Red Slade (born 1842) was an American outlaw of the Wild West who was affiliated with the Cochise County Cowboys gang. He was one of the participants in the second of the Skeleton Canyon massacres, and he was ambushed and captured by Tombstone lawmen shortly after.
Biography[]
Red Slade rode with Curly Bill Brocius' Cochise County Cowboys gang in Tombstone, Arizona during the 1880s. He and the gang took part in the second of the Skeleton Canyon massacres in July 1881, but he bullied Brocius for being "old and rheumatic" and not getting with the times; this offensive joke led to an argument between the two men which nearly resulted in guns being drawn. However, Sheriff Clay Hollister stepped in and prevented a shootout, and he had Brocius leave before asking Slade why him and his men were celebrating; Slade claimed to have forgotten. However, Hollister snatched a Mexican coin which Slade was tossing, and he warned Slade that a man who shot someone in the back should be sure of something first: that he was dead. Slade understood this as meaning that one of the Mexicans had escaped, and he immediately worried that he might be found out. He was later lured into a trap by Curly Bill, who tipped him off about a nonexistent mule train in Skeleton Canyon, and they were forced to surrender to Sheriff Hollister and a group of deputized Mexican Rurales, including Jacinto Orosco, the lone survivor.