Lone Wolf and friends.

This period of my life as the lone police officer in Columbus, New Mexico is a difficult period to write about, simply because there is so much to write about. I think that it may be easier to just hit the high spots of the many incidents I was involved in, rather than writing long detailed stories.

In a regular police department it is of benefit to have other officers around you as a support group while you deal with the difficulties of day to day police work. I did not have that luxury being the only officer, although I cannot say enough about the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs Investigators and Luna County Sheriff's Office Deputies who backed me up on many occasions when I found myself overcome by the numerically superior opposition I faced daily.

Within six months of taking over the job my aggresive enforcement style caused a polorization to take place in the Village. I was either greatly loved for the cleaning up of the bad element in the Village, or greatly hated by at least five seperate and distinct opposition groups for the same reason. My support group was easily defined, it consisted mainly of old time Columbus residents who were simply ecstatic that I was cleaning up the bad element and making Columbus a safer place to live.

One of my most loyal supporters was Edward Carson, the great nephew of the famous Army scout Kit Carson who gained fame fighting renegade Navajos during the early pioneer days of New Mexico. Ed and his wife Margaret Epps Carson had lived through the Pancho Villa raid as young children. Ed was eighty eight years old when I knew him and Margaret was ninety three and to show the grit and gumption both of them possessed, the day Ed found out that he was dying of terminal cancer I found him walking towards the Village offices with a shotgun in his hand, intent on shooting a man who had made himself a thorn in my side.

I made the mistake of telling Ed and Margaret about the problems the man was causing me and Ed and Margeret had together decided to, "Shoot the SOB for all the trouble he was causing, what have I got to lose?" I was able to dissuade Ed from his mission after convincing him that shooting the man would do more to hurt me than help me. I did keep a close eye on him after that because I was not totally convinced that he might not try it again.

Another character I had on my side was Michael Bayer, perhaps one of the greatest men it has ever been my pleasure to know on this earth. Mike was the son of an immigrant Austrian father who had been a member of Franz Joseph's personal body guard in the old country and a horseman of great reknown. Mike walked from his home in rural Pennsylvania to Philadelphia in 1932 to apply for entrance into the United States Cavalry, along with 5,000 other men seeking to fill five hundred openings in the Cavalry, Mike was one of the top candidates selected.

He rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the Cavalry and was a personal friend of George Patton. At the beginning of Worl War II Mike was selected by General Patton to lead his armored recon unit. He landed at Normandy and fought his way across Europe and took part in the liberation of the Nazi death camps in Germany. He finished his Army career as the commander of the Constabulary charged with protecting the Austrian/Hungarian Border until his retirement in the fifties.

Forgive me for honoring these two good men in word, but because of their love and support I was able survive the most difficult job of my life and as I write this my eyes are filled with tears of gratitude to have been able to call both men my friends.