There's a common expression that can be applied to almost any industry.

It's probably most associated with the movie business, but it fits just about anywhere.

The expression is, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

In Tom Horne's case, it was both. He was a good scout, he was good with animals,

and he had no problem with violence. That probably traces back to his childhood when his strict

religious parents beat him regularly. As he grew older, he tried his hand at several different

jobs, but he couldn't stick with any of them. Farming, ranching, mining, they were all too dull

and boring. He saw real action as a civilian with the military during the Apache Wars,

and he seems to have enjoyed it. He kept trying to get rich as a minor, but he always moved away

when something more exciting came along. In the late 1880s in Arizona, that thing was the

Pleasant Valley War. The two most common stories about Tom Horne during the Pleasant Valley War

revolve around killings. Lots of people, then and now, assume that Tom was responsible for the

disappearance of Martin Blevin's. Blevin's was the father of a rough family from Texas who were

known rustlers and lawbreakers. They were allied with the Graham family during the feud.

On the other side of the feud was the Tuckesbury family. So when Blevin's disappeared,

everyone assumed the Tuckesbury family had something to do with it. And if the Tuckesbury's did

order or approve the murder of Martin Blevin's, there was no better person to make him disappear

than Tom Horne. There were no witnesses and there was no evidence to connect Tom to the disappearance,

but Tom's skill set made him right for the job. The second story was that Tom may have assisted

in the lynching of three other suspected rustlers. He allegedly did the job with Glenn Reynolds,

a member of a local vigilante group who later became a sheriff. But again, no charges were brought

against Tom or Glenn. If the suspects were actually cattle rustlers, then no one was going to kick

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