He grew up poor in Fort Scott, Kansas—a cowboy by twelve and a drifter by fate. George Newcomb, known as “Bitter Creek” and sometimes the Slaughter Kid, made his way south to Texas, riding for the great C.C. Slaughter on the Long S Ranch. But the honest work of cattle soon gave way to the rougher road of outlawry. By 1892, he was in Oklahoma, riding with the Dalton Gang and shedding blood in the failed Adair train robbery, where guards and townspeople fell to gunfire, one never to rise again.
Too wild even for Bob Dalton, Newcomb drifted into Ingalls with Charley Pierce and Bill Doolin, witnessing the Dalton dream end in a cloud of gun smoke at Coffeyville. From those ashes, he and Doolin formed a new band—the Wild Bunch—raiding, robbing, and carving their names into the lawless corners of the frontier. Soon, his face was plastered on wanted posters, with $5,000 offered for the man called Bitter Creek—a price high enough to tempt even blood kin to betrayal.
That betrayal came in May 1895 at the Dunn Ranch, where Newcomb rode with Pierce to visit his lover, the Rose of Cimarron, and to collect a debt from her brothers. But the Dunns had already made their own judgment. They opened fire, knocking both men from their saddles, then hauled the bodies to Guthrie for the reward. Newcomb still breathed—he even sat up and begged for water—only to be silenced by another bullet. His father later carried him home to Nine Mile Flats, burying the outlaw on the bank of the Canadian River. Bitter Creek Newcomb died as he had lived, chasing love, money, and freedom, only to be struck down by those closest to him.
