Saddlebag Dispatches—August 2025 by Oghma Communications

SADDLEBAG DISPATCHES

EST. 2014

Our mission at Saddlebag Dispatches is to keep the spirit of the frontier alive by fostering interest, discussion, and writing in the history and legacy of the American West.

AUGUST 2025 • VOLUME 11, ISSUE #2

All Rights Reserved. No part of this magazine or its contents may be reproduced in any form without express written permission of the publisher. This magazine is the product of human creativity and effort, crafted without the use of generative artificial intelligence in its writing or storytelling. While AI is a valuable tool in many creative fields, we are committed to publishing works by humans about the human experience.

EDITORIAL

PUBLISHER: Dennis Doty

MANAGING EDITOR: Anthony Wood

COPY EDITOR: Don Money

FEATURES EDITOR: George “Clay” Mitchell

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Benjamin Bailey

POETRY EDITOR: John McPherson

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Terry Alexander

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:

Reavis Z. Wortham, Chris Enss, Waynetta Ausmus, John T. Biggs, Paul Colt, W. Michael Farmer, J.B. Hogan, Regina McLemore

RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Barbara Clouse

BOOK REVIEWER: Benjamin Bailey

POET LAUREATE: Marleen Bussma

PHOTOGRAPHER: Patricia Rustin Christen

ART DIRECTOR: Casey W. Cowan

CONTRIBUTORS: Ben Goheen, Michael Knost, Bob Olsen, Don Money, Alex Slusar, Brandon Barrows, Michael R. Ritt, Lana Dunnaway, Chris Enss, Billie Holladay Skelley, Lynn Downey, James A. Tweedie, Michael Len Boone, Anthony Wood, Abigail Dantzler

BUSINESS MANAGER: Amy Cowan

For advertising rates and schedules or business-related questions, contact Business Manager Amy Cowan amy@saddlebagdispatches.com

CONTACT INFORMATION

Saddlebag Dispatches, LLC 2401 Beth Lane, Bentonville, AR 72712 479.657.3894

WEBSITE www.saddlebagdispatches.com

Dedicated to the memory of our late co-founder, Dusty Richards, and our dear departed friends and partners, Velda Brotherton and Bob Giel.

Chris Enss

BEHIND THE CHUTES

Dennis Doty PUBLISHER

Deadwood’s Last Hand

A mining camp where legends lived, gambled, and died hard.

Welcome to the August issue of Saddlebag

Dispatches . This month we ride into Deadwood, South Dakota—a town whose very name still echoes with the grit, gold, and gun smoke of the Old West. Our lineup explores not just the legends who walked its muddy streets, but also the largerthan-life history that continues to make Deadwood a touchstone for western enthusiasts everywhere.

We’re also proud to celebrate the winners of the 5th Annual Mustang Award for Western Flash Fiction. Last year, Laura Conner Kester claimed the trophy with her story “A Train to Catch.” This year, Brandon Barrows takes home the Mustang with his taut and memorable “A Damn Fine Day.” Our First Runner-Up is Michael R. Ritt with “The Undertaker,” and Lana Dunnaway rounds out the top three with “The Holdup.” Congratulations to all our winners, and many thanks to every entrant and judge who helped keep the spirit of western storytelling alive.

As for the rest of this issue, you’ll find an outstanding mix of history, fiction, and commentary from some of the best western authors writing today. Ben Go -

heen, Michael Knost, Don Money, Abigail Dotzler, and Alex Slusar contribute original works, while Billie Holladay Skelley takes us deeper into the complicated life of Martha Jane Cannary—better known as Calamity Jane. Lynn Downey explores the rise of Dude Ranching, Features Editor George “Clay” Mitchell sits down with New York Times bestselling author Chris Enss, and Regina McLemore recounts the tragic story of Lakota chief Two Sticks. Terry Alexander examines Hollywood’s portrayals of “Wild Bill” Hickok, Chris Enss first introduces us to trailblazing frontier doctor Jenny Murphy before diving into the life of Deadwood’s most notorious gambler, Poker Alice. Sherry Monahan mixes up another historic cocktail in Lively Libations, and Anthony Wood kicks off his two-part series on the infamous West-Kimbrell Gang.

But before you dive in, let’s take a moment to remember why Deadwood looms so large in the western imagination. Founded in 1876 during the Black Hills Gold Rush, Deadwood was a magnet for fortune-seekers, outlaws, gamblers, and opportunists. Its streets ran thick with mud, whiskey, and danger, and it quickly

earned a reputation as one of the most infamous boomtowns of the American frontier. That reputation was sealed when James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok—gunslinger, gambler, and legend in his own time—was shot in the back of the head during a poker game at Nuttall & Mann’s Saloon, holding what became known as the “dead man’s hand.”

Yet Deadwood was always more than lawlessness and vice. It was a crossroads of cultures, where miners and merchants, soldiers and settlers, Native peoples and immigrants clashed and cooperated in equal measure. Its saloons and brothels made headlines, but its boarding houses, mercantile shops, and makeshift hospitals built the bones of a real community. Even through devastating fires, epidemics, and economic crashes, Deadwood endured—and today it stands as one of the most vividly preserved towns of the Old West, a place where history hasn’t been paved over but still rides the wind through the gulch.

As we continue into our second decade, Saddlebag Dispatches remains committed to bringing you stories that embody that same rugged spirit—tales of struggle, survival, and the search for opportunity at the edge of civilization. Thank you for riding with us through the years. We’re proud to keep the campfire burning bright and look forward to many more trails ahead.

So pull up a log, pour yourself a hot cup of coffee from the camp pot, and enjoy the very best in western reading.

Dennis

Doty

WILD WOMEN

Chris Enss CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Crossing Rivers, Saving Lives

An Extract From The Doctor Was a Woman by author

Chris Enss

Dr. Jenny Murphy flipped the collar up on the thick, gray coat she was wearing and tightened the grip she had on the medical bag in her lap. It was below freezing when she left Yankton, South Dakota, in November 1894 on her way to a homestead in Nebraska, and temperatures continued to plummet. An anxious farmer had burst into her office in the afternoon and pleaded with her to accompany him to his home to help his wife deliver their first child. The man’s farm could only be reached by crossing the Missouri River.

Dr. Murphy followed the expectant father to his canoe anchored at the river’s edge and climbed inside. The water was cold, and chunks of ice clung to the shoreline. The farmer pushed off from the bank and quickly paddled into the middle of the water. He avoided most of the chunks of ice pulled downstream with the strong current. Just before they reached the other side of the river, a massive hunk of ice slammed into the canoe and overturned it. The doctor and the farmer were dumped into the water.

Still holding on to her medical bag, Dr. Murphy fought her way to the bank of the river and onto dry land. The frazzled farm-

er also managed to get out of the frigid water. He gave the doctor a moment to recover from the near drowning experience before hurrying her along to his homestead. When the pair arrived at the farmhouse, Dr. Murphy’s clothes were still wet from the swim in the river. Peeling off her coat and apron, she rushed to the bedside of the farmer’s wife just in time to help her deliver a healthy baby.

It’s doubtful Jenny Murphy imagined the extreme lengths to which she would have to go to care for patients when she decided to become a doctor. The path women had to take to achieve a medical degree in the 1880s was diffi cult. Women were not welcome in the profession. Men so opposed the female presence at medical schools that fighting the idea that women weren’t smart enough to be physicians was like swimming upstream in a strong current. The years Jenny struggled to go to school to become a

doctor helped prepare her for the grueling, but rewarding, career. Jenny C. Murphy was born on February 20, 1865, in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, to Major Hugh and Violet Murphy. Jenny and her family moved to Yankton, South Dakota, in 1878 when she was thirteen years old. In addition to attending school and helping her parents care for her brothers and sister, she also worked as a bookkeeper at a lumber yard. A portion of her funds were used to support her family with the remainder set aside for school. Jenny knew early on she wanted to go to college, but it wasn’t until she took a job in Dr. James Buchanan’s office that she realized she wanted to pursue studies in medicine. The time spent at Dr. Buchanan’s practice handling his billing exposed her to a myriad of patients with an assortment of ailments, all of which she wanted to learn how to treat.

The cost to attend medical school was exorbitant. Jenny knew she’d have to find a better paying job to save enough money. She decided teaching school was her best option, and, after graduating from high school in 1883, she took the teaching exam. Shortly after passing the test, she applied for a position at Grove School in Yankton County. The education board hired her, and in the fall of 1883, she began the first year of a five-year career as a teacher.

“IN GOOD WEATHER, YOU’D SEE HER BICYCLING AROUND TOWN ON HER CALLS WITH HER LITTLE SATCHEL OVER HER SHOULDER. IN BAD WEATHER, SHE’D TAKE HER HORSE AND BUGGY.”

According to records at the Yankton County Historical Society, Jenny was exceptional at her job. She had a firm and organized teaching style that made her popular with both her students and with school administrators. Within a year of being hired at Grove School, officials at the grammar school in Brookings, South Dakota, persuaded her to work for them.

During her time at the Fishbeck School District, the region was struck by a massive snowstorm. The blizzard occurred on January 12, 1888, and killed more than five hundred people. Many of those who perished were children at school when the fierce blizzard hit. Jenny’s class had just come inside from recess when the storm occurred. Gale-force winds shook the schoolhouse, and rapidly dropping temperatures turned the interior of the building into an icebox. Whiteout conditions made it impossible to see anything outside. Jenny gathered her class together by the potbelly stove and covered them with the few coats, blankets, and rugs she could find. She wouldn’t allow boys and girls to leave the premises until the danger passed. According to an interview Jenny gave years after the incident, she had the students “create a human chain outside so they could tie a string from the schoolhouse to the woodshed so they could get wood but not get lost in the storm.”

ters, singing, and playing games. At bedtime when all was quiet and the teacher and students were trying to fall asleep, they heard a faint cry for help in the wind. Jenny and a few of the older pupils stood in the open door of the school calling out to the weak voice, but there was no response. When the storm passed, the frozen body of a man seeking shelter was discovered nearby.

studies. In addition to working a full-time job to pay for her living expenses, she devoted herself to getting high marks. She did well and was invited back to complete her sophomore year.

The long hours poring over medical books and long hours on the job were exhausting for Jenny. She returned to South Dakota after her sophomore year to spend the break visiting with her family and resting. It wasn’t until she was home for a few days that she realized she was ill, suffering with tuberculosis. Jenny’s mother cared for her during the recess, and, by fall when she was scheduled to return to school, her health had been fully restored. Jenny graduated with honors from college in 1893. Coincidentally, that was the same year as the fi rst World’s Fair in Illinois. Included among the exhibits and attractions was a state-of-the-art hospital. Jenny did her internship at the facility. The hospital specialized in helping cardiac children.

During the evening, Jenny kept the children’s minds off the harsh conditions outdoors by writing let-

By the end of her term, Jenny had saved enough money to attend college. She applied and was accepted at the Hahnemann Medical School. Located in Chicago, the school had opened in 1860 and became coeducational in 1871. The all-male college administrators informed Jenny, if she failed to finish her first term at the top of her class, she would be asked to leave. Jenny was serious about her

At the conclusion of the six-month event, Dr. Murphy returned to Yankton to open her own practice. Mindful of the advancements made in the medical profession, she decided to close her office between 1896 and 1898 to travel to New York to gain additional training in women’s diseases and children’s illnesses.

In 1898, Dr. Murphy joined practices with two other prominent physicians in Yankton. The October 21, 1951, edition of

the Argus Leader reported that shortly after opening the office she shared with Dr. E. W. Murray she became “instrumental in the formation of the town’s earliest society of medical men and was named the organization’s secretary.” Dr. Murphy helped found the first hospital in the area.

The life of a female country doctor was a rugged one. Jenny’s territory radiated some twenty-five miles or more in every direction of Yankton. Enduring rain and snowstorms and traveling over rocky terrain to reach the sick and hurting was indelibly etched into her memory. “As if it were yesterday,” she recalled in an interview with a Sioux Falls newspaper about the difficult time she had getting to her patients, “I can still see the hack [coach] that daily met the train each afternoon, laboriously travel past my house, mired to the hub, requiring two spans of horses to get it to the station at all.”

Jenny was proud of the team that hauled her coach through the Yankton countryside. “Their faithfulness and intelligence were amazing,” she told the newspaper reporter. “Many times, I

have awakened in my rig, safe and sound in the barn after an all-night ride from some country confinement case.” Eventually, the doctor traded in the horse and buggy for a car.

Dr. Murphy had a distinctive look. She was a thin woman who dressed in long black or gray skirts, black jackets, and white blouses. Her hair was fixed in a tight bun, and she routinely topped her outfit off with a man’s black hat. She had a masculine way of walking, and her actions were manly as well. She was outspoken and stern and unafraid to take on cases from which others would shy.

Yankton County, like much of the rest of the country in 1917, was dealing with a flu epidemic. The illness claimed thousands of lives. Flu sufferers in Dr. Murphy’s care survived the outbreak. She attributed the success rate to a prescribed combination of whiskey and camphorated goose grease followed by plenty of rest. The process used to create the medication involved boiling the goose fat in a skillet and mixing in cubes of solid camphor. The concoction was then applied to the chest and aching joints.

“In 1919, Dr. Murphy was

widely publicized as the first woman ever to garner a seat on a city commission,” the October 21, 1951, edition of the Argus Leader reported. “She was elected commissioner of streets in Yankton and during her five years on the board was instrumental in the early day cleanup of taverns, other members of the board noted.”

Her work as a Degree of Honor medical examiner in South Dakota began in 1900, and she became the national medical examiner in 1914. In 1922, she dropped her medical practice to devote full time to the organization, until 1940, when Dr. Murphy retired from all duties.

Dr. Murphy passed away on November 3, 1959, at the age of ninety-four.

Chris Enss is a New York Times bestselling author who has written about women of the Old West for more than thirty years. She’s penned more than fifty books on the subject and been honored with nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Awards, an Oklahoma Center for the Book Award, three Foreword Review Magazine Book Awards, and the Laura Downing Journalism Award. The Doctor Was a Woman is available wherever books are sold.

LIVELY LIBATIONS

Sherry Monahan CULINARY EDITOR

Deadwood on the Brink

Gold, guns, and whiskey: How Deadwood’s gold rush ran on rotgut.

The Black Hills of the Dakota Territory were home to the Lakota Indians until a rich gold deposit was discovered in the fall of 1875. The U.S. Government gave the land to the Lakota in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, but that didn’t stop excited fortune seekers from illegally entering Indian land. By the fall and winter of 1876, Deadwood’s population had swollen to about ten thousand.

Seth Bullock, who became sheriff of Deadwood, arrived in August 1876 and wrote to a friend, “I arrived here August 3d and found a ‘red hot’ mining town. Claims are 300 feet up and down. A great many here are idle and broke. Business of all kinds is represented. [Jack] Langrishe has a theatre here, and two dance houses boom nightly. We have no law and order, and no prospect of either. I cannot advise you to come; on the contrary, I think you are doing better than you could here. Board here is $10 per week, flour $8 per hundred, bacon 20 cents per pound, etc., whisky 25 cents a drink.”

Early Deadwood resident Jerry Lewis, and a pallbearer for James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, also recalled the lively gold town in early 1876. He told a reporter,

“Four hundred buildings have been erected, and every lot on the town site has the foundation of some sort of structure laid on it. There are four regular saloons, where a bad quality of whisky is retailed, and six stores, where you can buy groceries, clothing, canned fruits,

gum boots, or whisky. A dance house is to be established soon in Swearengen Hall, a log and frame building 35 x 80 feet, and a bevy of eight waiters and dance girls are now en route from Cheyenne, their arrival being eagerly and impatiently awaited.”

When genuine whiskey rolled into Deadwood, it was a big deal. Namely because rotgut was the norm early on, and the sheer location of getting barrels into town was a challenge. Because Deadwood was in the rugged Black Hills with twisty, curvy roads, it was difficult to reach by coach and freight shipments were erratic. The Black Hills Daily Times wrote in 1882: “An Immense Stock.

Famed Deadwood Sheriff Seth Bullock, ca. 1877.

For a couple of weeks past teams have been unloading an immense stock of wine, beer, and liquors for Gottstein & Franklin. Their stock includes the very best brands of cigars, cordials, pure gin, fine rum, extra brandy, and splendid whiskies, and last though not least, one hundred barrels of genuine Bourbon whisky on hand. Prices to suit the times.”

Deadwood drew many colorful characters during its boom, but none are more famous than Martha Jane “Calamity Jane” Cannary and the man she adored, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. Jane was more comfortable around men rather than her female counterparts and had gained a reputation in Deadwood for cussing, spitting tobacco, and getting drunk and disorderly. She and Bill downed plenty of whiskey during their Deadwood days.

Colonel F. G. Patrick recalled

Bill’s fondness for whiskey, “I had entered the place where I found Will Bill and two companions playing cards at a table for whisky. Bill was a voracious drinker, and it was customary for him to say, upon being introduced to a stranger, ‘Time to take a drink. It makes me damned dry talking to you sons of bitches.”

Rock candy syrup was used to rectify rye whiskey into a product called Rock and Rye. This was a controversial beverage because not only was it offered as a cocktail in saloons, but it was also sold as a health tonic. Some mixologists recommended it to soothe a sore throat, but some just liked the way it tasted. The makers of one brand of Rock and Rye called Tolu—which was a popular health tonic in the late 1870s and early 1880s—claimed it could cure coughs, colds, sore throats, debilitated constitutions, weakness

of the lungs, or consumption. The high alcohol content and lack of other active ingredients, of course, meant that the elixir wasn’t acally effective, and it was banned in some areas.

Next time you get “dry” talking to someone, sip this popular 1880s cocktail.

Sherry Monahan is an award-winning culinary historian who enjoys researching the genealogy of food and spirits. While there’s still plenty to explore about frontier food, she’s expanding her culinary repertoire to include places and foods from all over America and beyond. She holds memberships in the James Beard Foundation, the Author’s Guild, and the Wild West History Association. She is also a professional genealogist, and an honorary Dodge City marshal. Her newest cookbook, Culinary Treasures: Dude & Guest Ranches of America, will hit bookstores this Fall, alongside Victorian Recipes with a Side of Scandal: The Story of Ethel Barry, which was released in December.

Original 1870 Advertisement for Old Crow Whisky.

Rock and Rye Cocktail

1 cup water

3 cups sugar, white, brown, or maple

1 tablespoon rock candy syrup

1 wine glass Rye whiskey

Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Remove and stir in sugar. Allow sugar to dissolve. Place 1 tablespoon of the syrup in a whiskey glass and add the whiskey. Stir together and serve.

Source: Adapted from Jerry Thomas’s, The Bar-Tender’s Guide, 1887.

