Rare Tintype of Blue Duck, Courtesy Sloan Christy

[Shotgun Steve]

Bluford "Blue" Duck (18??-1895) - Born in the Cherokee Nation, Blue Duck's Indian name was Sha-con-gah. Blue Duck was said to have been a member of a small gang involved in stage holdups and rustling. Sometime in the late 1870's, he was thought to have had a short-term affair with Belle Starr. Later, when she married Sam Starr and the pair formed their own gang involved in cattle rustling, horse stealing and bootlegging whiskey to Indians, Blue Duck joined them.

On June 23, 1884, Blue Duck and another man named William Christie, were both riding drunk in the Flint District of the Cherokee Nation. For unknown reasons, the senseless pair rode up upon a young farmer named Samuel Wyrick who was working in his field and Blue Duck emptied his revolver into the man. He then reloaded and fired upon an Indian boy, shooting his horse out beneath him.

Both Duck and Christie were arrested for the killing and Duck was sentenced by Judge Isaac Parker to be hanged on July 23, 1886. Christie; however, was later cleared of the charge.

Belle Starr assisted Blue Duck in his appeal to commute the sentence to life in prison. The appeal was successful and Blue Duck was sent to Menard Penitentiary at Chester, Illinois on October 16, 1886. When he developed tuberculosis and given one month to live in 1895, he was pardoned by President Cleveland on March 20th to return home to die among friends. On May 7, 1895 he died and was buried in the Dick Duck Cemetery near Catoosa, Oklahoma.

[kflach]

Friends don't let friends ride drunk!