own jailbreak from Santa Fe.
Eventually, Tom parted ways with the gang and signed on with the Hash Knife Outfit in Arizona. But trouble dogged him like a shadow. In 1886, a barroom brawl left him with a bullet in his leg. Nursin’ that wound, he still managed to sling drinks as a bartender in Holbrook, Arizona.
In 1888, he tied the knot with Kate Kelly, but fate dealt him a cruel hand, Kate and their newborn died durin’ childbirth, leavin’ Tom to grieve alone. He later remarried to an uknown at this time woman and may have had two children with her.
By 1890, Tom was drivin’ the Fort Apache-Holbrook stage, takin’ on odd jobs around the Fort to keep his pockets lined. In 1909, he took a leave to visit his ailin’ ma back in Texas, only to get nabbed for old cattle-rustlin’ charges from 1879. He pleaded guilty, paid a $137 fine, and dodged a stretch in the clink.
Back in Holbrook, where he was very popular by 1912, he tended bar, joined the gun club and served as a deputy, keepin’ the peace in a town that didn’t always want it. But by 1914, both gigs dried up, and Tom turned to ranch work, drivin’ cattle across the dusty trails.
In the summer of 1923, Tom donned a deputy sheriff’s badge in Winslow, Arizona, under Sheriff John Earl. That old bullet wound from ’86 or ’87 caught up with him, forcin’ doctors to saw off his leg. But Tom, tough as rawhide, kept ridin’ as a deputy.
He held on till May 14, 1934, when nephritis finally laid him low. Some say he breathed his last near Pine Tank, west of Winslow, though the BLM ain’t got no record of him ownin’ land there. Could be that was home all the same.
Tom Pickett’s final restin’ place is Desert View Cemetery in Winslow, Arizona, where the wind still whispers tales of a man who lived wild and free in the untamed West.