THE VIEW FROM MY HILL

Reavis Z. Wortham CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Directions

Lost cowboys discover in Texas even shortcuts take the long way around.

Sonny Bonner and Rank Pickles pulled their truck over on the dusty shoulder of the county road to ask directions from a local rancher who was repairing a gap in his five-strand barbed wire fence. Behind him a pair of legs stuck out from underneath a hay bailer that looked as if had been hammered out during Lincoln’s presidency.

“Howdy,” Sonny said from behind the wheel.

The older man at the fence nodded his head and peered warily from under a sweatstained hat brim. This necessitated a glance at Rank in the shotgun seat, who smiled and tried to pretend he wasn’t lost.

“You boys lost?”

“Not completely,” Sonny answered and tilted his hat back. “We know we’re in Texas; we’re just not sure which parts we’ve already seen.”

“Where you going?”

“We’re heading up to Caprock for the rodeo.”

“That why y’all are pulling a horse trailer?” He was quick.

Sonny and Rank exchanged glances. “Yessir. We plan to give team roping a shot. I heard we need to cut off somewhere near here and hit Farm Road 339.”

“You could, but I’d recommend

you boys take County Road 4923 out by Pecan Bend.”

“Why?”

“Ain’t no bridge over 339. It washed out a couple of months ago during that flash flood that drowned Clara’s jersey cow Nellie. Washed her plumb up to Doak Meeker’s place and lodged her halfway up the dead pecan tree in his front yard. Looked like she was sitting on a limb like a kid swinging his legs. Had to use a chainsaw to get her out.”

Sonny winced. “They used a chainsaw on the cow?”

“Naw, they cut the dead tree down, but the weight of the cow caused the tree to twist, and it fell into the barn. Tore off half the barn door and limbs were everywhere.”

“Tree limbs?”

“Of course. You think I’m talking about cow limbs? Anyway, since there ain’t hardly no traffic out there, no one’s gotten around to fixing the bridge.”

“Good point. So how do we get to Pecan Bend from here?”

He tilted his hat back on a long forehead and toed the dirt.

“Let’s see.” He thought a moment and his eyes brightened. “All right. First you go down this here road a piece until you come to a curve that goes past that quarter section or so Willie Ray just bought.”

Rank dutifully wrote the instructions on the palm of his hand with a cracked Bic pen.

“After you make that bend, you’ll come to a dirt road leadin’ off to the right past Frank Parker’s old pole barn. Take that road over the wooden plank bridge and through some snaky looking country. That’s where Fred runs the Double Shovel ranch. He might be hiring, and you boys look like you could use the work if you don’t place in the money tonight. When you get there turn left at the second or third dirt road where Gene Decker got skinned up when his horse got a rope under his tail and stuck his front foot in Gene’s pocket.”

“Right,” Sonny said, trying to seem like a good listener.

“No, left. Can’t you hear? Go a good long piece and you’ll come to a hill and go over it.”

“Not around it?” Sonny asked. The rancher stared at him. “The road goes over the hill. You can do

whatever you want once you get there. On the other side is the Double R and it looks like pretty good cow country, we’ve always had good grass around here. You’ll know the place ‘cause Brad Grant keeps that ugly Roman-nosed, cold-jawed bag of bones in the front pasture by the road. I hate that horse. He affects my sensibilities.

“Anyway, take the next dirt road off to the left and you’ll see a hogback ridge to your right. Keep it on that side.”

“We getting close to Bent’s Fork now?” Sonny asked, gently urging him to go on and not caring. He’d been lost after he said howdy.

“Oh, sure, after that you’ll pass a good size stock tank that’s full of big bass and then you can see the land fall off toward the river.”

“What’s going on Dad?” asked

the young man who appeared to give up on the hay bailer. Sonny though it was because they couldn’t build up a good head of steam on it. The sweaty youngster stood and joined his dad.

“Well son, I’m just giving these boys instructions to Bent’s Fork.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Go back down this road the way you came to the highway, turn north to mile marker 243, turn right beside the Mobil station and you’ll hit town a mile and a half later.”

“Maybe we should have stopped in town to get something to drink,” Rank said with a weak grin.

“It’s easy to get back to Daddy D’s,” said Dad. “Just turn around here and go down this road a piece until you come to Blackie Moore’s windmill and then you go on over the hill, past the bluff, and when

you see that big old hog run take a dog leg to the left and you’re there.

“Right.”

“No, left. Dang boy, if you clean your ears out, life would be a little easier on you.”

“Think I’ll straddle a bull tonight, too,” Rank said to Sonny as they pulled out. “He might help clear my head.”

Reavis Z. Wortham is the New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels to date. A retired educator, he now writes full time, with The Rock Hole named a Top 12 Mystery of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews and Dark Places listed among True West Magazine’s Top 12 Modern Westerns. Wortham’s The Texas Job won the Will Rogers Medallion Award Gold Medal in the Western Modern Fiction category. His latest work, the Western Horror novel Comancheria, hits shelves in October. Reavis lives with his wife in Texas.

THE BOOK WAGON

Benjamin Bailey BOOK REVIEWER

Six-Guns

& Shadows

Classic characters ride again and new ones take aim.

A Cowboy’s Return

When Elmer Kelton, one of the greatest western writers to put words on a page, passed away back in 2009, it was the end of an era. The likes of his character Hewey Calloway would not ride again on his many misadventures in the dusty wastes of West Texas.

To my surprise, however, thirteen years later, Steve Kelton would take over the reins from his father. In Elmer Kelton’s, The Unlikely Lawman (published by Forge, 2022), Steve Kelton takes us back to 1904, two years before the set time of The Good Old Boys,

when we were first introduced to Hewey Calloway.

This time around sees Hewey leaving West Texas and traveling north into Colorado trailing a herd of horses for his good friend Alvin Lawdermilk. Being stuck with a young hand named Billy Joe Bradley, the two from the start don’t see eye to eye. After some time on the trail with different ideas on work ethics, Billy Joe turns out to be an outlaw. Hewey then finds himself being deputized to help bring in the outlaw by retired Texas Ranger Hanley Baker.

Steve captures the brilliance his father brought to the character of Hewey Calloway. The same fun-loving cowboy, who would rather stay out of reach of the encroaching progress of civilization or a violent confrontation, rides through these pages with familiarity. The story was a welcome home to characters from the first three books of Hewey Calloway while introducing a great new character in Hanley Baker. Baker shines almost as bright as Hewey in their constant banter back and forth.

The Unlikely Lawman lets us see Hewey in different situations and how he handles them as we would expect him to. Never one to turn down telling a tall windy, Hewey delights the characters he

comes across with his tall tales. Even if some characters know he is pulling their leg on some of the details. Sadly, after writing this book, Steve Kelton, too, passed away. Author John Bradshaw has now taken over and another Hewey Calloway adventure was published in 2024 called The Familiar Stranger. I have had communication with Bradshaw who stated he is trying to get another book published featuring the beloved cowboy Hewey.

Rating: 4.5 Nuggets out of 5.

Sticking to the Trail

Keeping with the theme of returning characters, Larry D. Sweazy brings back his famous Texas Ranger in The Return of the Wolf (Published by Thorndike Press, 2021). Josiah Wolfe returns after a seven-year hiatus from The Gila Wars. Now an ex-Texas Ranger, Josiah is thrown right into the middle of a family feud between the Langdons and the Halversons, where both sides have a strong grudge against him. The Lang-

don’s want revenge for Josiah’s role in bringing a family member to justice. The Halverson’s are his in-laws, and they are bitter toward Josiah for his wife’s and their daughter’s death, and taking Lyle, their grandson, away from them. This leads to a boiling point, and no one is safe as the bullets fly. What will make things worse is when Josiah falls for the lovely Eva Langdon.

Larry D. Sweazy, a master at his craft, creates suspense and wonder within his stories. The Return of the Wolf captures all his technique and makes you not only feel for the characters in the story but experience their emotions as well. In one part of the story, Josiah’s young son Lyle, runs off as a badman comes to their home. After dealing with the villain, Josiah cannot find Lyle. The way Sweazy blends action and emotion, I found myself becoming deeply concerned about Lyle. In the suspenseful showdown scene near the end,.there is a lot of commotion. It could be easy to lose the reader at points trying to keep up with everything going on. Sweazy leans into the emotion running through the scene while using descriptions to keep the reader grounded and the suspense building all at the same time.

Finding Josiah in the middle of a family feud where both sides resent him was a great choice by Sweazy to challenge the characters. I found this an exceptional way to challenge the “good vs evil” or better said, “white hat vs black hat” formula in western writing. It connects the reader emotionally to both sides instead of just straight out of the gate. Knowing who the villain is spares the reader of having to read two hundred plus pages

waiting for a resolution of something you could see coming a mile away. This great addition to the Josiah Wolfe series is a standout western. If you have not read the other books in this series, I highly recommend you do so.

. Rating: 5 Nuggets out of 5.

A Bunch of Busters, Fellers, and What the Devils

The Johnstone formula is a phenomenon that cannot be denied regarding readership and how many books a year are published under that name. When you enter the western section at Barnes & Noble, seventy-five percent of the books in stock are by William E. Johnstone. Dead Broke, Colorado (Published by Kensington Publishing Corp, 2025) sticks to the Johnstone formula that has spilled across hundreds of books and many different series.

Dead Broke, Colorado is the first in a new series I am sure will have at least five sequels, with one already one on its way this Sep-

tember. Throughout this book, the dialogue flatlines and stays similar with each character. The marshal is quite bossy and everyone he seems to get into an argument with soon gets called “buster” and the townsfolk follow suit. When the marshal is surprised by something or someone showing up, he drops a lot of “what the devils?” The narrator is not much different in this regard with “feller” coming up quite a bit throughout the story.

The memorable characters of the story are gambler Sara Cardiff, Marshal Mick MacMicking, and the gassy Mayor Nugget. The inspiration for these characters feels like they could have been pulled from the James Stewart western movie Destry Rides Again and then dipped in that Johnstone formula. Marshal Duncan “Mick” MacMicking, who states in the story he is not fond of his name, which I found to be humorous, is this series’ version of Johnstone’s famous Smoke Jensen character. The classic Johnstone “hero” of the story that does not show any slight form of remorse or regret after gunning someone down. Sara Cardiff has an interest in the town and the marshal though she does challenge him at times. Mayor Nugget, who was a miner who founded the town, fumbles around with ideas to make his town prosperous all the while being gassy. At one point, there is a scene of tension, and a hush falls over everyone in the crowd. The author found it necessary to let the reader know that even “Nugget kept his fart silent.”

The final showdown comes three hundred-and sixty-pages in. The fight is between townsfolk and gunfighters and to top it off, a large storm comes through, threaten-

ing to flood the entire town. The ending is a spectacle of rip-roaring action that then wraps up to a quick ending. If you are a fan of the Johnstone formula, then you will be happy with this tale.

Rating: 2.5 Nuggets out of 5.

A Deal with Death

Occasionally, you will find a book title that falls in line with the story perfectly. Trail of Madness (published by Lawless Trails Press, 2024), is one of those titles that tells you exactly what you are getting into. Michael Knost has taken a classic legend and has made his retelling worthy of a deep study. This story takes off with the idea of what if death came calling but instead of taking your life, came with a deal instead?

There are many different versions of the tale as to why Jack McCall decided to end James Butler Hickock’s life with a bullet to the back of the head. Michal Knost has viewed the historical facts of this assassination and put to question Jack McCall’s mental health. Re-

ceiving a brain injury, McCall has episodes of sharp headaches and flashy vision which leads to him meeting with a mysterious figure known as John Varnes. Promising him to be bulletproof, Varnes makes a deal with McCall to go to Deadwood to take care of someone who did not hold up their end of a deal with him back in Denver.

After proving to him that he is bulletproof, Varnes convinces McCall to take revenge on Hickock for the killing of a long-lost brother McCall never knew he had. Varnes makes shadowy appearances throughout the book, guiding McCall to his destiny, from the killing of a legend to swinging from a rope.

Michael Knost challenges the reader to look through the eyes of the assassin who shot down one of the greatest westerners in cold blood. The reader will find themselves at times almost empathetic toward McCall as he slips slowly into madness. Knost’s take has made this retelling fresh, dramatic and downright terrifying trying to understand how someone can commit such a heinous murder. I found myself constantly hoping McCall would not follow through with the devilish wisdom of Varnes.

The story moves very fast and keeps you reading page to page. When I needed to go to work or take care of something at home, I literally had to tell myself to put the book down. Western fans should all be rejoicing for this dark and demented tale that Michal Knost has so masterfully put together.

Rating: 5 Nuggets out of 5.

A Bone to Pick

In Dragon Teeth (published by Harper Fiction, 2017), Yale fresh-

man William Johnson poses as a photographer to win his way onto Othniel Charles Marsh’s 1875 western fossil hunting expedition. The journey is uneventful until Johnson finds himself in a conversation with a stranger who is later identified as the right-hand man of Marsh’s archrival, Professor Edward Drinker Cope. Cope is also leading a fossil hunting expedition west. Marsh’s paranoia leads him to suspect Johnson is spying for Cope, so he abandons Johnson, leaving him with little cash and his photographic equipment. Johnson soon joins Professor Cope’s expedition and departs for Helena in the Montana Territory.

Written long before Crichton was a household name, Dragon Teeth was published posthumously by his estate. Despite gun battles and Indian raids, Dragon Teeth lacks the action of many westerns but an enjoyable story helps maintain the pacing. It worked well enough as a road trip listen, though I wouldn’t give it a second go-round.

Rating: 3.5 Nuggets out of 5.

DEADWOOD DEADWOOD

“There’s gold in them thar hills,” they said. A fantasy, a hope, a dream That left men either rich or dead; Or maybe somewhere in between.

There’s plenty to be found, they say, In places scattered ‘round the West; Montana, Californ-i-ay, And Colorado were the best.

But buried in the Black Hills ground, Near Deadwood Creek—this tale unfolds—

The richest vein men ever found; The mother of all Mother Lodes.

By sweat and blood, by brain and brawn, By stubborn luck and force of will, With pickaxes and pistols drawn, To gain it men would dig or kill.

And ‘round the creek there rose a town Where miners came to satisfy Their need for women and to drown Their sorrows in a whiskey rye.

DEADWOOD

JAMES A. TWEEDIE JAMES A. TWEEDIE

And fortunes panned or dug for pay Were won and lost in gold or land

Where men like Hickok came to play And die with aces, eights in hand

Not all the women there were whores, For wives and daughters also came. And some wore pants instead of drawers, Like Jane, Calamity by name.

And when the surface gold was gone

The Homestead Mine dug deeper still And found that they soon came upon Yet further wealth through blast and drill.

Old Deadwood lived by boom or bust

Like other gold towns on the map, But since the gold turned into rust, What’s left is now a tourist trap.

A living ghost town, pale and wan, Where living ghosts seek color, still.

For gold is gold, the search goes on, As once it did, and always will.

BRANDON BARROWS

A DAMN FINE DAY

A SHORT STORY

Winner of the 2025 Saddlebag Dispatches Mustang Award for Western Flash Fiction

Someone was coming down the Buckeye Point Road, a rarity in these East Texas swamplands, but Dan Ross paid no attention. He was busy, awkwardly tightening a whiskey-soaked bandage around his left ring finger. A particularly feisty bowfin took a bite from it days earlier and now it was badly infected. The stinging whiskey was a last-ditch effort at saving the digit. He grunted in pain as he finally succeeded in tying the bandage off.

Ross sank into his old rocking chair with a sigh, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes against the throbbing ache. Sounds of jangling harness finally registered, and he opened his eyes to find a group of riders had appeared before his peeled-log cabin. Three strangers—even rarer in the Caddo Lake swamps.

“Howdy, old feller,” the lead rider called, hand lifted. He slid from his mount and approached the porch. He wasn’t very tall, but he had shoulders like an ox. Beneath a black, flat-crowned sombrero, his skin was deeply tanned, and there was something about his eyes Dan Ross did not like.

The broad-shouldered man planted a foot on the bottom step of the porch, and flipped back his duster, flashing a badge. Dan couldn’t help noticing the paired six-guns as well.

“You Ross? Name’s Jameson. We’re officers from downstate a piece, looking for a fugitive, feller called Trace Cooper. He’s a doctor by trade, but he hooked up with a heist-gang and—well, that don’t matter, as

he’s the last of ’em. We’ve reason to believe he’s gone to ground in this here swamp.”

Jameson paused, watching Ross, awaiting any response. The old man hadn’t even acknowledged him. It vaguely disturbed Jameson. He’d heard tales about these swamp-rats… how they all seemed a mite touched.

“They told us in town,” Jameson finally continued, “that you know these swamps better’n anyone alive.”

“Reckon so,” Ross said, spitting over the porch railing. “But what’s any of it to do with me?”

“We thought mebbe you—” one of the others began.

“If he don’t know the swamp, he’s dead already most-like,” Ross cut in. He cleared his throat and spat again. “Hell, this peatbog won’t hold nobody ’cept a bantam like me, so without a boat, you got to know where the paths is. That’s all if he went in.”

Jameson said, “We’re sure he did, Mister Ross, and we’d appreciate your help bringing him out.”

“I ain’t no man-catcher.” He raised his bandaged hand. “Cain’t even fire my squirrel-gun proper like this. Anyway, if he went in, this Cooper’s prolly already sunk to the bottom of the bog where nobody can find ’im.”

Jameson stepped onto the porch. From a pocket, he produced a roll of bills, peeling off two tens—more money than Ross saw in six months. “That could well be, but if he’s dead, we gotta be able to show it.” He stuffed the bills into Ross’s shirt pocket and placed a hand on the butt of the revolver on his right hip. “We’ll pay for your time, but we need your help.”

Jameson’s manner, his insistence—these weren’t no “officers,” Ross realized. They were bounty hunters. And if they couldn’t bring their quarry in, they needed proof he was dead to get paid. Suddenly, Ross was disgusted, but the look in Jameson’s eye made plain this wasn’t a request.

Climbing to his feet, Ross asked, “And if I find ’im dead, you fellas gonna help me drag him out?”

“Hell, no!” the third rider declared. “We ain’t goin’ in there. You just bring us some sort of proof if he’s dead.”

Dan Ross spat one last time then, grumbling, went inside to make ready.

Hours later, the September sun was dipping toward evening as Ross poled his scarred old pirogue up the black waterway of the swamp toward Buckeye Point. When he reached the muddy bank, the three bounty hunters hurried from Ross’s cabin to meet him. Jameson helped him pull the pirogue onto dry land, then asked, “Well?”

