You Can Run but You Can't Hide (2 page)
Read You Can Run but You Can't Hide Online
Authors: Duane Dog Chapman
years, I have made a living hunting down more than seven thousand
fugitives. I wear that honor as proudly as my shiny silver fugitive-
recovery badge that hangs around my neck.
In the old days, there weren’t enough lawmen for all the crimi-
nals on the loose, so sheriffs posted hefty rewards to capture crooks
on the run. Legends of the Wild West, like Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt
Earp, and Billy the Kid, all made their living hunting bounties.
Now, I might not be as famous as some of those guys, but I am the
greatest bounty hunter who ever lived.
A lot of people think of me as a vigilante. It’s true, my recovery
tactics are far from conventional, but I rarely fail at finding my
man. For me, failure has never been an option. To get attention or
be noticed in this world, and believed, loved, and trusted, you had
better be extraordinary, especially nowadays. In my life, extraordi-
nary stuff happens all the time.
Bounty hunting is not a game. It’s definitely not for the meek or
faint of heart. I don’t do it to prove I’m a tough bastard or smarter
than some other guy. I do it because I have been there. I have been
the bad guy. I know firsthand how messed up the system can be.
Despite it all, I still believe in truth and justice.
To be certain, bounty hunting isn’t your average nine-to-five
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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e
job. But then, I’m not your average guy. I have had guns pointed
in my face so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve survived having
the trigger pulled more than once or twice. I have been stabbed,
scratched, beaten up, and hit with every imaginable (and unimag-
inable) weapon of choice—chains, boards, tire irons, golf clubs,
and crowbars. I’ve been tossed through windows, pushed through
walls, and shoved through doors. Does that make me a tough guy?
You bet your ass.
I was born in Denver on February 2, 1953. My parents were Wes-
ley and Barbara Chapman. Mom was half–Chiricahua Apache,
which gave her beautiful thick, long, dark hair and a medium skin
tone. Her eyes were an expressive chocolate brown that spoke from
a stare without ever having to utter a single word. She had a way of
looking
into
you, not just
at
you. Mom taught me to see people for who they are, not for the color of their skin, their race, or religion.
She was a devout Christian who lived her life according to God’s
word. She instilled those same beliefs in me from the day I was born.
I have always been proud of my Indian heritage. I never once
gave a second thought to my mixed background or to how others
might see me as being a little different. I’ve always had a pretty dis-
tinguishable look. Hell, it makes me easy to identify in a lineup.
My dad, Wesley, also known as “Flash,” had dirty-blond hair
and piercing blue eyes. I am built just like him. He wasn’t particu-
larly large, though he was remarkably strong and fit. He had the
most gigantic hands I ever saw. Dad was a navy welder, serving for
many years. Flash earned his nickname boxing welterweight, be-
cause he moved with great speed and finesse. His boxing career was
rather illustrious: He never lost a fight. Flash was a tough son of a
gun—a real scrapper.
From the outside looking in, my childhood was pretty normal.
Mom and Dad lived a decent middle-class life in Denver, Colorado.
My two sisters, Jolene and Paula, and my younger brother, Mike,
and I were not very close growing up. We all played together and
probably watched too much of my favorite television programs, like
The Lone Ranger, Sky King,
and
The Green Hornet
.
Every summer, I looked forward to joining my mom on her an-
nual trip from Denver to Farmington, New Mexico, down to Sister
Jensen’s Mission. Even though Sister Jensen’s congregation was pri-
marily made up of Navajo from the local reservation, they all loved
I A m D o g
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to hear Mom spread the word of God. She wasn’t an ordained
preacher, but she was mighty and powerful in her love of the Lord
and her unshakable faith. Until the age of twelve, I tagged along as
her helper, passing out hymn sheets and collecting tithes.
One of the first life lessons I remember Mom teaching me was
that God sees all of us as His children, which makes us all brothers
and sisters. Listening to Mom preach gave me a will and inspiration
to live the way God intended us to. I wanted to grow up to be just
like her—to live a righteous, good, honorable, God-fearing life.
As a young boy, I never knew that other kids didn’t get hit by their
dads. I thought it was a rite of passage to have my father knock me
around. I simply didn’t know anything different. I can’t recall any
long stretch of time in my young life when my dad didn’t hit me.
He used a special paddle he’d made from some old flooring. Flash
whacked me on the back of my legs and bare ass until I was black
and blue and so sore I couldn’t take another hit. To this day, if I get
a sunburn anywhere on my body, it reminds me of my childhood
and Flash’s beatings. Just thinking of the abuse I endured can make
me cry.
As a way to toughen me up, Flash began to teach me the basics
of boxing. Although he never hit above the shoulders, I wasn’t al-
lowed to show any emotion after he threw a punch. A jab to the
ribs, a left hook to the body—whatever came at me, I was expected
to take it like a man. But I wasn’t a man. I was a young boy looking
for love and approval from my father. I was desperate for his affec-
tion, so I ignored the pain. Sometimes I even thanked him for it, as
if I deserved what he doled out.
Because of my religious upbringing, I thought my dad was pun-
ishing me for being a terrible sinner. Until very recently, I never un-
derstood that none of his abuse was my fault. I just thought that was
how all dads treated their sons, and yet I swore that I would never
beat my kids. I wanted the Chapman family abuse cycle to die with
Flash.
