Healy's West by Gordon E. Tolton

Author:Gordon E. Tolton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-927527-66-5
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

THE LAW OF THE LAND

IN 1878, JOHNNY HEALY CAMPAIGNED for his own mandate. Speaking to the primary issue affecting Chouteau County, he told voters: “If any of you are going to steal horses during the next two years, he had better vote against me, for by God, if I catch him, whether he’s voted for or against me, I’ll hang him.”1 Despite the gallows humour, Healy was probably the first credible lawman in Montana: “He always stood in the estimation of white men and Indians for the law, but a law tempered by a profound understanding of human nature. He could be fair. He would not cheat. He felt that . . . right and justice must prevail.”2

May Flanagan, a playmate of the Healy kids, described his general popularity: “He was a fine looking man, fond of children and full of fun when he was with them.”3 To critics, outlaws, those he had to deal with behind the star, he had an undying philosophy of single-mindedness. Johnny was no gunslinger; he rarely packed a visible sidearm: “I found that a good many people, when they went west, carried a six-shooter and got the idea that if they carried a gun, he was expected to use it, or make a show of using it. That used to get men sometimes into the habit of drawing a gun where there was really no occasion for it. Again, if you know you are right, fix him and hang, hang. The other fellow will not be so sure, and you will get just the quiver of an eyelash. Then you’ve got him! Stick!”4

The presence of a gun escalated a situation, and Sheriff Healy wanted his presence to carry the day. He used psychology and resolve, and he believed that no sober man who wasn’t being threatened would shoot another. To those who weren’t sober, his deputy, Dick Amory, acknowledged he would disarm a drunk merely by pushing his gun aside and telling him to go home. But he always carried that secret pocket derringer just in case.

Johnny also had another weapon—“the most piercing eyes which seemed to have a controlling effect on anyone under his influence.”5 Many talked of his “hypnotic” stare, probably the result of astigmatism or nerve damage, which kept his left eye open wider than the other. Canadian geologist Joseph Tyrell called Johnny “Dead Shot,” perhaps due to the lethal glance that, combined with his bluster and conviction, seemed to personify the law.

T.C. Power claimed Healy “was as quick as a cat, and as scientific as Sullivan. If you pulled a gun on him, he would grab it with one hand and knock you down with the other. The rough element wanted no trouble with him, I can tell you. If he was out of reach of a gun that was pulled on him, he would simply laugh and wait his chance at those who threatened him. He has made hundreds of arrests, and never used a pistol in taking a man.

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