“I found ’im.” Ross wiped his brow. “Just like I told ya—stuck in a peat bog, dead as a doornail. Looks solid, some places, but they’re right treacherous. That’s how I found ’im—big ol’ hole in the peat, body coupla feet beneath the surface. Musta broke right through and sank like a stone. Couldn’t git ’im out if you wanted.”

Jameson scowled. “Hell, man. So, Cooper’s dead. So, you were right all along. But where’s the proof?”

A cold look appeared in Ross’s eyes. “I got your proof.” He extracted a blood-stained handkerchief from his overalls and slowly unfolded it.

The other men crowded close. A swamp quail’s

repeated whistles came from a distance away—the only sound for a moment. Then one of the men made a noise in his throat and turned from the sight—a severed finger with an intricately patterned ring.

Jameson read aloud, “’Amsterdam Medical College,’” and turned toward his partners. “I’d say that’s proof, gen’l’men.” He took the cloth-wrapped digit from Ross, exchanging it for another ten-dollar bill. Moments later, the three men were riding back down the Buckeye Point Road toward town.

Ross watched them go, muttering, “Good riddance. Blood-money bastards.”

He mounted his porch and settled into his chair. Letting out a sigh of both satisfaction and utter exhaustion, he studied the fresh bandage on his hand. Once healed, he’d be near as good as new.

“Bandit or not, that Cooper feller was damn sure one hell of a doctor. Takin’ off that rotten finger didn’t hardly hurt a’tall.”

Neither did the fifty dollars Cooper paid for ferryin’ him to Swanson Landing, where coaches east could be found. Through luck or skill, Cooper was filthy, tired, but plenty alive when Ross discovered him—and Ross found he liked the man a whole lot more than he did Jameson.

Patting the wadded bills in his pocket, Dan Ross chuckled. He was dog-tired, but all in all, it was a damn fine day. {

Brandon Barrows, is the author of a dozen novels, his most recent Long Before They Die from Full Speed Publishing. He has also published over one hundred short stories for which he is a four-time Mustang Award finalist and a two-time Derringer Award nominee.

MICHAEL R. RITT THE UNDERTAKER

A SHORT STORY

First Runner-Up in the 2025 Saddlebag Dispatches Mustang Award for Western Flash Fiction

Abel Farnum gently closed the eyes and began to work the needle and thread between the upper and lower lids to keep them shut. The man on the table before him was about thirty-six hours past caring or feeling any pain. The eyes had to be closed. The people who would shortly pay their respects wouldn’t want the eyes staring back at them. They wanted to think of the deceased as being peacefully asleep, even if his body had been broken and mangled. Abel would take care of that as well. When he was finished, there would be no sign of the violence that marked this man’s passing from this world to the next.

The man was young, in his late twenties, and had been good-looking. He was wild and foolish, as many young men are prone to be. About a month ago, he had been racing his horse carelessly through town and had run down a young girl of eight years. The grief of the child’s parents and the rest of the community that mourned her was heartbreaking to witness and still brought a lump to the throat of the undertaker who had experienced hundreds of funerals and grieving parents.

The young man’s family was wealthy and affluent in town, and he had managed to avoid any legal repercussions for his actions. Yet, here he was in the back room of Farnum’s Mortuary, on the same table the young girl had occupied only a few weeks ago. His body had been discovered one morning lying broken on the dusty road in the same spot where his horse

had trampled the life out of the innocent child. Abel’s thin lips grinned beneath his hawk-like nose as he considered the poetic justice.

He had finished preparing the body and dressing him in the suit his brother had provided when he heard the bell above the door to his parlor announce the arrival of a visitor. He wiped his hands on a towel, removed his apron, and hung it on a hook behind the door.

As he entered the parlor, he saw Gill, the town marshal, waiting for him.

“I’ve got a customer for you, Abel.”

The undertaker simply nodded and said, “Let’s have a look.”

The marshal turned and led the way outside as Abel followed. He stepped off the boardwalk, stood by the side of a buckboard, and waited for Abel to catch up.

“Who do you have there, Gill?”

The marshal reached in over the side of the wagon and, grabbing the corner of a tarp, threw the edge back with a flourish. “It’s Heinrich Bauer.”

Abel stepped up and peered into the wagon bed. “What happened to him?”

The marshal flipped the tarp back so it was again covering the face of the dead man. “It looks like Fritz broke his neck.”

Abel noticed Gill’s derogatory slang term. He didn’t believe the marshal had anything against German people, but Bauer was not a well-liked man in town. He was a drunk and a mean one at that. His wife, Hil-

da, had been to see the doctor numerous times with broken bones or a battered face. The general belief was that Bauer would snap her neck one of these days.

“How did it happen?”

Gill removed his hat and then used his bandana to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The sun was riding high in the New Mexico sky. A light breeze wafted off of the mountains to the west. It gently kissed the town as it passed by, only to land hot, heavy, and exhausted on the plains of the Llano Estacado to the east.

“His wife found him in the barn. Looks like he fell from the hay loft.” Gill returned his hat to his head. “I guess it was her lucky day.”

“Well,” said Abel, stepping back up on the boardwalk, “drive the wagon round back, and I’ll help you unload the body.”

Gill climbed up in the wagon seat and gave the reins a flick. Abel met him at the back door as he pulled up.

Gill was short, stocky, and the opposite of Abel’s six feet, two inches. The undertaker was thin at only one hundred and sixty pounds but surprisingly strong, and the two men soon had the body of Heinrich Bauer on a table in the backroom of the mortuary.

Gill noticed the body of the young man still lying there. He nodded toward it, then toward Bauer. “Here’s two men I won’t be shedding any tears over.” He looked at Abel, and a curious expression lit his face. His eyes narrowed, and his brows were knit together. “It’s kinda odd, isn’t it?”

“What’s that, Marshal?”

“These two no-accounts dying within a couple of days of each other. And last month, there was that gent that hung around Tandy’s Billiards Parlor.

Everyone said he was involved in that bank holdup over in Pinto Springs. He was found shot between the eyes, just like that bank teller.”

Abel grinned and nodded. “I guess business has been good lately.”

Gills’s narrow eyes stared at Abel for a long moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone was cleaning up the town.”

Abel returned the lawman’s gaze. “Isn’t that your job, Marshal?”

Gill huffed as he turned to go. “I’ve got to do it legally.” He pointed again at the two bodies on the tables. “This ain’t legal.”

When Gill had gone, Abel walked to a desk in the corner of the room and sat behind it. He remained deep in thought for a few minutes, then sighed as he looked at the two bodies. He would have to be more careful tonight. Lester Cooper had gotten a young girl pregnant and refused to marry her. In her despair, she had hanged herself. They would find Cooper hanging from an oak in his yard tomorrow morning. He was the undertaker, and business was good. {

Michael R. Ritt, is an award-winning Western author whose work reflects a deep connection to the American frontier. He spent over two decades amid the plains and mountains of Colorado and Montana, immersed in their rugged beauty and rich history. Now living in south-central Wisconsin with his wife, Tami, Mike continues to write with passion and precision. He’s a member of Western Writers of America, Western Fictioneers, and the Wisconsin Writers Association. His debut novel, The Sons of Philo Gaines, earned the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award and was a two-time Peacemaker Award finalist. In 2023, he won the Peacemaker Award for Best Western Short Fiction.

LANA DUNNAWAY THE HOLDUP

A SHORT STORY

Second Runner-Up in the 2025 Saddlebag Dispatches Mustang Award for Western Flash Fiction

Maggie Crandle sat at her desk in the office of the Four Corners Courier. Mr. Herbert Bensly, head cashier at the Peoples Bank, located two buildings down the street, stood in front of her. He was a portly man at least twice her age.

He rocked back on his heels. “I had hoped to have an invitation to dinner at your house by now, Missus Crandle.”

Behind Mr. Bensly, Maggie could see her boss, Glo Mabry, rolling her eyes. Maggie sighed and forced her lower lip to quiver a bit. “It’s only been six months since I lost my dear George.”

“Well, yes, of course. You don’t want to wait too long though, my dear. You’re not getting any younger.” He turned toward the door.

Will Denton entered and held the door open for Mr. Bensly.

“Denton, coming in to make your payment today?”

“Yes, sir, the bank’s my next stop.”

Mr. Bensly gave a curt nod and exited.

Glo picked up some papers from her desk and waved them in the air. “I’ve got work in the back.”

“I was wondering, Maggie, er, Missus Crandle, if you’ll be attending the social Saturday evening.” Will’s face reddened. “I know you’re still in mourning, and I wouldn’t dream of asking you to attend with me.” He cleared his throat. “But I was hoping I might see you there.”

“I expect you’ll see me. And, Will, we’ve known

each other since third grade. For heaven’s sake, call me Maggie.” She had hoped he would ask if he could escort her. Like everyone else, he assumed she was still mourning the loss of her husband. The truth was she had never mourned for George. She had felt nothing but relief when the first shovelful of dirt landed on his casket. Her father had passed when she was barely sixteen, leaving her and her mother scraping by on a farm where the only thing they managed to raise was dust. Then her mother fell ill. In desperation, Maggie had celebrated her eighteenth birthday getting joined in holy matrimony. Domineering and abusive, George never let her forget that he had pulled her and her mother out of the clutches of poverty and given them a roof over their heads. A month after her mother passed, he tumbled over Murray’s Bluff in a runaway wagon, and Maggie was blessed with the gift of widowhood.

“Well?” Glo emerged from the back of the office. She was the only person who knew Maggie’s feelings about George, Mr. Bensly, and Will.

“He didn’t ask if he could escort me.”

“Life is short, honey. Sometimes you have to step up and answer questions you haven’t been asked.” Maggie looked out the window as a buggy, with two saddled horses led behind, pulled up in front of the office. She had seen the two men several times in the past week. Her curiosity had been aroused because they didn’t appear to have any business in

town. They just seemed to be observing everyone’s comings and goings. As they got down from the buggy and hitched the horses, two other men rode up and dismounted. One of them gathered the reins of the saddled horses as the other three reached into the buggy and withdrew rifles. They looked around, pulled their kerchiefs over their faces, and headed toward the bank.

Maggie gasped. Four Corners, Arkansas, was only eight miles from Indian Territory, a haven for outlaws. “Glo! Glo!” She pointed. “Robbers! Headed toward the bank!”

Glo jumped to her feet. “I’m going out the back to warn the sheriff.”

The man holding the horses’ reins looked up and saw Maggie. She waved with a fluttering of her fingers and stretched her lips into a smile. He touched the brim of his hat and nodded.

She backed out of the gunman’s sight but stayed where she could see the unfolding action. When she saw Will walking her way, she didn’t immediately realize he was walking at gunpoint. He carried a bank bag in each hand.

A shot rang out.

The man behind him kept one gun at Will’s back and turned, firing his other gun in the direction of the bank.

Gunfire ricocheted back and forth.

In front of the Courier door, Will dropped the money from his right hand and grabbed his left arm. A patch of blood, bright red, spread beneath his splayed fingers.

Maggie threw the door open, grabbed him by

the arm, and jerked him inside. When the lookout turned his gun toward them, she snatched the bag of coins from Will’s left hand and dropped it on the boardwalk. She shut the door and shoved Will down behind her desk. Kneeling, she tore his shirt sleeve exposing his bloody arm.

Will winced. “I think they just grazed me.”

She nodded. Pulling up her skirt, she grasped her petticoat and ripped off a length of the ruffle. When she had wrapped it snugly around his arm, she leaned beside him against the desk. The gunfire was moving on down the street.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yes. I will.”

He turned to her. “Pardon?”

“I will attend the social with you. What time will you be calling for me?”

“Five-thirty?”

She nodded. “We can walk from my house. Afterward, I expect you’ll be wanting to come in for a cup of coffee before heading home.”

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am, Maggie. I expect I will.”

“Go ahead,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. She closed her eyes.

He leaned over and kissed her. {

Lana Dunnaway, grew up frequenting the public library, dreaming up her own stories, and hearing her mother say, “Lana Sue, get your nose out of that book!” A retired registered nurse and junior high school history and English teacher, she has written one novel, Landing Among the Stars, set in WWII Hawaii. When she is not reading or writing, she enjoys traveling, puttering in her yard, and dabbling in art. Proudly claiming two children, two grandchildren, and one cat, she makes her home in Gravette, Arkansas.

ANGEL OF THE WILD WEST

Though remembered as a pistol-wielding outlaw, Calamity Jane built another legacy—fearless caregiver, tireless nurse, and protector of the sick when no one else would answer the call.

STORY BY

BILLIE HOLLADAY SKELLEY, RN, MS

When Martha Jane Canary first rode into Deadwood, South Dakota in 1876, she was already known by her sobriquet, “Calamity Jane.” Her sharp-shooting, cross-dressing, alcohol-swilling, cigar-smoking, tobacco-chewing, and profanity-laced tirades had already earned her a reputation as a hard-living hellraiser. One newspaper noted that she had a penchant for cracking “all the bottles in a saloon with well-aimed bullets.” Known for being a persistent gambler, occasional prostitute, and devoted wanderer, Jane engaged in numerous drunken binges and spent much of her time consorting with miners, soldiers, and railroad workers. Within her colorful and self-indulgent lifestyle, it is often difficult to sift the fiction from the facts—especially since she often promoted much of the fiction as fact herself—but there is evidence she had somewhat of a dual personality. Her wild, wayward, and wanton

lifestyle was counterbalanced by a tenderhearted and sensitive side that manifested itself in unselfish and considerate traits. Calamity Jane, the hell-raising frontierswoman, was also a compassionate and caring nurse to the ill, injured, and needy.

Born near Princeton, Missouri in 1856 (some sources indicate 1852), Jane’s family decided to move westward, likely to follow the gold rush boom. During the trip, Jane learned to ride a horse and shoot a gun—and she proved adept at both. Orphaned at a young age and possessing little formal education, she had to make her way in the rough, male-dominated West. To do this, Jane disregarded many of the conventional norms for proper female behavior and dressed frequently as a man to earn a man’s wage. Over the years, she took on numerous jobs, including being a bullwhacker, wagon driver, cook, maid, waitress, dishwasher, laundress, and dance hall girl, but despite these employments, she often remained destitute and penniless. Over time, Jane developed an amazing talent for telling tall tales, and

Martha Jane Canary visitng Wild Bill Hickok’s grave in Deadwood, sometime during th early 1890s.

Martha “Calamity Jane” Burke Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, sports an elaborate western outfit on horseback in front of tipis and tents. One of the rowdiest and adventurous women in the Old West, this photo captures the mythical nature of her frontier persona just two years before her death in 1903. Photo by C.D. Arnold, ca. 1901.

her drinking increasingly became a problem. She was jailed on numerous occasions for intoxication and disorderly conduct, but, as Black Hills pioneer John S. McClintock noted, her “kind and sympathetic nature” continued to be revealed during “her tender ministrations to the suffering.”

At a young age, and likely out of necessity, Jane became skillful in treating common illnesses, removing arrows, and bandaging gunshot wounds. Although she had no formal nursing training, several early books, memoirs, and newspapers document her serving in various nursing capacities. They also note how she always seemed willing to help anyone in need.

Both Richard Dunlop in Doctors of the American Frontier (1965) and Robert Karolevitz in Doctors of the Old West (1967), reference Jane nursing patients at Fort Laramie in the 1870s. She assisted military surgeon Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy by helping with the ill and injured, and she “stayed up nights caring for the sick.” Dr. McGillycuddy recognized Jane’s nursing talents and noted that although she could

be “loud and rough,” she was “kind-hearted” and “always ready to help or nurse a sick soldier or miner.”

James McLaird notes in Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend (2005) that in the fall of 1876, Jane reportedly nursed a miner named Jack McCarthy, who lived alone in an isolated cabin between Central City and Lead, South Dakota. McCarthy had broken his leg and was unable to care for himself, so Jane raised money, purchased supplies, and engaged a packer at Deadwood. She arrived at McCarthy’s cabin around Thanksgiving time and cared for him there until he recovered.

Several accounts indicate Jane nursed the sick during typhoid eruptions and during black diphtheria outbreaks. Jesse Brown and A. M. Willard describe in The Black Hills Trails (1924) how Jane nursed a family in Pierre afflicted with black diphtheria. She purchased food and medicine for the family and nursed them till the illness had passed.

Roberta Sollid also describes in Calamity Jane: A Study in Historical Criticism (1951) how the pioneer

Robinson family of Deadwood had six children who fell ill with black diphtheria. Jane went into their home and took charge of caring for the children.

Sollid also describes a pioneer in the Fort Pierre area, Charles Fales, who recalled how Calamity Jane nursed one of his relatives who was ill with mountain fever. Since this relative was a prim and proper lady, Jane was asked to cease smoking, swearing, and drinking—and wear a dress. She abided by these stringent conditions for weeks until the woman improved, but once she recovered, Jane headed immediately to the nearest saloon to drink.

In 1878, the Black Hills Daily Times reported that a man named Warren had been stabbed on Main Street, but he was “doing quite well under the care of Calamity Jane, who has kindly undertaken the job of nursing him.” This article went on to note that “there’s lots of humanity in Calamity, and she is deserving of much praise for the part she has taken in this particular case.”

Jane’s most famous nursing efforts occurred during the smallpox epidemic that struck Deadwood in 1878. Referred to as the “dreaded scourge” and “speckled monster,” smallpox was an extremely contagious disease with a high mortality. Those who survived the illness were often left with permanent, disfiguring scars. At the time, afflicted patients were isolated in grimy tents and crude cabins, known as pest houses, in an attempt to prevent further spread of the dreaded disease. Robert Karolevitz notes that Jane cared for these patients “when no one else would go near them.” Lewis Crawford also describes in Rekindling Camp Fires (1926) that, during this epidemic, Jane “ministered day and night among the sick and dying, with no thought of reward or of what the consequences might be to herself.” Even Stewart Holbrook, who refutes many of the tall tales surrounding Calamity Jane, gives her credit in Little Annie Oakley and Other Rugged People (1948) for working “night and day ministering to the ill and dying” during the Deadwood smallpox epidemic.

In Old Deadwood Days (1928), Estelline Bennett documents how “Jane alone took care of the smallpox patients in a crude log cabin pest house up in Spruce Gulch around behind White Rocks.” Dora DuFran (D. Dee), who knew Jane well, wrote in Low Down on Calamity Jane (1932) that during the smallpox epidemic Jane “would yell down to the placer miners in the gulch below for anything she needed, and throw

down a rope by which to send supplies. They would bring what she required to the foot of the hill and she would haul them up hand over hand. Her only medicines were epsom salts and cream of tartar.” When patients died, Jane “wrapped them in a blanket and yelled to the boys to dig a hole. She carried the body to the hole and filled it up. She only knew one prayer, ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.’ This was the funeral oration she recited over the graves. But her good nursing brought five of these men out of the shadow of death, and many more later on, before the disease died out.” D. J. Herda also acknowledges in Calamity Jane (2018) that “everyone would have “Calamity Jane,” in full regala ca. 1895, during her years of employment as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Martha Canary resting on a rock dressed in men’s clothing. Note on verso reads, “Said to have been taken in July, 1875 at Lower French Creek in the Black Hills when Calamity was 23 years old.

died” without Jane’s care and attention.