I was eleven years old when I first saw the movie
The Yearling
. I
was very confused by the father’s reaction to his son when he told
him he’d done something bad. The young boy’s father hugged his
son and told him he loved him for being so honest. If I went to Flash
to confess I’d messed up, all I got was the paddle or the back side of
his very large hand against my cheek. I wanted the father from
The
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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e
Yearling,
so the next time I screwed up, I told my dad. Instead of
praising me, Flash hit me harder than ever. I was so upset I ran away
from home. I rode my bicycle all the way to Fort Morgan, fifty-eight
miles from our house in Denver. I would have gone farther, but I
was too hungry and tired. I called my mom’s dad, Grandpa Mike,
to come get me. I never told him why I ran away. If I ratted on Flash,
Grandpa would have killed him.
On the weekends when I wasn’t at church with Mom, Flash and
Grandpa Mike taught me how to hunt and fish. Living in Colorado
gave them a lot of options to show me the ropes. I was pretty good
in the woods. I loved to camp out, make meals over an open fire,
and listen to their old hunting stories.
Flash made a sport out of finding new and undiscovered spots to
hunt. He always made me feel like we were great explorers on a
mission, going places, discovering secret locations no one else knew
about. It was fun for a little kid. Flash was a survivalist. His navy
training taught him how to make any situation work. His instincts
in the great outdoors were the finest any son could ask for when
learning to hunt. He showed me how to track everything from deer
to fox, pheasants to ducks.
Flash and Grandpa Mike always made us hike to our locations.
They were afraid we might get shot by some drunken hunters if we
rode on horseback. We never took dogs. I was the dog. It was my
job to figure our course.
I spent the first twenty-three years of my life on the wrong side of
the law. For most of my childhood, I ran with gangs and bikers. The
only thing I knew about the law was a thousand ways to break it. I
got pretty good at that. It took a murder-one conviction to make me
decide to change my life from committing crime to fighting it. It
might seem strange that a man with my criminal past is so passion-
ately concerned with what happens to the victims of crime. I have
been misjudged, misinterpreted, and misunderstood for most of my
life. I have spent the last twenty-seven years trying to be one of the
good guys. I love God, my wife, my children, and my career. In spite
of those efforts to be seen as a moral man of virtue, I am still viewed
as an ex-con, a criminal, a killer. I am many things, including those
just mentioned. Put it all together and you will see: I am Dog.
I’ve always identified
myself as being part Indian, but
the truth is, I’m not really sure about my heritage. Whenever I
pushed the issue, my mom and dad skirted it, as if to say they didn’t
really want me to know the truth about who my real father might
be. I’m not saying Flash wasn’t my biological dad; he might have
been. I think a lot of kids fantasize that their dad is really someone
else, especially kids who grow up in abusive homes, like I did.
Here’s what I know for certain: I have a natural affinity for In-
dian culture, customs, music, and designs. I can spot an Apache or
Chiricahua woven rug a mile away. A few years back, I was in a shop
in San Diego talking to four or five elderly Indian women. They
asked if I had Native American in my blood.
“No. I’ve got Indian in my blood.” I was emphatic.
“Us too!” They all let out a laugh. We’d been talking for a few
minutes, when one of the oldest women turned to me and said, “If
I believed in reincarnation, there’s old stories about you, boy.”
I wanted to tell her what she already knew. Before I could say
anything, she placed her forefinger up to her lips as if to say, “Do
not speak.”
When I played cowboys and Indians with the other kids in the
neighborhood, I never wanted to be a cowboy. My dad bought me
a Western hat and six-guns to wear in a holster, but I only wanted
a feather in my hair. I wasn’t no damn cowboy. No way! I was an
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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e
Indian. I used to tell my buddies, “No bullet could ever hurt me, be-
cause I am on a mission.” They’d just laugh and pull the trigger on
their toy pistols.
My great-grandmother’s maiden name was Cochise. When I
was a boy, she spent hours telling me stories of a courageous Indian
leader named Cochise. He was born in Arizona and led the Chiric-
ahua band of the Apache tribe during a very violent time in Ameri-
can history. Cochise was five feet nine inches tall and weighed 170
pounds, a broad-shouldered, powerfully built man who carried
himself with dignity. He was gentle in nature but was capable of ex-
treme cruelty in warfare. He was a born survivor who was intelli-
gent and sensitive. He was a peaceful man who believed in justice
and the law.
His troubles began when the United States government was try-
ing to take control of what we now know as Arizona and New
Mexico, territory that at the time, 1861, belonged to his tribe.
Cochise was falsely imprisoned on charges of kidnapping a white
child. He beat the charges and settled on his reservation, where he
died a peaceful death in 1874.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. It sounds familiar, right?
I’ve always felt connected to Cochise in ways I cannot explain. I
have visions of his life as if it were my own. To this day, when there
is a full moon, I will walk outside and give praise to the Lord.
Sometimes I begin to chant in an ancient tribal way. No one ever
taught it to me. I just knew. Once an Indian chief told me I was giv-
ing praise to the Great Spirit. He kept saying, “You’re the one!” I
felt like the guy from
The Matrix,
a man chosen to lead millions.
When I was a kid, I got picked on a lot because my mother was
part Apache. Where I grew up, being a half-white boy who always
carried a Bible made me a minority, but being part Indian made me
a target. From my first week in the seventh grade, I can’t remember
a single day I didn’t hear other kids call me names like “half-breed,”
“dirty redskin boy,” and “Injun.” Listening to those kids made
my skin crawl. A mighty rush of blood consumed every inch of my
body each time those kids taunted or teased me. Sometimes I felt
angry, other times ashamed. I knew I didn’t have anything to feel
bad about, but it wasn’t easy to take.
By the seventh grade, I was fighting the Latinos for my pride on
a pretty regular basis. I could always sense when they were behind
