The Shadow of the San Simon: Harry Head, Arizona’s Forgotten Outlaw
In the rugged expanse of the Arizona Territory, where the law was often as fleeting as a desert mirage and a man’s fate could turn on the speed of his draw, figures of infamy rose and fell with the swiftness of a desert storm. While names like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Wyatt Earp have been etched into the bedrock of American lore, countless others, equally violent and just as desperate, lived and died in the shadow of their more celebrated contemporaries. One such man was Harry Head, an Arizona outlaw whose brief but brutal career serves as a stark, dusty footnote in the violent saga of the American Southwest.
Harry Head was not a legend, nor did he command a vast criminal empire. He was, by all accounts, a dangerous, impulsive member of the loosely organized gang known as the "Cowboys," who terrorized southeastern Arizona in the late 19th century. His story, though lacking the dramatic arcs of a Hollywood epic, is a quintessential tale of frontier justice: a life of lawlessness that ended abruptly, violently, and predictably at the hands of those determined to bring order to a chaotic land.
The Arizona Territory of the 1880s was a crucible of ambition and desperation. Silver strikes in places like Tombstone drew a motley crew of miners, merchants, and fortune-seekers, alongside the less scrupulous elements: gamblers, prostitutes, and hardened criminals. The vast, untamed landscape, crisscrossed by cattle trails and stagecoach routes, provided ample cover for rustlers and robbers. Law enforcement was nascent, often corrupt, and perpetually understaffed, struggling to impose order over an area larger than many European nations. This was the world Harry Head drifted into, a world where a man could reinvent himself, for better or worse.
Details of Head’s early life are scarce, a common trait for men who lived on the wrong side of the law in the Wild West. He likely arrived in Arizona seeking opportunity, but found it in the illicit trades of cattle rustling and robbery. He quickly fell in with the notorious "Cowboys," a faction that, despite its innocuous name, was a potent force of outlawry, often clashing with established ranchers and the burgeoning law enforcement. This group included notorious figures like Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo, men whose reputations for violence preceded them. Head, though not a leader, was a loyal and active participant in their schemes.
The "Cowboys" were not a unified gang in the modern sense. They were a loose confederation of men bound by a shared disdain for the law and a common pursuit of ill-gotten gains. Their primary activities involved rustling cattle, which they would then drive across the Mexican border or sell to unscrupulous buyers. They also engaged in stagecoach and train robberies, acts that carried far greater risks but promised richer rewards. It was one such act, a brazen train robbery in May 1881, that would cement Harry Head’s place in the criminal annals of Arizona and ultimately lead to his demise.
The target was a Southern Pacific train at Gallego, New Mexico, just across the territorial line from Arizona. Harry Head, along with Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo, Joe Hill, and others, descended upon the train with typical Cowboy ruthlessness. Their plan was simple: stop the train, blow open the express car safe, and make off with the contents. However, as was often the case with frontier crime, things did not go smoothly.
During the robbery, the express messenger, Bud Snow, was shot and killed. This act elevated the crime from simple robbery to murder, drawing the full wrath of federal and territorial authorities. The haul, ironically, was meager. According to some accounts, they managed to escape with only a few hundred dollars, a paltry sum for such a brazen act and the life that had been taken. "They risked their necks for what amounted to pocket change," historian Robert K. DeArment noted of similar incidents, highlighting the desperate, often irrational nature of these crimes.
The Gallego robbery, particularly the murder of Bud Snow, ignited a firestorm of pursuit. Law enforcement, including Wells Fargo detectives and local sheriffs, launched a relentless manhunt. The pressure on the "Cowboys" intensified dramatically. Harry Head, now a wanted man for murder, became a primary target.
Among those determined to bring Head and his associates to justice was John Horton Slaughter, the legendary Cochise County Sheriff. "Texas John" Slaughter was a man of few words and decisive action, known for his unwavering commitment to law and order. He had a reputation for pursuing outlaws relentlessly, often alone, and rarely bringing them back alive. Slaughter embodied the harsh reality of frontier justice: if you broke the law, you paid the price, usually with your life.
Slaughter, along with deputy sheriffs Billy Breakenridge and Frank Leslie (the infamous "Buckskin Frank"), and a posse of determined citizens, tracked Head and his companion, Joe Hill, with unyielding resolve. The pursuit led them deep into the rugged San Simon Valley, an unforgiving landscape of arroyos, mesquite, and sparse water sources, straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border. It was a perfect hiding place for outlaws, but also a desolate arena for a final showdown.
In early July 1881, less than two months after the Gallego robbery, the posse finally cornered Head and Hill. Accounts vary slightly on the exact details, but the core narrative remains consistent: the outlaws were surprised by the lawmen. In the ensuing gunfight, both Harry Head and Joe Hill were killed.
Deputy Billy Breakenridge, in his memoir Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, recounted the confrontation with a stark, matter-of-fact tone characteristic of the era. While not explicitly taking credit for the fatal shots, he described the ambush and the quick, decisive end to the two outlaws. "We had followed their trail for several days," Breakenridge wrote, "and when we finally came upon them, there was no parley. It was a case of shoot or be shot." The desert sun bore down on the grim scene, two more bodies added to the toll of the Wild West. Justice, in the Arizona Territory, was often swift and absolute, administered at the barrel of a gun.
The deaths of Harry Head and Joe Hill, while not as celebrated as the capture or killing of more famous outlaws, marked a significant victory for law enforcement in their ongoing struggle against the "Cowboys." It sent a clear message that even in the vastness of the territory, the long arm of the law, however stretched and underfunded, would eventually catch up. Their demise contributed to the gradual dismantling of the Cowboy faction, a process that would culminate with the death of Curly Bill Brocius at the hands of Wyatt Earp in 1882.
Harry Head remains a footnote, a ghost in the vast narrative of the Old West. He left no lasting legacy, no folk songs, and few detailed historical records beyond his involvement in a few notorious crimes and his violent end. Yet, his story is a poignant reminder of the harsh realities of frontier life. He represents the countless individuals who, driven by desperation, greed, or a simple inability to conform, chose a path of violence and met a predictable fate.
His story also highlights the relentless efforts of lawmen like John Slaughter and Billy Breakenridge, who, often with little pay and constant danger, worked tirelessly to impose order on a lawless land. Their commitment, sometimes brutal but undeniably effective, slowly but surely transformed the chaotic Arizona Territory into a place where civil society could take root.
The shadow of the San Simon still stretches long across the Arizona desert, but the ghosts of outlaws like Harry Head have largely faded. What remains is the stark, unvarnished truth of the Wild West: a place of immense beauty and incredible savagery, where a man’s life was cheap, and his legend, if he earned one, was often written in blood and dust. Harry Head’s story, though brief and brutal, serves as a stark reminder of that unforgiving era, a testament to the lives lived and lost in the raw crucible of the American frontier.