Beyond the epsom salts and cream of tartar, Jane’s medical supplies during the 1878 smallpox epidemic likely consisted only of herbs, sulfur, molasses, alcohol, and cool cloths for fevered brows. Without formal training or proper medications, she had to be led by compassion. A doctor did occasionally visit the Deadwood pest house, but even he believed that without Jane’s care not one of the patients would have survived.

Fortunately, Jane never contracted the disfiguring disease. Some believe she was immune because she was exposed to the disease as a child, but others attributed her survival to her “pickled” constitution.

Whatever the illness, injury, or problem afflicting people, Jane always seemed willing to help. In 1895, the Black Hills Daily Times featured an article about Jane that described how “she was one of the first to proffer her help in cases of sickness, accidents, or any distress.”

How Jane earned her nickname is a long-standing debate. Several explanations have been suggested and refuted, but it is interesting to note that many

early authors attributed her sobriquet to her unselfish nursing activities during times of tribulations and calamities. Dora DuFran, for example, claimed that if anyone was sick, the message was to “send for Jane”—“where calamity was, there was Jane; and so she was christened Calamity Jane.”

Jane’s life of hard living caught up with her on August 1, 1903. She died of inflammation of the bowels—likely due to chronic alcoholism. Even though she led a rather nomadic life, Jane considered Deadwood to be her home. The lawless, rough, and tumble town had always suited her, and on her deathbed, she requested to be buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood beside Wild Bill Hickok. That request was honored.

Deadwood gave Jane an elaborate funeral, and during the service, the Reverend Charles B. Clark acknowledged her charitable acts by asking, “How often amid the snows of winter did this woman find her way to the lonely cabin” of a miner to help those “suffering from the diseases incident to those times?” In her obituary, the Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader noted the “deeds of mercy” Jane had performed “in

a sick room or camp where women hardly ever ventured and ladies never.” The Spokane Press declared that “often in obscure cases of sickness, Jane was the first and only nurse,” and The Pine Bluff Daily Graphic noted that Jane “never refused to go even great distances to nurse the sick back to health.” That newspaper also confirmed that Jane would “stop abruptly even the incomparable pleasure of ‘shooting up’ a saloon full of miners bristling with guns if someone should call her to a sickbed.”

Accounts of Jane’s compassion and commitment to nursing are so abundant and persistent that today nursing schools, nursing journals, and nursing websites acknowledge and herald her contributions to the profession. The UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing, for example, lists Calamity Jane among the “Famous & Notable Nurses in History.” The Working Nurse journal describes Jane in a 2022 article as an “Angel of the Wild West” and as a “Hellion with a Heart of Gold.” The Gifted Healthcare website highlights Calamity Jane as an individual who made a major impact on the nursing profession, and in a post on the ARMStaffing website, she is included on

the list of “important nurses who made the profession what it is today.”

Although much of Calamity Jane’s life was one of self-indulgence and hard-living, she also had a charitable and nurturing side to her personality. She may not have been “the ministering angel” exemplified by Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, but she did nurse patients and advocate on their behalf. Nurse Jane’s caring and merciful deeds comforted many and saved the lives of many others.

Billie Holladay Skelley, a retired clinical nurse specialist, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has written several health-related articles for both professional and lay journals, but her writing crosses different genres and has appeared in various journals, magazines, and anthologies in print and online—ranging from the American Journal of Nursing to Chicken Soup for the Soul. An award-winning author, she has written twelve books for children and teens. Her book, Ruth Law: The Queen of the Air, was selected to receive the 2021 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Children’s Literature Award, and her book, Bass Reeves: Legendary Lawman of the Wild West, received a 2024 Will Rogers Medallion Award and a 2024 Spur Award.

Deadwood gravesite of Martha Jane Burke, aka “Calamity Jane,” as it stands today. A plaque nearby includes her dying wish: “Bury Me Beside Wild Bill.” Photo Courtesy of Billie Holladay Skelley.

ALEX SLUSAR

THE WITNESS

A SHORT STORY

Minnesela, South Dakota Spring, 1890

Molly Harper sat at the broken piano in the White Dog. The door opened. A man walked in—about thirty, wearing a bowler hat, black coat, and vest. He was pale and gaunt in the afternoon light. Shaggy brown hair draped a bearded face. He wore a pistol cross-draw in a cracked leather holster, and his boots and pants were clotted with grime. She’d served worse, Molly thought, just as she saw a dark shine to his sunken eyes, just like…like….

It couldn’t be, she thought.

“Afternoon, friend,” George Brown said from behind the bar with a crooked yellow grin.

“Whiskey,” the man said.

Brown poured. The man slung it back and gasped. Molly heard Jenny’s voice—whiskey set Frank off.

“What brings you?” Brown said.

“Passin’ through.”

“For Deadwood?”

“S’pose.”

“Lookin’ for work?”

The man shrugged. Brown tut-tutted. “Ought to look here. See the new builds going up?”

“Some.”

“That’s progress, friend. Railroad’s coming, all manner of commerce. The Deadwood rush is over.”

The man shrugged.

Brown poured another whiskey.

“I’d like a letter writ,” the man said.

“The girl writes,” Brown said, nodding at Molly. “Fifty cents. Ain’t all she does, mind.”

“She play that piano too?”

“Yeah. But a drunk cowpuncher fell into the keys t’other night,” Brown chuckled. “Ain’t her only talents, understand.”

“I heard you.”

Molly looked at the floor.

“She talk?”

“Don’t shut up most days,” Brown said. “Don’t know what’s wrong with her now. She need to talk for you?”

“I just want a letter.”

“Girl,” Brown said.

A chill ran up Molly’s spine. Slowly, tentatively, she rose from the piano bench. She told herself the fear was for nothing, there was no way it was him. She approached the bar and caught his scent—tobacco, horse musk, something metallic. Had Frank smelled like that back then? She couldn’t remember. He’d been heftier, better-groomed. No, it couldn’t be him. But those eyes….

Fifty cents lay on the bar. He smiled with a mouth like a wild dog’s.

“This is Molly,” Brown said. “Hardly eighteen.”

“Molly,” he said. “Ain’t you white as bloomers.”

“He wants a letter,” Brown said.

“I-I know,” Molly said quietly.

Brown fetched parchment paper, writing imple-

ments, and sealing wax. Molly dipped a pen in an ink bottle, nearly stabbing it into viscuous black.

“Somethin’ the matter?” the stranger said.

“Nothing,” Molly said. “What would you like wrote?”

“Say, ‘Dear brother.’”

She felt a twinge at the back of her neck. She scrawled it.

“Say, ‘I’m back from the north, headed home.’”

Molly ran beaded ink on the paper as he spoke. Her lettering turned his coarse mutters into wide loops and curves like wave crests. She filled the paper with words of lumber camps along the Ottawa River, of travel by hoof and train.

The stranger finished. Molly said, “Your… your name?”

“What for?”

“To sign the letter.”

“Ain’t got but one brother. He’ll know who sent it.”

“A mark then.” She set the pen down. “It needs something to end properly.”

The stranger held the pen dagger-like and lay a smear under the words.

Molly folded the letter. “If you want it sent, I’ll need your brother’s name, so’s it—”

“Post office does that.” The stranger plucked the letter from her fingers and slipped the letter inside his vest. Molly flinched.

“We can post it,” Brown said. “Just twenty-five cents more.”

“For a man that’ll be rich when the rail comes, you’re keen for coin,” the stranger sneered. “And you, girl… I don’t like how you regard me.”

Molly braced against the bar.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “I know you from somewhere, piano girl.”

“Fort Smith,” Molly said. “You’re Frank Yates.”

He drew his pistol. Molly slung the ink bottle. It threw black liquid across his face as he howled and fired. The air exploded and a hot wind snapped along the right side of Molly’s head. She spun and fell. The floor tasted of blood and cedar.

Yates bellowed. Brown shouted. Thunder pealed twice. Glasses shattered.

Molly tried to move, to scuttle away for somewhere safe and wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It seemed to be happening to someone else, like she was in the next room listening while the shadow of Frank Yates loomed over the painted piano girl on the saloon floor, ready to send her into oblivion on a blast of smoke and lightning.

Like he did with Jenny, she thought. There were curses, heavy footsteps. A door swung open. A horse whinnied.

The rigor broke. Molly gasped and clawed at the floor, scrambled on elbows and knees behind the bar. Something there glistened red and wet among broken bottles. She heaved, sobbed, and went with the sudden dark.

There were voices and large, gentle hands. Something cool touched Molly’s brow and the hot pulse alongside her head. A sharp mineral scent took away the pain, and she floated in thick, inky darkness. She heard piano music—but muddled, like it was played underwater. An elegant, lyrical piece, maybe Clara Schumann, but that wasn’t right, Molly thought. A dark and flooded place should have a nocturne, which sounded beautiful, which was a beautiful exotic word to write but to say it was like ‘knock-turn’ and that was funny. Jenny thought so too—and she heard Jenny laugh.

Molly woke. The music stopped. She was bedded in a room scented with pine, disinfectant, and tinctures. A candle flickered against a window holding the night within. Beside it, a short, bird-like man washed metal implements in a bucket—Doc McTeer, she realized. Another man sat on a chair beside her, hat in hand, gnawing at his thumbnail. She recognized the moony face, skin like cocoa powder, thin bristly black mustache, almond-coloured eyes, denim work clothes rimed with salt—Nate Stall.

A third man stood half-shrouded in shadow at the foot of her bed. A gray man, Molly thought—tall and ashen, his Stetson hat, coat, and houndstooth gray slacks, his hair and thick pushbroom moustache over a serious mouth flecked with steel. He stared with piercing, unblinking eyes.

“She’s awake, Doc,” Nate Stall said. “Miss Molly, you hear me? It’s Nate.”

“Nate,” she whispered. “I hear you.”

Doc McTeer brought a wet cloth and dabbed her forehead. “Easy, miss,” he said. “You’ve been out near ten hours.”

“Nate… why are you here?” Molly asked.

“I heard shootin’,” Stall said. “Saw a man run out o’ the White Dog and ride south. I came in, saw what happened. I found you, got you help.”

“How do you feel?” McTeer asked.

Molly grimaced. “My head hurts.”

“It could have been much worse. The bullet creased your scalp, but it’ll heal. Bandaged you and gave you a laudanum compound for the pain.”

Molly reached up. Gingerly, she touched gauze where it was wrapped around her head.

“You were very lucky, girl,” McTeer said. “You’ll be all right.”

“You… you certain?”

“Yes. Why?”

Molly eyed the gray man. “There’s a ghost there,” she said. “Think maybe he wants to take me away.”

Stall and McTeer followed her sight. The gray man blinked.

“My name’s Seth Bullock, Miss Harper,” he said.

“Mister Bullock owns the SB Ranch where I work along the Belle Fourche River,” Stall said. “And he’s a marshal.”

“Oh,” Molly said.

Bullock came to her bedside, pulled up a stool, and sat.

“What happened in the saloon?” he asked.

Molly told him. The flash of recognition. What was said. What Yates asked for. What she’d done. How she’d confirmed her suspicion before the saloon exploded in smoke and gunfire.

When she finished, Bullock said, “You didn’t see him kill Brown.”

“No. I heard shots.” She exhaled. “George is dead, then?”

Bullock nodded. “Seems he went for a shotgun under the bar. Wasn’t fast enough. It was in his hand, un-cocked.”

Molly bit her lip. She wasn’t sure what to say. George Brown had taken her in when she’d come up alone from Arkansas, taken his hand to her, had even taken her on occasion without recompense. Fed and clothed her, yes, but kept her. Used her. She felt a void now, but with it, something like relief.

“Where’d you know this Yates?” Bullock asked.

“Fort Smith, three years ago.” Molly blinked tears. “He… killed my friend.”

Bullock frowned. “Who?”

“Jenny… Jenny Doherty. I played piano in this place, the Blue Rose—only played, I didn’t yet… but Jenny was a little older and worked. Frank worked the mill. He liked her, and she liked him, even with his drinking. Jenny said she could tame him.” Molly swallowed. “One night, Frank heard she was hosting

another mill worker he didn’t like. He went up to her room. He shot ’em both, there in her bed.”

Molly trembled. Hot tears spilled, rolled silently over her cheeks. “Frank ran. The law searched, didn’t find him. Thought maybe he’d run to his brother in Oklahoma, but we never knew. Then today, he just… walked right in.” She shuddered and wiped her cheeks.

“You’re certain it’s the same man.”

“He drew when I said his name.”

Bullock rose. “All right, then.”

“What do you aim to do?” Stall asked.

“Ride him down, come morning,” Bullock said. “You saw him head south, Stall. ’Less he camps in the hills, he’ll make for Deadwood. Problem is, I don’t know him on sight.” He eyed Molly. “But she does.”

Molly’s throat tightened.

“Could she ride, Doc?” Bullock said.

“She could, yes,” McTeer said. “But she’s had an ordeal. Needs time to recover.”

“Time is a luxury. We find Yates, she can rest.”

“Not to hamper justice, Marshal, but her well-being is paramount. And I might point out, any commotion for justice for a scoundrel and pimp like George Brown will be subdued.”

“He was no saint,” Bullock said. “But I won’t abide a killer on the loose. If the same man committed this crime in Fort Smith years back, who knows what he’s managed in the interim. What more he might do given the latitude?”

McTeer shrugged. “If you keep the dressing clean and don’t go hard, she could ride. Any complications, see Freeman in Deadwood. He’s reliable.”

“I’ll cover any medicine you have to ease her travel.”

“Mister Bullock,” Stall said. “I best come with you, sir.”

“Why?”

“This Yates is dangerous. You look for him, and I’ll watch your back. And look after her.”

Bullock frowned. “All right. But I won’t pay your wage if you ain’t workin’ the SB.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll swear you in. Deputy scale pays a little more’n wrangling.”

Stall smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“Mister Bullock,” Molly said. “You ain’t asked me if I want to ride with you.”

“Yates killed your friend,” Bullock said. “I figured it weren’t a question.”

“You do intend to find him.”

“I do.”

Molly heard Jenny laugh. “Then I’ll ride,” Molly said.

The morning sky was sunless and blue over the prairie. Bullock and Stall rode abreast, Molly behind Stall on his buckskin mare, holding tightly around his trunk. A purple shawl draped over her head covered the bandage. Doc McTeer provided a laudanum bottle with something added to cut down on the bitterness— Molly tasted no difference, but it eased the pain. The gentle surging rhythm of the animal underneath was pleasant, and the Black Hills with their dark ample foliage were a welcome change of sight from Minnesela. Stall rode well and was cheerful. Bullock said little and remained serious.

“He was Deadwood’s sheriff once,” Stall said while they rested in the hills, and the horses drank from a creek. “Law in Montana ’fore that. Well-known ’round here. Sure you never heard of him?”

“Maybe I did. I don’t know. Maybe the bullet scrambled my head.”

Stall lit a cigarette. “Good fortune. Bullet didn’t kill you, Mister Bullock up from Deadwood on business, and a sworn deputy watchin’ you now.”

Molly sipped laudanum, settled it on her tongue. “Why you helpin’ me, Nate? I mean, what is it that you want?”

“Want?”

“Men only ever want somethin’ from me. Growin’ up, Fort Smith. George. Even you, when you come to town.” She nodded to Bullock, where he stood by the creek, gazing at the hills across the water. “Don’t know what he wants yet, but reckon I will.”

“Ain’t always about wantin’,” Stall said, exhaling smoke. “I don’t like people who think they can hurt other people, ’specially good people. Mister Bullock, he likes things in order. That’s it.”

“I ain’t good.”

“Good enough,” Stall said. “Careful with that bottle.”

The bitter taste faded. Molly corked the laudanum. They reached Deadwood that afternoon. The high sun lent the gulch and town a straw-yellow sheen. There were buildings of red and amber brick with gleaming windows, weathered barns, and homes with

slatted windows and scrollwork. Some structures were roughly made of spruce logs from the hills and had been there for years. Water pooled in hollows and wagon furrows in the tamped earth streets. Denizens milled about the thoroughfare—women with young children, workmen in grimy clothes carrying pickaxes and mattocks, weary from the day’s labor. A gaggle of bearded men in cosmopolitan black coats smoked and conversed outside a dry goods store—some gawked seeing Molly riding with Stall, then quickly shied from Bullock’s glare.

They rode past saloons and a livery. Molly searched for Yates but didn’t see him. A prominent building caught her eye, where “Gem Variety Theater” was emblazoned on a drape hanging outside. On its balcony, three whores posed and postured for passersby. A peal of raucous laughter sounded within.

“Bigger than this,” Molly said.

“What’s that?” Stall said.

“George said the rail comin’ to Minnesela will make it bigger than Deadwood.”

“What rail?” Bullock asked.

“The one from the north.”

“The Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad. I know them,” Bullock said. “Comin’ to Minnesela, he said?”

“The town’s getting ready for it. George said money will pour like water.” She swallowed. “Suppose when it does, I’ll be somewhere like that.”

“Don’t count on it,” Bullock said.

They reached the post office, where the clerk’s records featured nothing being sent to anyone named Yates within the last day, and no sender matching his description. Nearby, a small building off the main drag had a sign bearing a five-pointed star and Arthur G. Baxter, Sheriff. Bullock brought Molly in while Stall watched the horses.

The sheriff’s office was occupied mostly by cells which were empty save for one, where a slender youth sat on a cot holding his head low. A portly man with a thick white moustache sat behind a desk smoking a thick cigar.

“Sheriff,” Bullock said. “Little traffic here.”

“A quiet week, fortunately, Mister Bullock,” Baxter said. “Who’s this?”

“Molly Harper from Minnesela,” Bullock said. “We’re lookin’ for someone, who killed her employer and tried to kill her. Name’s Frank Yates, but he might go by another. Around thirty years of age, long

brown hair and beard, black coat, bowler hat. May have black ink on his face or clothing.”

“And likes drinking,” Molly said.

Baxter eyed her. “My sympathies, Miss.” He looked over at Bullock . “Ain’t much to go on... Could be anyone.”

“Well, we’re lookin’. So should you.”

Baxter twiddled his thumbs. “I will. Have my deputies do the same.”

