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Jacinto Orosco

Don Jacinto Orosco (born 1839) was a Mexican vaquero who was the sole survivor of the second of the Skeleton Canyon massacres in 1881.

Biography[]

Don Jacinto Orosco was born in Sonora, Mexico, and he owned a rancho near the Arizona border. In 1881, he led a pack train into Arizona, but it was ambushed by the Cochise County Cowboys outlaw gang as it rode through Skeleton Canyon in the second of the "Skeleton Canyon massacres". Orosco was shot in the back, but he survived his wounds, leaving him as the only survivor of the massacre. He awoke to see Sheriff Clay Hollister searching the dead Mexicans' bodies, and he mistakenly believed that Hollister and his lawmen had murdered his comrades, leading to him running off. Orosco later turned up in Tombstone and followed Hollister to his hotel after witnessing him talk with the infamous outlaw Curly Bill Brocius, and he confronted Hollister with a whip and told him that he was there to avenge his friends' death. Hollister attempted to explain his innocence, but Orosco claimed that he had witnessed Hollister rob his friends' bodies. After a brief scuffle, Hollister held Orosco at gunpoint and revealed that he had been searching the bodies for identification papers, and that he wanted to catch the murderers as badly as Orosco did. Hollister let Orosco walk free, as he understood his misunderstanding, and he told him to meet him at his office the next morning. He was disappointed to hear that Hollister knew the man responsible but refused to make arrests, as, apart from a Mexican coin which he had taken from Brocius' lieutenant Red Slade, he had no evidence that Brocius and his men were responsible. Just then, four Rurales rode into town, and Orosco revealed that he had called on them to ensure that the killers would be brought to justice, and that they would follow Hollister and kill the suspects whom he would speak with. They later followed Holliser to a meeting with Curly Bill, but Curly Bill revealed that he was morally against shooting unarmed men in the back, and he informed Hollister that he had deceived Slade into taking his men to Skeleton Canyon to ambush a nonexistent second train. Hollister convinced the Rurales to return to Mexico while he handled the incident with his men, but Orosco and the Rurales joined Hollister when they engaged in a shootout with the outlaws, reasoning that Skeleton Canyon was along the way to Mexico. They helped with apprehending the outlaws, and Orosco and his Rurales returned home while the murderers were brought to justice.

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