“Appreciate it,” Bullock said. He turned and made for the door. Molly followed.

“Hey,” the boy in the cell said. “I saw that man.”

“Shut up, Halliday,” Baxter said. “You want another beatin’?”

“You couldn’t beat a rug.”

“Clever mouth for a no-good whoreson.”

The boy spat.

Molly and Bullock approached the cell. The boy was maybe seventeen, clad in a dirt-caked union suit and slacks. His vulpine face under a shock of black hair was purple and swollen on the left cheek, and the bridge of his nose was bruised.

“You knock him around?” Bullock asked.

“Naw,” Baxter said. “Broke up a fight at the Gem last night.”

“Broke up, shit,” the boy said. “Easy arrestin’ someone cold on the floor. I weren’t involved. Caught a stray blow.” He pointed to his welted cheek.

“Until the Homestake Company pays your fine, boy, you started it.”

“Homestake? You work the mine?”

“He’s a powder monkey,” Baxter said. “When he don’t cause trouble.”

The boy glowered.

“What’s your name?” Molly asked.

A faint smile showed under the bruise. “Tom Halliday, Miss,” he said. “You get hit, too?”

“Something like,” she said. “You said you saw who we’re looking for?

Halliday nodded. “Finished at the mine and went to the Gem. This feller asked Mose Hornby about work, said his name was Young, Fred Young. Had some dark ’round his eyes, face was sorta pink, like he’d scrubbed. Splash of black on his collar too. Said he hadn’t worked mines, just lumber camps north, so Mose said to go ask the camps outside town. Then he left. Angus Patchett came in and hit Wade Ford for somethin’ Wade said. That kicked it off. They oughta be in here, not me.”

“Did you see where he went?”

Halliday shook his head. “Didn’t see. He weren’t part of the fight. Seemed kinda simple. Sick, maybe.”

“It does sound like him,” Molly said. “You’re a help, Tom Halliday.”

“He really try to kill you?”

Molly nodded.

“Hope you find ’im.”

Bullock approached Baxter’s desk. “How much is his fine?”

“Twenty dollars,” Baxter said. “Kid’s no good, Bullock, nor his word.”

Bullock took out a pocketbook. He grabbed a pen from Baxter’s desk, scribbled in the book, then tore it out and passed it over.

“Remit that. Open his cage.”

“Bullock—”

“Do it.”

Baxter got up. He unlocked and opened the cell. Halliday came out slowly.

“I’d suggest you roust and fine all concerned parties before blaming the first you see,” Bullock said.

Baxter flushed. “The badge is mine to apply as I see fit, Mister Bullock.”

“How much longer, I wonder. I’ll be waiting for word you hear of Yates or Young or whatever the hell he goes by.”

Bullock led Molly and Halliday outside where Stall stood with the horses. Halliday said “Thank you, sir. I s’pose—”

Bullock whirled. “You got no business in the Gem, ever,” he said. “I know your name, now. I see or hear you’re back there, I’ll put you in a cell myself. Understand?”

Halliday’s eyes widened. “Y-yes, sir.”

“And quit the Homestake. Find somethin’ you won’t blow yourself up doing.”

“Yessir.”

“Run along.”

Halliday swallowed. He touched his brow to Molly in salute then scampered away down the street.

“Who was that?” Stall asked.

“Some kid,” Bullock said. “Well, mount up. We’re losin’ light.”

They tried the lumber camps. Half a mile due east of Deadwood a foreman held a scrap of paper confirming that Fred Young enlisted earlier that day

to start work the next morning. It was signed with a black ink slash.

“He’ll have to bed somewhere and keep his horse,” Bullock said as they eased along the road back. “We’ll try the hotels, liveries. Then saloons.”

“If he works the camp tomorrow, why not wait, catch him there?” Molly asked.

“Rather keep up the hunt than allow him time to learn he’s sought for,” Bullock said. He eyed Molly. “My apologies, Miss Harper. I expect you’re tiring.”

“Sleep when Frank’s caught,” Molly said slowly.

Stall looked over his shoulder. “Been a long day,” he said. “She needs rest, sir.”

“My home ain’t far,” Bullock said. “My wife’ll see you comfortable, Miss. Stall and I will keep searching.”

“And if you find him?” Molly said.

“Bring him to you trussed to identify.”

“All right, then.”

They came around a hill. The distant Black Hills glowed orange under creeping purple night, and in the gulch below, the lanterns of Deadwood winked alive like fireflies. Against the hillside stood the iron gates of Mount Moriah Cemetery, with scattered headstones of etched marble which trees sprang up around like gnarled fingers.

Molly heard Jenny say, “Look.”

She eyed the headstones and trees in the fading light. A solitary pinprick of amber lay among them. A distant shape shifted with it.

“Nate….” she said, pointing.

Stall looked. “Gravedigger,” he said.

Bullock halted. “I don’t hear shovels,” he said. “Worth a look.”

They tied the horses at the gates. Stall helped Molly down. She leaned on him as they went up the winding cemetery path. Further up the path, another horse was tied to a tree.

“That’s the one I saw,” Stall whispered.

They drew closer. A lantern glowed set low against a tombstone. A man’s voice hummed, low and off-kilter. Molly saw him stooped low, his back turned, rummaging through something on the ground while singing to himself. When he rose, she saw the bowler hat outlined against the night.

“Frank,” Molly said. The shape turned.

“Hold it,” Bullock said.

Yates stood uneven against the tombstone. A bottle of whiskey sloshed in his hand.

“Hey,” Yates said. “Go ’bout your business.”

“You’ve none here,” Bullock said. “This him, Miss Harper?”

Molly exhaled. “That’s him, Mister Bullock.”

Yates’ dark eyes were glassy in the dim light. He looked at Molly quizzically and said “The hell….”

“Frank Yates,” Bullock said. “You’ll account for yesterday’s crimes and others.”

Yates glared. He faintly twitched. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You remember Fort Smith, Frank,” Molly said. “You remember Jenny. Been trying to escape her all this time, haven’t you? While your evil’s been eating you up inside.” She stepped forward.

Yates flinched.

“Miss….” Stall said.

“Said in your letter you were for home,” Molly said. “There’s no home for you, Frank. No escapin’. There’s just for you to answer.” She smiled in the dark.

Yates reached for his cross-draw holster. Bullock’s hand went to his side. Molly saw a flash, heard sudden thunder close, smelled smoke as it wafted up from the pistol in Nate Stall’s hand.

Yates jolted into the darkness. Both pistol and whiskey bottle fell from his hands. He tumbled backward and rolled several feet down the hillside. He came to rest against two small gravestones where he shuddered once, coughed, and went still.

Molly listened for Jenny. She heard nothing.

Molly was at the piano in the White Dog. The door swung open, and Seth Bullock walked in.

“Miss Harper,” he said.

The saloon was empty. The chairs, tables, and portraits behind the bar were gone. Only the piano and a faint stain on the floor remained. Molly touched a cracked key. It sounded like a dull thud.

“You well?” Bullock asked.

Molly brushed her hair at the thin dark line on her scalp. “I’m recovered, thank you, Mister Bullock.”

“Heard the judge compensated you from Brown’s estate,” he said. “Trust it helps.”

“Some.” She gestured to the piano. “Thought it might be enough to buy and fix this, but… I’ll go find another.”

“I’m sure.”

“Saloon won’t sell, though. Most people are leaving.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“All this time preparing for the railway, and now it won’t come to Minnesela. They’re building on land along the Belle Fourche instead.” Molly crossed her arms. “Your land.”

“That’s so.”

“Bringing fortune right into your pockets.”

“Bringin’ people, Miss Harper. Civilization. You saw how it gets in Deadwood, how it could’ve been here. Perhaps something new and better can be developed.”

“Perhaps.”

Bullock approached the piano. “It’ll need direction, contribution. Mister Stall is interested in upholdin’ the law there. Reckon it’ll need other things. Maybe music.”

Molly frowned. “You want me to play?”

“I don’t want anything. But to ask your intent.”

“Why?”

Bullock shrugged. “When I was around your age, I left a life that didn’t agree with me to make my own instead.”

“I see.” Molly frowned. “Well, when and where I go is my decision, Mister Bullock. I won’t chase after any old scheme that might be building up. I intend to find a way to live as I like.”

Bullock smiled slightly. “Good,” he said. “Be well, Miss Harper.” He turned and left the saloon.

Molly looked at the broken piano. For a moment she thought she heard music. {

THE AUTHOR

Alex Slusar is a writer of crime and Western fiction. His short fiction has previously appeared in Saddlebag Dispatches, Grain, and Starlite Pulp Review, and his novella “The Hot Streak” was recently published in the anthology American Muse. He is a member of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, and in 2022 was selected for the SWG Mentorship Program. Originally from the Canadian prairies, Alex lives in Eastern Canada, though he can sometimes be found exploring the northern wilderness or hiking in the Sonoran Desert.

RANCHERS, DUDINES, WRITERS & RIDERS

In July of 1930, newspapers around the country ran an article titled, “Ranch Bosses Mainly Women.” The unnamed reporter who wrote the story was astonished that 60% of guests at western dude ranches were women. He was even more flabbergasted to learn that 22% of dude ranches were owned by women alone.

STORY BY

LYNN DOWNEY

This was not a surprise to the many wives and single girls who got up every day and kept a dude ranch going, whether they were an owner, manager, cook, wrangler, housekeeper, or the daughter of the house. The same goes for those who spent glorious vacation hours at ranches from the Rockies to the desert Southwest. For more than 140 years, dude ranches have been places for women to raise a family, run a business, have fun, find careers, and find themselves. And they still are.

Dude ranching began in the early 1880s with the Eaton brothers of Pittsburg, who had a cattle ranch near the town of Medora, North Dakota. Like their fellow ranchers, the Eatons gave food and a bed to men who came to the area to hunt buffalo, elk, and other game. The nearest hotel was in Bismarck, over one hundred miles away. Medora was a popular place and

For more than 140 years, dude ranches have been places for women to raise a family, run a business, have fun, find careers, and find themselves.

the brothers soon realized that offering free lodging was cutting into their ranching profits. So, they started to charge visitors ten dollars a week to stay at their place and had no trouble finding customers. News about the hospitality at the ranch began to spread, and men of all ages showed up at the Eatons’, including the sons of wealthy easterners who wanted their boys to either dry out or learn manly arts from real cowboys. Pretty soon Medora locals, and reporters, started calling these visitors dudes.

That word started out as a northern English term meaning clothing, as in duds, but by the early 1880s, a dude was a man who wore too-fancy clothes or wasn’t quite masculine enough for tough times. These men kept taking the train to Eatons’, and by 1899, their spread was called a dude ranch. As more dude ranches opened across the West, dude stopped being an insult and instead became an affectionate term for the guests who flocked to this new buckaroo holiday.

The Eaton brothers were so successful as dude ranchers they moved their operation to Wolf, Wyo-

ming in 1903. Just a few years later, they had so many women guests, they put up a ranch house just for them, which they called the “Hen House” or “The Hennery.” It was always occupied.

From the beginning women were the ticket to dude ranching’s success. Those who ran ranches with their husbands were usually called the “dude ranch wife,” but these ladies didn’t stick to a rigid definition. For the most part, men managed the wranglers, the livestock, and kept the barns in good repair. Women were responsible for guest relations, housekeeping and kitchen staff, and public relations. But not always. Frances Allan, of the Allan Ranch in Montana, once said, “The outdoors and the indoors being so closely interwoven, one could not succeed without the success of the other.”

That’s the way one dude ranch owner felt about his wife. Irma Dew was Wyoming-born and working as a

librarian in Cody around 1915 when she met New Yorker Larry Larom. He and his friend Winthrop Brooks, of Brooks Brothers clothing fame, had opened the Valley Ranch about forty miles outside of town. Larry and Irma married in 1920, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that he could not run his ranch without her.

In a 1923 letter, he said that Irma put up with “noise, trouble, and worries which the average wife would not stand.” He praised Irma for how hard she worked despite being away from the pleasures and entertainments most wives enjoyed, a life that no eastern woman would be able to manage. Larry and Irma ran the Valley Ranch for over fifty years—they were dude ranch royalty.

Dude ranching also gave unique opportunities to single women. In the early 1900s, Mary Shawver left her native Chicago to take a pack trip with Tex

From the beginning, women were the ticket to dude ranching’s success—as guests, workers, and leaders.

Holm, who ran Cody’s Holm Lodge, a rustic dude ranch. She came back year after year, and then became a business partner with new owner Billy Howell in 1916.

Mary had a big heart and very big opinions. She was a dude ranch wife without a husband, running nearly every aspect of the ranch while Billy took men on multi-week pack trips. She managed the wranglers, who loved her, and when there weren’t any dudes in residence, she went on the trips herself. One winter, Mary was marooned at Holm Lodge after an unexpected snowstorm and survived for three weeks with only the occasional visit of a Yellowstone park ranger who came by to see if she was still alive. She was.

Helen Brooke Herford was raised on a Montana ranch near the Musselshell River north of Billings. The family was well-off and sent Helen to school in Boston and Germany, but her heart was in ranching. After returning from college in 1929, she and her cousin Helen Underwood Wellington opened the Swinging H dude ranch in Stillwater County.

The cousins worked alongside the hands to fix fences, halter-break colts, clean ditches, and lead trail rides and multi-day pack trips. Helen Herford felt that all women should take a dude ranch vacation, and she published stories in newspapers and magazines to lure them to the Swinging H.

In the story titled, “With Only One Woman,” she wrote about taking a group of society girls in her car on a muddy, dangerous road to visit a sheep camp. She loved it when her guests exchanged their stuffy eastern clothes for jeans and flannel shirts, and spent their days riding, visiting nearby dude ranches, fishing, and shooting with both a rifle and a camera. When it was time to go home, her dudines told her they’d had the best time of their lives.

Dudine, by the way, is the feminine form of dude. Ranchers started using the word in the first decade of the twentieth century because so many women were taking dude ranch vacations, and the term stuck. Dudette was in the running for a while, but it didn’t make the cut.

Another single dude ranch owner was Dr. Caroline McGill. She was an exhausted physician who needed a break after working at a hospital in Butte, and she spent her time off at the Buffalo Horn Creek Resort in Montana’s Gallatin Canyon starting in 1911. It became her get-away place whenever she needed a rest, and in 1936 she bought the ranch and a neighboring parcel. The two properties added up to 320 acres, so she renamed it the 320 Ranch.

When the Dude Ranchers’ Association was formed in Bozeman in 1926, all but one of the officers were men. The lone woman on the board of directors was Lillian Shaw. She and her husband Walter ran Shaw’s Camp in Montana, but when Walter died suddenly in 1925, Lillian stepped in and took over the entire operation. Other DRA directors had wives who shouldered half of their burdens, including Montanans Helen Van Cleve at the Lazy K Bar, Dora Randall at the O.T.O., Senia Croonquist at Camp Senia, Pearl Binko at Binko’s, Grace Miller from the Elkhorn Ranch, and Irma Larom from Valley Ranch in Wyoming.

Dude ranches hosted men exclusively in the 1880s, but in the early years of the twentieth century, women began to head out West, either with their husbands or on their own. Some of them were actually on the hunt for their men, like Evelyn Raue. In June of 1907, she left her husband in Philadelphia and took the train to Aldrich Lodge, a cattle operation on the Shoshone River near Cody which sometimes took in a few dudes. She was looking for her lover, G. Gordon Massey, the rich son of a railroad tycoon. He went out to Wyoming, or had possibly been sent there to stop drinking, leaving behind his wife and three children.

Instead of getting sober, Massey found others to drink with, which Evelyn heard about back in Philadelphia and which is why she tracked him down. Her arrival didn’t change his habits though, and when the owner of the ranch got rid of his liquor, Massey ran off to Cody. Evelyn jumped on a horse and rode to town, managing to get him into a carriage and back to the ranch. He apparently improved after ten days at Aldrich Lodge. His wife filed for divorce.

For some women, dude ranches were places of refuge. One was writer Mary Roberts Rinehart. She’s not very well known today, but in the early twentieth century she was a celebrated journalist and novelist. In 1915, she was resting at home in Pittsburgh after

covering the carnage of World War I in Europe. That summer, Howard Eaton, the founder of Eatons’ dude ranch, asked her to join a pack trip he was organizing to go into newly-opened Glacier National Park. Artist Charles M. Russell had also signed up, and Mary agreed to go. Celebrities always brought in more business. Everyone spent a couple of days at Eatons’ before heading out and Mary fell in love with dude ranch life.

She started writing magazine articles about dude ranching, encouraging women to give them a try. In a 1927 essay titled, “Women on a Dude Ranch,” she said, “More women of all ages visit dude ranches than men. And they adapt themselves to the life more easily. They show more enthusiasm and possibly gain more benefits.”

Benefits is the right word. For many dudines, especially those who visited the West for the first time, a dude ranch offered freedom from stifling social rules, exhilaration, and experiences they would never have at home.

A Wyoming dude ranch gave young Peggy Thayer the opportunity to exhibit her wild side. Born into wealthy Philadelphia society in 1898, her father was the vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1912, Peggy’s parents and her oldest brother Jack went on a visit to Europe, and on April 10 they boarded their ship for home: the RMS Titanic. Peggy’s mother and her brother survived the sinking, but her father did not.

From that day, she lived as if her time on earth would end just as quickly. Peggy was a fearless horsewoman, and she spent two seasons at the JY dude ranch near Jackson Hole. In 1922, she entered a local rodeo and won a horse race on a recently broken bronco that tried to buck her off before the race even started, impressing the local cowboys and scandalizing her family.

Even famed aviator Amelia Earhart found peace away from her fans at a dude ranch. In the summer of 1934, she and her husband visited the Double Dee ranch near Meeteetse, Wyoming. She loved the place and allowed local photographer Charles Belden to take photos of her having fun in her casual western clothes. She asked ranch owner Carl Dunrud to build her a cabin on the property but she vanished from the sky in 1937 and never got back to see it.

Ranch owners saw dudines fall in love with their wranglers so frequently it was practically a tradition. And when an eastern girl ended up marrying one of

the ranch’s cowboys, the story made the papers. In 1931, Arizona rodeo cowboy Lawton Champie, who managed a small dude ranch in Castle Hot Springs, married Boston society girl Annie Crocker. The Boston Globe newspaper had this to say about it: “Fitchburg Heiress to Wed Broncho Buster.”

The marriage soon fell apart, which would not have been a surprise to Mary Shawver. In her memoir, Sincerely, Mary S., she wrote about girls who wanted to have a permanent vacation with their personal wrangler, and how it never worked out. One guest had a theory about why this happened— the dudines fell in love with their horses, and since they couldn’t marry a horse, they married the man who smelled like one.

Hollywood took up the topic in the classic 1939 film The Women . During this era, women could take the train for Reno, stay there for six weeks, and get a quickie divorce. Many dude ranches changed their business model to accept dudine divorcées, and this formed part of the plot of the movie. The Countess de Lave, after spending her allotted time at the Double Bar T ranch, married wrangler Buck Winston and took him back to New York. That union didn’t last, either.

One woman took the dude ranch to a whole new place. Her name was Sally Rand. She was a famous burlesque dancer, and in 1936, she debuted a new show at the Fort Worth Frontier Centennial with the intriguing name of “Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch.” It had its own building at the fair and featured a large sign in the front which, at first glance, looked like it said “Sally Rand’s Dude Ranch.” Upon closer inspection, visitors could see that the “D” was crossed out and replaced with an “N.” It cost twenty-five cents to get in, and once past the front door, viewers saw a fake western landscape filled with semi-nude girls wearing

“More women of all ages visit dude ranches than men—and they adapt to the life more easily.” —Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1927

cowboy hats, holsters, and cowboy boots. They twirled lariats, sat on the fence, played badminton, and generally just frolicked. In 1939, Sally brought her Nude Ranch to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, where it got a bigger building and an even bigger audience. Sally later married champion bronc rider Turk Greenough.

During World War II, dude ranchers had to contend with rationed foods, wranglers who enlisted and left the ranch, and cooks who departed because they could get better pay in wartime factory jobs. Sometimes, the owner himself went to war, leaving his wife to manage the business, the guests, their children, and the fill-in wranglers. But dude ranchers are resilient, and the women triumphed by keeping in touch with each other, mostly through the “House Management Department” column in The Dude Rancher, the magazine of the Dude Ranchers’ Association. They shared recipes, advice, and horror stories.

Many dude ranch guests rolled up their sleeves and helped with chores during their stays, whether it was cleaning their own cabins or helping bring in the horses every morning. The staffing problems at dude ranches prompted some girls to write to the Dude Ranchers’ Association, offering to help out and help the war effort.

One nineteen-year-old girl from Indiana wrote, “I can ride horses and milk cows. So can my sister and brother who are eager to work on a ranch this summer. We realize the work is hard, but we feel it is our duty to help in any way we can.”

Young women were already doing this work of course, because they were dude ranch kids. Patsy Whited’s family ran the Lazy F dude ranch in Ellensburg, Washington in the late 1940s. She was the top wrangler, and she also waited tables, cooked, took care of the livestock and, in her off hours, attended college. The Dude Rancher magazine ran a profile of Patsy in a 1946 issue and encouraged young women to apply for work on dude ranches. But everyone knew that wives and daughters had been doing very non-traditional work around the ranch for decades. They were just quiet about it.

Female wranglers were unusual enough in the postwar years that they were profiled in local papers. Norine Scruggs, a Chicago native, managed the corrals and cowhands at a resort-like dude ranch in Las Vegas called the Hotel Last Frontier. “Cowboys in southern Nevada are shaking their heads in disbelief,” said one reporter for a Utah newspaper.

As the 1970s got underway, more women began moving into wrangler jobs on dude ranches. Women dude ranchers were consulted for their expertise beyond the ranch too. In 1975, Dorothy Vale Kissinger, co-owner and manager of the Sahuaro Lake Guest Ranch in Arizona, was named to President Gerald Ford’s Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year.

Today, more women than men are working as wranglers on dude ranches. Young women who grew up taking riding lessons and then entered equestrian programs in colleges are spending their summers working at dude ranches, sharing their expertise and love of horses with dudes and dudines. Guests go home with memories that can’t be made elsewhere, and many girls want to spend more time on horseback after their time on the ranch.

Women have found their way to dude ranches for over a century, and for myriad reasons. Some show up to ranches as guests, so they can live out their cowgirl fantasies. Others take jobs so they can ride a horse in their off-hours. And others run the ranches, because they want to share their places not only with people who want to stay, but those who need to.

Best-selling author Gene Kilgore has been writing about dude ranching for over forty years. He knows first-hand what women have done, and continue to do, for this unique American industry.

“Women,” he says, “are the glue.”

Lynn Downey is an award-winning historian, novelist, and short story writer. She has written two books about Wickenburg, Arizona: Wickenburg: Images of America, and Arizona’s Vulture Mine and Vulture City, finalist in Arizona History for the New-Mexico Arizona Book Award. Her other passion is the dude ranch, and her Journal of Arizona History article, “A House-Party on An Old Frontier Ranch: How Arizona Became the Dude Ranch Capital of the World,” was a finalist for the Spur Award in 2024. Downey’s latest book is American Dude Ranch: A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West. Her debut novel, Dudes Rush In, set on an Arizona dude ranch, won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Historical Fiction. Downey is the Past President of Women Writing the West and serves on the board of the Dude Ranch Foundation.

BEN GOHEEN

JESSI BELLE & MARTHA JANE

A SHORT STORY

Deadwood, South Dakota Spring, 1877

“Deadwood is a dangerous place, Jessi,” Wade said. “You could have gone to Abilene, Newton, or a hundred other towns to learn more about life in the West. Why Deadwood?”

“Because Deadwood is the real West,” Jessi Belle Flynn replied. “It’s the real thing. I can’t sit in St. Louis and churn out these Bison Bob stories without seeing and experiencing the places I write about. It’s… it’s, well, it’s dishonest.”

“Hogwash,” he replied. “Who would know the difference?”

“Oh, stop being so ornery. I have you here to watch out for me, don’t I? You know this town. You said so yourself, and it’s a town of legends.”

“Yes, and most of the legends died a violent death.” Wade Rowland shook his head at the pretty blueeyed woman whom he could never get the best of in an argument. He might as well shut up and accept his fate. “Well, we’re here, so we might as well make the best of it.”

“I knew you would see it my way. Eventually.”

“Yeah, you wore me down again.”

She brushed a strand of dusty-brown hair from her forehead as she gazed out the front window of her rented house. She smiled as she imagined how surprised the readers of the popular Bison Bob dime novels would be if they learned the author was a thirty-one year-old former schoolteacher from St.

Louis—who had never fired a gun in her life. She couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.

“What title did you use for the book you submitted before we left St. Louis?”

“I settled on Bison Bob and the River Pirates—or How Bison Bob Saved the Marquis.”

“And how did our hero save the Marquis?”

Jessi shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. You will have to buy the book to find out.”

“And spend a whole dime?”

Jessi laughed. “Oh, I might buy it for you since you described a couple of ways Bob could pull it off. I used the one where Bob disguises himself as a coal stoker for the boat’s boiler crew to get aboard the vessel.”

“Hmm, that suggestion ought to be worth a dime any day—or maybe even a kiss.”

“Don’t press your luck, cowboy.”

Jessi realized how fortunate she was to have Wade and his knowledge of the western way of life as a resource for her to mine. The tall, deeply tanned ex-soldier and ex-cavalry scout was three years her senior but armed with a boatload of experiences to share. She first met Wade when she heard about his work as a troubleshooter for the H.T. & C. Railroad. At that time, she had Bison Bob chasing Jesse James and his gang and needed to learn more about railroad holdups. As time passed, the two gradually grew closer and closer.

She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him

toward the door. “Off with you, cowboy, I have work to do. Go entertain yourself for a couple of hours.”

Jessi sat in a straight-backed chair at the kitchen table, where she turned her attention to the next adventure of her hero. What kind of trouble could she put Bob into this time? Another damsel in distress story, or should he single-handedly fight off a horde of miscreants to save a village?

Oh, well, she would fi gure it out. She had lost track of the number of Bison Bob novels she had written, but thought the next one might be number twenty-four.

Jessi owed her fiction career to Sammy Keller, a student at St. Andrew’s in St. Louis where she had taught for two years. Sammy’s love for dime novels had often distracted him in class. After she had repeatedly caught him reading a dime novel in class, she threatened to burn the next one she found.

One week later, she caught Sammy again and confiscated his Deadwood Dick book. Despite her frustration with Sammy’s choice of literature, she agreed

to return it at the end of the week if he promised not to bring any more dime novels to school.

That evening, Jessi glanced at the book’s colorful cover that depicted half a dozen cowboys caught in a cattle stampede. Curious, she began to read the book and became captivated with the fast-paced story.

I can do this too, she thought. That’s when she gathered an assortment of reference books from the library and conjured up Bison Bob. He was a wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped man who carried a Bowie knife on his right hip, and a .36 caliber Colt Navy pistol, butt forward, on his left hip. He never met a man he couldn’t whup or a woman who wouldn’t swoon in his presence. She decided on the name Jesse West as the author, and she was off and running.

Wade returned to the house at dusk. He had stopped by a couple of his old haunts to socialize, then accidentally bumped into a friend at the Lucky Lady where they relived their past escapades over a mug of beer, with more than a few exaggerations and outright lies thrown in for good measure.

Jessi looked up from her work when he entered. “Got any new bullet holes to show me?”

“Nope, nary a one. But I did run into an acquaintance in the Lucky Lady. I was challenged to a game of billiards which I couldn’t talk my way out of.”

She laughed. “How much did you lose?”

“Well, she took me for six bits.”

“She?”

“Yep, she. Martha Jane always did have a way with a cue stick.”

“You mean there was a woman you knew hanging out in the billiard parlor?”

“Not just any woman, it was Martha Jane. We met a couple of years back in Fort Laramie when she was a young lass. Young but tougher than a buffalo hide.”

“Is there anything else you would like to tell me about this, Martha Jane?”

Wade shook his head. “Can’t think of anything you need to know.”

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs. He fiddled with his hat as if he were deep in thought. Jessi stared at him. She knew him well enough to see that he had something on his mind.

She let it ride for a few more minutes, then asked, “What is it, Wade? What’s running through that head of yours?”

“Here it is straight, Jessi. When are we going to talk seriously about our future? You know how I feel about you, but every time we start talking about it you shy away. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a great catch. Still, we spend so much of our time together, why don’t we make it official?”

She had known this day would come. In all his previous efforts to raise the subject she had somehow managed to avoid an answer. She reached out and took hold of his hand. “You’re right, Wade, I do owe you an honest answer.”

He nodded. “Yes, Jessi, you do.”

“I promise that I will give you a definite answer in one month. One month, I promise.”

“Well, at least I got you thinking about it. In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, I really enjoy your company, even though you do get contrary sometimes.”

“Enjoy my company more than this mysterious Martha Jane?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

She threw a pencil at him. “Get out of here, you worthless, mangy hound dog.”

He left the house laughing.

One week later, Jessi was well underway with her twenty-fourth adventure. Her working title was Bison Bob and the Golden Arrow. She and Wade had rented a buggy, and he had taken her out to explore an abandoned gold mine he knew about. That sparked an idea. While she mulled over how to get Bob out of a mine cave-in, she sensed there was someone behind her.

She turned and saw a petite woman with flowing red hair standing in the doorway. The visitor looked to be around twenty years old with a pale, drawn appearance that made her seem older. Her clothes were a colorful mix of red, yellow, and purple. Jessi could see a touch of red blush on her cheeks to go with that red mass atop her head.

“May I help you with something?” Jessi asked.

“Well… I’m looking for Jesse West, the writer of those Bison Bob books. I heard he might be here.”

“Well, yes, he is, sort of,” Jessi said as she walked toward the young woman. “That’s really me. Jesse West is my writing name. My actual name is Jessi Belle Flynn.” Jessi nodded toward a chair. “Please have a seat, Miss…?”

“Iris,” she said.

“Iris. That’s a pretty name.”

Iris lowered her head. “It’s not my real name, but I always liked it, so when….” She began to nervously twist a handkerchief in her hands. She raised her head and said in a muffled voice, “You might not want to talk to me or for me to even be seen in your house. You see, I work over at Madame Simone’s place.”

Jessi had heard of Madame Simone and her socalled soiled doves who kept to themselves at the edge of Deadwood.

“I don’t mean to bother you, but I… well…If we could talk for a bit….”

“Sure, Iris, let’s talk.”

“I’ve read all your books. You seem to know how to solve problems, at least Bison Bob does, so, I suppose that means you do too.” Iris leaned forward in the chair and said, “In our business, we meet all kinds of men. Most are friendly and considerate, but some of them are not so nice.”

“Yes, I can imagine that being the case.”

Once Iris began to talk, she couldn’t stop. She told

about a man’s vicious assault on her a week earlier, and it wasn’t the first time she had to endure a beating at the man’s hands. She told how this man would show up at Madame Simone’s every Monday morning and demand money from Simone.

“This man told Simone if she refused to pay him, he would see she was run out of town. One morning when Simone argued with him about the amount of money he demanded, I heard him tell her she might get the same treatment that Inge Jorgenson over at the livery stable got. Simone asked around and found out that Jorgenson had been beaten to within an inch of his life.”

Iris squirmed in her chair and continued, “He must be stopped. He’s going to kill me, or one of the other girls, or even Simone if she keeps arguing with him.”

“Have you gone to the local law about this?”

“Oh, no, we don’t dare do that. No, no.”

“What is this man’s name, Iris?”

Iris continued to look down and twist the handkerchief as if she were scared to call his name. Then she lifted her chin in a defiant manner and said, “Deputy George Acker.”

Jessi knew she had a startled look on her face when she heard the man was a lawman.

“Don’t mention my name,” Iris said. “Please. And you be careful. George Acker is a mean and dangerous man, especially when he’s drunk, which is most of the time.” She lowered her head again and added, “I’m sorry I had to come here and unload all this on you, but I didn’t know what else to do, or anywhere else to go.”

When Iris left, Jessi paced as she thought about what she had heard. She had no inkling as to how she would use Iris’ damning information, but she knew the deputy must be held accountable somehow.

That night, Jessi told Wade about her conversation with Iris.

“This Acker sounds like a real disgrace to the profession,” Wade said. “I’d be more than glad to shoot him first thing tomorrow morning if you want me to. Right after I’ve had a cup of coffee.”

“Wade!”

He laughed, threw an arm around her shoulders, and hugged her tightly. “I was only joshing, but it might save folks around here a lot of grief if someone did.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll just have to do it another way. I

don’t want to spend the rest of my Sunday afternoons visiting you in jail.”

Deputy Acker entered the room he rented above Hiram’s Boot Repair shop. He flopped down on the narrow bed and stared at the dingy walls covered with cobwebs and greasy fingerprints. He had heard all the grumbling from Madame Simone he wanted to hear, and he was convinced that one of her girls had been talking too much.

He grabbed a whiskey bottle off the table and took a huge swallow. The more he thought of it, the more positive he became that he knew the answer. It had to be Iris. She had been uppity the last few times he had been around her. She had told him to leave her alone and had threatened to talk about what she knew more than once. Yes, it had to be Iris. He took another gulp of whiskey, then hurried out the door.

It was early evening when Jessi Belle learned just how violent Deadwood could be. She sat at the table sipping on a cup of hot tea when she heard a sound at the front door. She listened closely but heard nothing more. Then she heard the sound again. Was that a moan or a cry?

She walked slowly to the front entrance and put an ear on the door. There was no question about it this time. There was someone on the other side. She cautiously cracked open the door and peeked through the opening. She let out a loud gasp as she saw a woman lying stretched out on the front stoop, her face covered in blood, and her dress shredded.

The woman tried to talk through bruised and battered lips, but her words were barely audible. Jessi then recognized the woman by her distinctive red hair. It was Iris.

“Iris,” she whispered as she bent over the woman to help. “Let me help you into the house.”

“No, don’t, it hurts too bad to move.”

Jessi ran into the kitchen and returned with a cloth and a pan of water. She washed Iris’ face and got as much blood off as she could without doing more harm. The damage to the young woman’s face made her stomach queasy. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut, her face blue-black with bruises and cuts.

“Did George Acker do this?”

“Acker. He… he… left me for dead. I fooled him.”

Iris dropped her head back on the stoop, exhausted by her effort to drag herself to Jessi’s house. Jessi bent lower and could tell each breath was a struggle and was becoming shallower with each effort. She was scared to move Iris but realized she couldn’t let her lie there, either.

“Iris, can you move at all? I’ll get you into the house, then I’ll get a doctor.”

“I… I’ll try.”

Jessi was able to maneuver the smaller, lighter Iris into the bedroom. “You lie still, while I find a doctor. Don’t you give up, Iris, you hear me? You hold on.”

By nighttime, miners, cowboys, businessmen, and everyone else in Deadwood knew about Iris’s account of her assault and of Acker’s pay-off scheme. Once it was out in the open, other Acker victims began to talk. Among the miners and cowboys, there was talk of a public lynching. Many were patrons of Madame Simone’s establishment and wanted Acker hanging from the nearest tree.

Wade returned to the house later and stuck his head in the bedroom where Jessi sat holding Iris’s hand. “How’s she doing?”

“Sleeping. Doctor Peterson said she should recover in time. She’s a strong, determined young woman.”

Wade said, “I thought you’d like to know that Acker left town. Taz Hiram, his landlord, said Acker cleaned the junk out of his upstairs room like he was never coming back.”

“Good riddance.”

“I’ll see you early tomorrow morning,” he said. “Meantime, I’ve got to roundup Martha Jane.”

Jessi felt her heart jump. Roundup Martha Jane?

Before it was fully light outside, Jessi heard someone rumbling around in the kitchen. She was napping in a chair next to Iris. Wade, she thought. She tossed aside a light blanket, checked that Iris was sleeping, then walked to the kitchen. When she walked through the doorway, a hand grabbed her arm, and another hand covered her mouth.

She tried to scream when she saw George Acker.

“Shut up,” he said as he slapped her across the face. Then he threw her limp body over his shoulder and hurried out of the house where two saddled horses waited. He hoisted her body across a saddle and securely tied her on the horse.

The sun was high before she became fully alert. The pain of lying on her stomach across the saddle with her hands and feet tied was excruciating. It seemed to her that Acker deliberately guided the horses over the roughest, most rugged terrain he could find. They crossed through deep ravines and over rocky hills. Each step of the horse shot pain throughout her body.

Finally, they reached a dilapidated shack hidden deep within the rocky confines of a narrow canyon. Jessi was terrified but determined not to show Acker any fear.

When Acker pulled her off the saddle, she could barely stand.

“Don’t you be looking for no help, lady,” Acker said. “Nobody knows about this here place but me. You belong to me now. If you’d minded your own business, you wouldn’t be in this fix.”

Inside the shack, Acker shoved her into a corner and tied her wrists and feet with a thin cord. He left her alone for two or three minutes then came back with his saddlebags. He sat down in a chair and pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bags. He held up the bottle. “Hair of the dog, lady,” he said, as he chugged down a quarter of the contents.

It was an hour after dawn when Wade and Martha Jane Canary, better known in the territory as Calamity Jane, rode into the yard of Jessi’s rental house. Calamity was a tough looking young woman of twenty-five years whose legendary reputation belied that young age. She wore greasy buckskin trousers, a buckskin shirt with an array of long fringes, and a floppy leather hat that looked homemade. She carried a Winchester across her lap.

She and Wade became friends when they rode together as scouts for General Cook in the Black Hills a couple of years earlier. When she learned of Iris’s injuries, she was distraught. She was well acquainted with Madame Simone and her brood and was ready to go after Acker when Wade found her.

“Gotta meet this lady of yours before we go after Acker,” Calamity said. “She must be something special to corral you.”

“She’s a keeper,” he said. Wade dismounted and tapped on the front door. No response. He tapped harder. Still no response. He then tried the latch, which clicked open.

He eased through the doorway.

“Jessi,” he said in a hushed tone to keep from disturbing Iris. He searched through the house, but there was no sign of her. When he entered the bedroom, Iris was sitting up with a frightened expression.

“Don’t be afraid, Iris,” he said. “I’m a friend of Jessi’s. Do you know where she is?”

Iris slowly shook her head and lowered her head back on the pillow. Wade realized she had fallen asleep. That was when he heard Calamity shouting from the front of the house. He hurried outside and found her bent over examining the dirt.

“These tracks are recent, Wade.” She pointed toward the east. “Headed that way. Two horses.”

Wade’s eyes narrowed. “Someone took Jessi and not too long ago.”

“Then, let’s git riding,” Calamity said. He had mixed feelings about leaving Iris alone, but he figured she would sleep the remainder of the morning, and Dr. Peterson would check on her sometime later. His mind made up, he said, “You take the lead, Martha Jane. You know this territory better than I do.”

An hour passed before the opportunity Jessi sought finally presented itself. Acker was now drunker than a Saturday night sailor, slumped over with his head lying on the table. Earlier, she had noticed a double-bladed axe with a broken handle standing along the wall next to a stack of firewood, about ten feet from where she sat. She quietly scooted along the rough floor toward the axe blade. It wasn’t the sharpest axe she had ever seen, but she managed to get her wrists straddling the blade and sawed back and forth at the cord until it separated. Her wrists were free, then she untied her legs.

Now what? Should she just run? No, not a good idea. Either Acker would find her, or she would become lost in this unforgiving country. There had to be another way. She looked around the cabin and her eyes settled on the stack of firewood. She spotted a thick piece about three feet long and thick enough to do what she needed to do.

She took a deep breath while slowly moving toward the table with the makeshift wooden club in her hands. She moved behind Acker who suddenly looked up.

“What… what,” he mumbled in his drunken state.

With both hands, she swung the club at his skull with all her strength. He tumbled off the chair to the floor with a thud. She checked to see if she had killed him, not caring one way or the other after what he had done to Iris. He was still breathing, so she rolled him over and tied his hands and feet with his own cord.

Bison Bob couldn’t have done it any better.

Calamity suddenly stopped as she spotted a faint spiral of blue smoke rising above a nearby ridge. “Stay here, Wade,” she said. She crawled up the rocky knoll and slowly raised her head. Two hundred yards below where she lay stood a ramshackle shack with two

saddled horses tethered outside. A woman sat under the porch in a rocking chair. A man was sprawled out beside her with his arms and legs tied.

She hurried back to Wade. “Acker’s horse is down there, but there’s something odd about it. You’d better take a gander.”

Wade retraced Calamity’s trail and peered over the ridge. He returned to the horses laughing.

“What took you so long?” Jessi asked as Wade and Calamity rode up to the shack.

Wade sat on his horse and shook his head. “Jessi Belle, you surely do amaze me sometimes.”

Calamity walked over where Acker lay on the floor. She kicked him in the side and said, “I oughta shoot you for what you did to Iris, but I won’t.” She then turned to Jessi. “Sakes alive, girl, you shore do fine work when you put your mind to it. No wonder this old buffalo skinner took a liking to you.”

“Would you be Martha Jane?”

“Yep, but most folks just call me Calamity.”

“Calamity Jane? You’re Calamity Jane?”

“In all my wondrous glory.”

Wade dismounted and sauntered over to Jessi. He took her in his arms and said, “Not a month, Jessi Belle. I want an answer today. Right now.”

She threw her arms around his neck and said, “The answer is yes, Wade. Yes, forever, and ever, yes.”

Calamity rolled her eyes at them and gave Acker another solid kick in the ribs for good measure. {

THE AUTHOR

Ben Goheen is a former secondary-school teacher, and human resources manager in the chemical industry. He is a graduate of Murray State University and currently lives in Western Kentucky near Kentucky and Barkley Lakes. Ben’s novels of the Old West, written under the name Ben Tyler, are Echoes of Massacre Canyon, winner of the 2016 Peacemaker Award as Best First Western, and his follow-up novel, Mabry’s Challenge. A third western novel entitled The Cowboy and the Scallywag soon followed. When not writing, Ben spends much of his time whacking a golf ball around the picturesque courses of Western Kentucky with his buddies, and spending time with his son and four granddaughters.

DEADLY SECRETS OF WINN PARISH

Masked as churchgoers and civic leaders, the West-Kimbrel Gang ran one of the bloodiest outlaw operations in American history—and buried their victims in hidden wells.

STORY BY

ANTHONY WOOD

PART ONE OF A TWO-PART SERIES (CONTINUED IN DECEMBER 2025)

In the rolling hills of central Louisiana, a little known band of outlaws operated one of the most efficient and bloodthirsty organized crime operations of its day. Their fierce and remorseless exploits of murder and theft along a well-traveled corridor between Mississippi and Texas make the James-Younger Gang look like amateurs. These Nightriders were none other than the West-Kimbrel Gang of Winn Parish, Louisiana.

Most know the Natchez Trace to be a former Indian trail turned super highway extending from Natchez to Nashville. Heavily travelled by post riders, flatboatmen, land speculators, businessmen, and innocent settlers, the Natchez Trace was plagued by such outlaws as Samuel Mason, the Harpes, and John Murrell. Though the Natchez Trace east of the Mississippi River fell into disrepair by the 1830s, this was not true across the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

Guerrillas Warfares: “Rescue of a Wounded Officer from a Band of Guerillas,” Illus. from: Harper’s Weekly , December, 1863. Library of Congress

The Natchez Trace extended across the Mississippi River by ferry to Vidalia, Louisiana, where it joined the Harrisonburg Road and continued on as the El Camino Road to Nacogdoches, Texas, then finally ending in Mexico. It was along the Harrisonburg Road in the Red River Valley Neutral Strip, running through Grant and Winn Parishes, that the West-Kimbrel Gang plied their trade. The Strip possessed a reputation for lawlessness so prevalent that during, and immediately following, the Civil War, Federal troops refused to occupy the area.

These ruthless outlaw men and women, viewed as model citizens in Atlanta, Louisiana, went about their criminality without ever being seriously challenged by the law or the locals until the spring of 1870, when the West-Kimbrel Gang met its end.

The Kimbrel Clan Seeds of the West-Kimbrel Gang’s outlawry began before the Civil War with “Uncle Dan” and “Aunt Polly” Kimbrel inviting businessmen, travelers, and

settlers moving west into their home for a meal and a night’s rest. This was misleading. By day, Uncle Dan and Aunt Polly enjoyed a good reputation for fine service, but by night, they murdered emigrants and robbed them of their earthly possessions.

Dilson “Uncle Dan” Kimbrel, a large man of “Germanic” appearance, married Mary L. “Polly” Williams in 1833, just one month shy of her fifteenth birthday. After a short jaunt in Mississippi, the Kimbrel family moved to Louisiana around 1850 and settled in Winn Parish along the Harrisonburg Road. Operating a store, saloon, and post office in Wheeling on the Harrisonburg Road, just two miles from their farm, the Kimbrel’s were considered fine, upstanding family folk who went to church and raised six children.

Having ridden with such outlaws as the Copelands and John “Reverend Devil” Murrell in Mississippi,

Uncle Dan was known to be “as cautious as a pawnbroker and as foxy as an itinerant peddler.” After he killed “Reverend Devil” for hacking off a horse-trader’s son’s fingers and toes, Uncle Dan moved his family to Louisiana where they directed their villainous crimes so cleverly and quietly that most of his closest neighbors had little clue to the murderous thievery happening right under their noses.

When their son, Lawson, nicknamed “Laws,” returned home after fighting with the Confederacy, he organized a band of former soldiers bent on furthering his parents’ criminal activities. Their devilment reached a new level when gang members robbed and murdered a Federal paymaster, Lieutenant Simeon G. Butts, near the Saline Mills in July, 1866.

Described as “a handsome and jovial young man,” Butts was carrying $2700 from Natchitoches to his post at the Freedmen’s Bureau in Vernon, Louisiana.

Colton’s Louisiana Map, 1870. Colton’s General Atlas published by G.W. & C.B. Colton, New York, 1870.

Recorded not long after the gang’s execution in the May 28, 1870 edition of The Ouachita Telegraph, three gang members overtook Butts, claiming to be searching for lost cattle. They stopped at a spring for water, and as Butts drank, a new member of the gang, John West, “deliberately shot the unsuspecting man through the head” with his Colt revolver. The outlaws stripped the body of any evidence, but a farmer found Butt’s remains and they were identified two months later. Being considered a Union soldier in an area unfriendly to the North, the place of Butts’ death became known as “Yankee Springs.”

Widow of an ex-Confederate soldier, Emiline “Aunt Em” Mitchell, who farmed next to the Kimbrel family overheard the Nightriders recounting Butts’ fate. Aunt Em offered her detailed findings by letter directly to the U.S. War Department in Washington which included names, dates, and places. She fingered the Kimbrels as being responsible for Butts’ death. Despite her efforts, and due to unfriendly sentiments of local ex-Confederate soldiers, the Federal Army refused to do anything about the atrocities being committed in Winn Parish. Lieutenant Butts’ murder marked the moment John West began to lead the Nightriders, who would go on to become the West-Kimbrel Gang.

The dollar value of the gang’s robberies would astound even the craftiest thief today. The Nightriders robbed two adventurers who had stolen $85,000 in gold ingots from a Mexican mine. Investigations made the gold useless to West and the gang because anyone caught with even the smallest portion of the treasure would have immediately incriminated themselves. The gold, worth millions in today’s dollars, has yet to be reported as found.

In another instance, a northern timber and land buyer who didn’t trust banks came to Winn Parish with $8600 in cleverly hidden gold coins. He sewed each twenty dollar gold piece into a two-inch square in a homemade quilt. A local, Frank Straughn, in whose home the traveler had made his headquarters, informed the buyer he’d spoken too loosely about the money he carried. Straughn warned that the man’s life wasn’t worth one sewed-on check in his quilt blanket, saying, “The buzzards are flying over.”

Straughn escorted the timberman fifty miles, but he had made it no more than a few miles toward home than the northern buyer had already been robbed and killed. The Nightriders had followed the two from the

start. John West shot the timberman off his horse and took the horse and the gold in the blanket with no one the wiser.

Who was John West?

Elbert Weston, born in 1830, in Massachusetts, traveled to Texas with his family as a child. After abandoning his wife and child in Texas, he moved to Winn Parish, Louisiana in 1853 and changed his name to John West. Settling near Atlanta, he married Sarah Pennywell with whom he had three children. West eventually became a wealthy landowner and influential community citizen. Fair-skinned, five feet ten inches tall, and weighing around 175 pounds, West possessed the manners needed to win people over with a soft-spoken tone and a smile.

Enlisting as a Private in the 27th Louisiana Volunteer Infantry Co. K, John West was later transferred

Kimbrel/Gilcrease store in Winn Parish, Louisiana. Photo courtesy of Winn Parish History Facebook Page.

Grave of Lt. Simon Butts across the gravel road from Yankee Springs Church, Winn Parish, Louisiana.

Guerrillas Depredations: “Your Money or Your Life.”Sketched by W.D. Matthews, Illus. from: Harper’s Weekly, December, 1864. Library of Congress

to Co. F. The author’s great-great uncle, Columbus “Lummy” Nathan Tullos, served alongside West in Co. F during the Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, through to its surrender and parole. West rejoined and later was captured in New Orleans and later paroled.

After the war, West rejoined his wife in Winn Parish and built a log cabin overlooking Hill Bayou five miles south of Atlanta on the Harrisonburg Road. Like many ex-Confederate soldiers, he found home to be desolate and destitute. Hatred of carpetbag rule, crippling poverty, and the presence of Yankee soldiers drove angry ex-soldiers like West to attack Yankee payroll carriers and wagon trains loaded with supplies. West found, in the Kimbrel clan, his answer for the men and tactics needed to successfully seize Yankee property. He organized a quick-moving band of marauders called Nightriders.

John West’s popularity and influence in the community grew to include his being elected Justice of the Peace of Ward Six in Winn Parish. A welcome guest in local citizen’s homes, he soon joined the First Methodist Church in Atlanta where he served as a deacon, choir leader, superintendent of Sunday school, and adult Bible class teacher. A skilled carpenter and mill-

wright, West built and operated his own sawmill, and later acquired two cotton gins and a gristmill located along the Harrisonburg Road. By day, West was an influential Winn Parish leader but by night a ruthless murdering thief who led the Nightriders to become the most successful criminals in Louisiana history.

Organized Crime at Its Best... Or Worst

Between the years 1866 and 1870, the West-Kimbrel Gang wreaked havoc on those journeying west on the Harrisonburg Road. John West developed a system of passwords, signs, Chickasaw Indian tree markings, and horn bugle calls the Nightriders used to communicate their ghastly intentions. The gang could translate information about settlers, businessmen, and travelers quickly and efficiently for miles. When West blew designated bugle calls with a hunting horn, much like those used in the military, the men assembled at West’s home or other meeting spots, such as the Kimbrel’s store and saloon in Wheeling or a farm nearby. Markings notched in trees designated paths to meeting places and hideouts used by the gang.

The Nightriders knew the meaning of each call and responded swiftly. West used passwords when out on

a night of banditry, such as, “The clover is blooming,” to which a Nightrider must reply, “Spring is here.” If the password, known only to the Nightriders, was not quickly given in reply, West and his men moved in for the kill.

With the Homestead Act of 1862 offering free land for a small fee with the promise to live and make improvements on a 160-acre-allotment, settlers flooded the road leading directly through the corridor used by the West-Kimbrel Gang. The number of emigrants increased exponentially when the Civil War ended which often led to thousands of wagons waiting in lines up to three miles long at the Red River ferry. This made for easy pickings for men bent on thievery and murder. So much so, they had to devise a system of disposal of both stolen goods and bodies.

When worthwhile prospects appeared on the Harrisonburg Road, West gathered the Nightriders to formulate a plan. If a lone rider, West often would waylay the traveler himself, dispose of the body, and escape with the stolen goods. If two or more people traveled together, West took a couple of men along to make quick work of the unsuspecting victims. When a wagon train approached, West summoned a number of Nightriders using his hunting horn and attacked without mercy. When caught in West’s trap, families, especially with a company of women and children, were whisked away to the Kimbrel farm. Aunt Polly Kimbrel murdered the defenseless women and children and the Nightriders killed the men. The bodies were then thrown into a nearby well.

West organized a system of what we term today as “chop shops” in a series of blacksmith establishments either owned or controlled by the gang. Meticulous in their work of dismantling and reconstituting wagons and gear by repainting, repairing, switching parts, and camouflaging stolen wagons and carts in these shops, they also outfitted a horse ranch east of the Kimbrel’s store in Wheeling to conceal stolen teams and riding stock until such time as the animals could be driven west and sold in Texas. The Nightriders refitted the stolen property so efficiently that fences could dispose of the goods, wagons, and livestock safely, quickly, and profitably.

Although the gang’s operations ran like a well-oiled machine, their exploits eventually forced them to deal with the continuous need to dispose of murder victims. As Jack Peebles in The Legend of the Nightriders wrote, “The nightriders committed so many murders…

disposal of the bodies became a problem. Corpses could not be left in the open to decay because their skeletons would attract attention.”

With neither scattered shallow graves, nor the Kimbrel family cemetery, able to accommodate the growing number of murdered victims, a new plan for body disposal had to be devised. Having exhausted all possibilities, the Nightriders dug a number of wells on gang member’s farms along the Harrisonburg Road, allowing the gang to increase their hideous crimes and hide victims day or night. No record of the location of these wells was kept for obvious reasons, but in a well found in Uncle Dan’s pasture after the gang’s demise, forty skeletons were discovered. Most of these wells were never found and the victims remain where they lay to this day.

One special pit, “the prison well,” was dug not far from one of West’s cotton gins. John West forced former slave, Pad “Uncle Pad” Pennywell, to watch over this well designed to hold prisoners until tortured for information or their further usefulness determined. Uncle Pad soon realized that having witnessed many murders and other acts of outlawry, he was doomed to never go free. Developing a passive loyalty to West and the gang, Uncle Pad did whatever was required of him and lived on whatever West would give him for his work. It wasn’t until the West-Kimbrel Gang was destroyed that Uncle Pad was free to live without the fear of danger. He later became a respected citizen in Winn Parish, married, and is buried in the Corinth Cemetery.

It’s been said that the West-Kimbrel Gang was responsible for the murder and disposal of hundreds, maybe even thousands of victims during those few short years. But that’s not the worst of the horrendous atrocities committed by the Nightriders. The “worst of the worst” is yet to be told.

Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame author, Anthony Wood has won a number of awards for his work which include a Will Rogers Medallion Award in 2021 for his short story, “Not So Long in the Tooth.” Anthony serves as Managing Editor or Saddlebag Dispatches, President of White County Creative Writers, and is a member of Turner’s Battery living history group. In River Storm, the eighth action-packed volume in his historical fiction series, A Tale of Two Colors, Anthony tells the tale of the demise of the West-Kimbrel Gang. Anthony enjoys researching ancestors, roaming historical sites, camping and kayaking along the Mississippi River, and spending time with family. He and his wife, Lisa, live in Conway, Arkansas.

CTHE WILD WEST HISTORIAN

New York Times bestselling author Chris Enss brings Deadwood’s past to life, tracing the town’s brothels, famous women, and enduring myths through decades of research and firsthand storytelling.

GEORGE “CLAY” MITCHELL

STORY BY PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHRIS ENSS

hris Enss is no stranger to Deadwood. Her book, An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos was released in 2023, and she made many trips to talk about the history of the bordellos and cathouses of Deadwood. While the history is still tied to the Wild West, prostitution was tolerated in Deadwood until 1980. State law criminalized the practice, but there were no local ordinances to deal with it.

“It still surprises me the number of men who came up to me after my talk to share their experiences or how they lost their virginity in one of Deadwood’s brothels… while their wives are standing there next to them,” Enss said. “It was something they were proud of. The city tolerated prostitution because it

brought in a lot of money to the city. That money built parks, hospital wings, libraries, and ballfields for schools in Deadwood.”

When the brothels left Deadwood, it had a significant impact on the local economy—a century of prostitution brought in tourism and bikers from Sturgis.

In May 1979, when federal judge John H. Wood was murdered in West Texas, the investigation of the murder weapon led to one of the brothels in Deadwood. The brothels were raided in 1980 to gather evidence and to put some of the ladies on the stand for a grand jury inquiry. At some point after the raid, the state finally stepped in and shut down the brothels permanently.

“It had a purpose financially. It was a necessary evil,” said Enss. “It may have strained relationships who

came in from out of town, but as long as the brothels were there, it helped cut down the violence to other women in Deadwood.”

Enss said that some of the crimes that occurred within the brothels were often among the women who had worked there, including a time when one lady of the night, known as Maggie, was murdered by a 16-year-old girl from a different house, who had a tryst with Maggie’s boyfriend.

“There were some madams who treated their women well, like Dora DuFran. She provided medical treatment and proper clothing,” Enss said. “She had her own cooks on staff, so her girls were fed really well. She took care of her property.”

DuFran, who began her career at the age of 16, would eventually branch out and run houses in other towns. She was married and had two children.

“She definitely was not what you would think of as a madam,” added Enss.

To keep things loosely regulated before they were

shut down, law enforcement would often cite the brothels for selling alcohol without a license. Many of the women were arrested for breaking the nation’s prohibition, being drunk, or purchasing liquor.

“They could overlook some aspects of it, but there were some that they weren’t going to tolerate,” Enss laughed. “Back then, brothels had to do things because they competed with each other. Some would serve sandwiches, and one even had half-naked trapeze artists swinging overhead to entertain while men waited their turn with their girl. When dealing with the client, they had to balance helping the men not to forget why they’re there, so they wanted to keep them sober.”

She added that many of the names of the brothels were another aspect she found fascinating, including one that was called “The Office.”

“They weren’t lying if they were saying they were at ‘The Office...’ but they weren’t telling the truth,” said Enss.

Traveling the West with The Most Intrepid Authors Posse. From left to right, authors Bill Markley, Monty McCord, Chris Enss, and Sherry Monahan. Photo Courtesy of Chris Enss.

The Brothel Museum in Deadwood is in the former Shasta Rooms brothel, with rooms set up to show what it was like during the different decades, including 1876 to 1900, 1920s, 1940s to 1950s, and the 1960s to 1970s.

There were about 20 brothels at one time in Deadwood, but maybe more. Enss said about eight to 10 girls would work in each house and “it would be hard to manage more than a dozen.” Until the 1930s, the average age of the girls was 16 to 28, but shifted to 21 to 49.

“I want to be conservative with that number.

There could have been as many as 150 in that one town, including the outlying areas like Sturgis,” Enss said. “One madam set up a house not too far from Fort Mead. She knew she would get traffic coming and going. She was another one who was married and running a brothel.”

The lure of the promises out West is similar to the lines fed to unsuspecting young girls and boys today.

“There was plenty of crazy back in the day. One gentleman would travel East in search of these women who were disenfranchised with no family or family that had ignored or cast them out,” said Enss. “He

could make them a star on stage. So many of them didn’t realize that when they went there, they would end up working in a theater, and the upper levels were a brothel. Not a lot of men were running brothels, but Al Swearengen was one of the worst.”

When Swearengen first arrived in Deadwood, he came with a woman and another young man. Both were prostitutes. The young man would dress as a woman and earn more money than the woman.

Enss said it was unusual to have a theater and a brothel combined, even though there was a popular one in Tombstone, the Birdcage. She added it was more about combining different things to sell watered-down alcohol. “It wasn’t good for your system,” Enss said of the watered-down concoctions.

“There’s nothing new under the sun. People have always been hungry to be famous and are willing to pay a price to make that happen,” said Enss. “I would say many of these young women were completely unaware of what awaited them. They had no family or anyone to speak for them. Sometimes, the people of Deadwood would help.”

Enss told of one young woman who faked an

illness to keep from working in the brothel. She was too “sick” to sing or dance. The young woman managed to contact a local ministry for assistance and eventually was able to get away.

She’s given so many talks about the history of prostitution that she was dubbed a “whorestorian.” However, Enss is more of a “herstorian.” Enss has written about different women who made an impact on the American West. She’s a New York Times bestselling author who has spent more than three decades writing over 50 books that chronicle the lives of women in the Wild West.

In the Wild West, Deadwood was cosmopolitan and robust. That grit still shows. Enss said other towns of the Wild West still hold some of their glamor, but there’s something special about Deadwood.

“When you go into Deadwood, you have such incredible, picturesque views. Deadwood recognizes its history and the interest in its history,” Enss said. “It’s important to tell those stories because they have

value. You can find some wonderful places that are still there, and it looks like time stood still. Go to Saloon No. 10, for instance… it serves the best food. There’s some fantastic food in Deadwood.”

Sometimes the stories get away and create legends or mythology. One such myth is the romance between Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.

“They weren’t together. They arrived in mid-July and weren’t in town very long,” Enss said. “Folks like to be able to tell that story. He was married, but Calamity was buried next to him, which leads to some of the legend.”

Separating the real stories from the myths is what Enss does as she researches her topics to learn about who these women were. Some examples include Laura Bullion and Kate Elder.

“Laura was waiting with the horses, which is the modern equivalent of being the getaway driver, and she became “The Thorny Rose” of the Wild Bunch and made her into something she wasn’t,” said Enss.

Partners in (Wild Western) Crime. Chris at an author signing with friend and frequent writing partner, Howard Kazanjian.

Photo Courtesy of Chris Enss.

subjects she chooses to write about. “You could write about the surface, but I don’t want to write those books.”

“People love that stuff. They love to romanticize that time. But she wasn’t a professional train robber.”

Enss dived into the Pinkerton files, state records in Missouri, and read Bullion’s own words.

“You have to do a deep dive. You could write about the surface, but I don’t want to write those books. Even if Laura Bullion did rob one train, that’s still going to make history,” Enss said. “When I wrote about Kate Elder. I took a lot of the myths, the business that was built around the heroism and the characters, and she didn’t think highly of the Earps. I wanted to know why she thought the way she did in her journals.”

Enss has earned numerous honors, including nine Will Rogers Medallion Awards, two Elmer Kelton Book Awards, an Oklahoma Center for the Book Award, three Foreword Reviews Book Awards, the Laura Downing Journalism Award, and the Willa Cather Award for scholarly nonfiction. Some of her recent works include The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn—penned with writing partner Howard Kazanjian—The Doctor Was a Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier, According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday, Meet the Kellys: The True Story of Machine Gun Kelly

and His Moll, Kathryn Thorne, and Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeo and Wild West Shows.

“Women in the Wild West had incredible lives,” said Enss. “I found it fascinating that they came west and their sex had nothing to do with it. They wanted a better life. Some wanted to practice medicine, but they couldn’t do so back home. They wanted to make something of their lives without apology and without permission.”

Enss continued: “They were detective agents, businesswomen, they opened their own restaurants, found their own gold strikes. They were entertainers and pioneers. They accomplished all that before they had the right to vote. Even with my research about prostitution on the American frontier, they were the first women to vote. They ran the brothels, so they had to purchase a license and vote for those locations. I believe that the 19th Amendment was helped along by women who worked the brothels or the old cathouses.”

George “Clay” Mitchell is an award-winning reporter and photographer, a founding partner of Saddlebag Dispatches, and Executive Vice President and Publisher of its partner company, Roan & Weatherford Publishing Associates.He lives in Lavaca, Arkansas, with his wife and two daughters.

The Real History: “You have to do a deep dive,” says Enss with regard to the

Photo Courtesy of Chris Enss.

ABIGAIL DOTZLER

DIE QUIET

A SHORT STORY

“Of course, I didn’t go to his funeral. Jack McCall was my best friend!”

“Bold words nowadays,” I warned, wiping down the counter. They hung him over in Yankton a few months ago, but Nuttal & Mann’s was no place for anyone claiming to be McCall’s friend. I handed Wes another drink to shut him up. He was liable to start another gunfight, and I’d get caught in the crossfire, near certain.

Whiskey only loosened his tongue. “What’s so great about Wild Bill anyway?” He slammed his glass down, and I quickly wiped away the stray drops that landed on my counter. “So he was a flashy shot? Big deal! Certainly didn’t help him when Jack—”

“You’re talkin’ stupid, Wes.” I filled his glass again and left the half-full whiskey jug on the bar. He couldn’t run his mouth with his lips locked around a bottle. In the corner, a gaggle of mean characters threw down their cards, causing the makeshift chips to chatter against the wooden table. On occasion, the biggest one of the bunch would glance over his shoulder at Wes’s hollering.

“I ain’t, Tom.” Wes drained the glass. “Hickok weren’t even that great at poker. Jus’ lucky.”

“He certainly weren’t lucky the day McCall shot him.”

Wes didn’t hear me, as he was too busy ranting about how Hickok shot McCall’s brother down in Abilene. He had started out conversational, but with a few more gulps of firewater, he was shouting louder than the thunder that rattled the windows. The glances from the corner came more frequently, and I thought it best to whisk the jug off the bar, but

Wes grabbed my wrist and poured himself another glass. He jumped from his barstool and planted his boot on my freshly polished counter.

“What are you doin’, Wes?” I tried to push him back onto the stool but he fought me off, climbing fully onto the bar.

“Wild Bill Hickok,” he announced, “was a no-good, murdering bastard.” The men in the corner dropped their cards again, but no bets were exchanged.

The jug slipped from his hand, and the air in the saloon shattered with it. The legs of a chair screeched against the wood flooring, accompanied by a chorus of lightning strikes and thunder, as the largest man at the poker table rose to his feet. An overly large walrus mustache framed his tight frown, and his small eyes narrowed. I stepped away from Wes, silently willing him to get out of my saloon before more bullets flew.

The man stepped up to the bar. Just standing, he was nearly eye level with Wes. A pair of Colts slung low around his hips with grips out. Cross drawn, like Hickok wore ’em. He’d been a regular in the last few months, but not very talkative. I didn’t know his name, but I knew his drink. I spun around to grab a bottle from the top shelf.

“Bill Hickok was my friend,” he told Wes.

Wes wobbled, slipping on spilled whiskey and pottery shards, he slurred his words, “Then I reckon you’re a murderin’ bastard too.”

I slid the high-priced bourbon to the man. “Gentlemen, please.” Nuttal & Mann’s couldn’t afford another shooting.

They ignored me. “You wanna say that again?”

The man reached for his right pistol.

“Gladly!” Wes dragged an accusing finger across the saloon, hitting each patron. “You’re all a bunch of murderin’ bastards and cheats, just like Hickok. An’ I’ll fight any man who thinks Jack weren’t in the right.” He turned his back on the saloon and paused to regain his precarious balance. “I’ll fight you, Tom.”

“Me?” I jumped back, bumping the stack of liquor bottles. They rattled my death toll. Even drunk and seeing double, Wes’s aim was true.

“You,” he repeated. “If Hickok were such a great friend to ya, Tom, you oughta be willing to fight me over it.”

“I ain’t gonna fight you, Wes.”

Wes struggled to draw his pistol. He yanked the

out of the man’s Colt, and Wes’s pistol clattered to the ground.

Wes wobbled, not unlike in his drunken stupor, but his head was a mess of blood and brains. Less of a head and more of a crater at the end of his neck. Shards of his skull scattered across the floor like poker chips from a thrown table. Ruby blood splattered on the floor and counter, and Wes’s body collapsed. A corpse.

Not again, not again. What would I tell Nuttal and Mann? I only wanted a quiet life, and gunfights seemed to follow me like flies following the uglier side of a horse. Miriam and Hickok and Wes. One death was a coincidence, but Nuttal and Mann wouldn’t forgive this one. I just wanted to tend the bar and polish the counter. Not much, but a quiet, honest

grip repeatedly, but never undid the leather strap holding it in the holster. “C’mon, Tom.”

I glanced at Hickok’s friend. His drink sat on the bar untouched, and he drew his gun with ease.

“Gentlemen,” I tried again.

Wes yanked so hard that he lost his balance and crashed off the bar. The man towered over him, aiming between Wes’s eyes.

Wes struggled to his feet. “I ain’t going quietly, ain’t going without a fight.”

The man’s pistol followed Wes’s posture.

Wes finally found the strap and pulled his gun. He aimed for the man’s heart.

“Gentlemen, please.” Not another gunfight. I couldn’t have another gunfight.

Wes’s aim was true, but the man was faster. The shot burst through the already shattered air, and the bullet burrowed into the bar. Smoke drifted lazily

life. And now another man was dead on the floor. Dead. On the floor with his life seeping into the floorboards and his blood staining my freshly polished counter.

“You ain’t gonna stand for what’s right?” The man leveled his gun at me. The world swam as tears flooded my eyes. A deafening click bounced off the bar and the bottles and Wes’s body.

“I…I…” I stumbled over my words and struggled for the right response. But how could I think, staring down an 1860 Army revolver? I couldn’t die like this. A quiet life, a quiet death, all I wanted. I didn’t survive Gettysburg just to be shot down in Deadwood.

“Well?”

I couldn’t die like this. Not another gunfight. There. Nuttal and Mann stashed a derringer under the counter. Deadwood had a reputation, nothing like Dodge, but with Hickok gone now….

“Do you want to join your friend, the drunk?”

I grabbed the derringer with both hands, threw back the hammer, and fired at the man. The bullet caught him in the throat. His exclamation was drowned by the blood frothing in his mouth. His knees buckled, and he crumpled, landing on top of Wes’s body.

Not again, not again. I dropped the derringer. “A doctor, someone get a doctor,” I called to those remaining in the saloon. A good number cleared out after the first shot. “And the sheriff.” I looped around the bar and dropped to my knees in front of the man. His chest rose and fell with every hard-won breath. His hands circled his own throat, trying to staunch the bleeding, but he’d lost too much strength already. The pressure wasn’t enough.

my fault just the same. I gave her too much bourbon, gave that outlaw too much firewater, gave Wes too much firewater. Miriam was dead. This man was dead, and his blood was literally on my hands.

The batwing door swung open, and Sheriff Bullock, drenched in rain instead of blood, walked in. He doffed his hat and shook the storm out of his hair. He froze just inside the door, and we locked eyes.

“Tom?”

My hands were still locked around the man’s throat. I jumped to my feet and wiped his blood on the apron tied around my waist. “It ain’t what it looks like, Sheriff.”

“Looks like you killed that man, Tom.” Bullock approached me, hand on his gun.

“No—I mean, yes, but I—I mean, I had a reason.

Not again.

I wrapped my own, stronger hands around his neck. Hot blood pooled between my fingers and slicked my palms. In the War, I tried this a hundred times—threw down my gun and rushed to my compatriot’s side. It never worked.

Fear widened the man’s eyes, not having the chance to die quietly. I stole a peaceful death from him. He tried to pull my hands from his throat.

“I’m trying,” I whispered. Gore drenched his shirt. He moaned, and bloody bubbles popped on his lips.

“I’m sorry, I’m trying.”

I failed. His last breath shuddered through his body, and his eyes rolled up in his skull.

Thunder crashed again, shaking the saloon’s windows and marking the end of the man’s life. I stole a quiet death from him, and I never learned his name. I didn’t save him, like I didn’t save Miriam. It was

It weren’t purposeful, sheriff.” I opened my stained hands to the remaining men. They shied away from me, or from Bullock, and shuffled back to their poker game, carrying on like there weren’t two bodies and gallons of blood on the floor just a handful of feet away. Mean men like that wouldn’t deal with the law, and no one in Deadwood would defend me.

“Come on down to the jail with me, and we’ll sort this out, Tom,” Bullock said.

I followed him through the rain. I raised my hands to the storm, hoping to wash the blood off my palms.

“Quit that now,” Bullock ordered. “You look like a lunatic.”

I tucked my still-stained hands into the pockets of my apron. The streets were empty. No one in his right mind would go out in this storm. Guess that made Bullock and I both lunatics. Miriam called me a lunatic when I moved out this way. She called me

worse when I failed to strike gold. I never wanted the headache of a goldmine anyway, just a bar and a rag and a quiet life. She visited with that husband of hers, thinking I’d struck it rich from some miscommunication in a letter. She were disappointed, but her husband were angry. And he shot her. Right there in my shack. What could I have done but kill the bastard? He had no one waiting for him, and Miriam and I only had each other. My shack was far enough from town that no one saw me dig two graves.

“It weren’t my fault, Sheriff,” I said. He pushed me into a cell and locked the barred door.

“I’m sure it weren’t, and Judge Bennett will decide what to do with you. In the meantime, Percy Shield has no want of friends who’d be all too happy to avenge him.”

“Sheriff, I’m telling you—”

“It weren’t your fault, I know. But Shield’s boys ain’t gonna see it that way.” Bullock dropped the key in his pocket. “Tryna keep you safe, Tom.”

“It weren’t—”

He shook his head and walked out of the jail, the door slamming behind him. It weren’t my fault, and this was no way to die quietly. The jail was more secure than my shack, but anyone could find me here. No one ever visited my shack, and I doubted a soul in Deadwood knew where I lived. It was quiet out there. This jail wasn’t quiet.

Within the hour, I’d spoke to no less than three of Bullock’s deputies. I gave them the same story I gave Bullock, and they gave me the same placations. By sundown, I almost believed them that the jail was safer and that Judge Bennett would sort everything out. But Bennett couldn’t sort any of my troubles. A man couldn’t wash the blood from my hands, couldn’t give Miriam and Wes and Hickok the quiet, peaceful deaths they deserved.

When dark fell, the deputy on duty brought me a bucket to wash up with.

I waved him away. “Leave it. Too late now, the deed is done.”

“You’re stinkin’ the jail up.”

“Then let me go. Let me die quietly in my shack.”

“You ain’t gonna die, Tom,” the deputy said. “The doctor already checked ya for fatal wounds, and you don’t got a single one.”

I splayed my hands. “It’s too late,” I repeated. The deputy shrugged and left with the wash bucket. He never came back.

I paced the jail cell and worried about my bloody hands. It weren’t my fault, but Lord knows if Bennett would see it my way. He might lock me up or put me to work on the railroad or hang me for all the trouble. Someone would have to find my shack, to get my things and bring them for auction. And what if they found Miriam? Oh, surely I were a dead man walking. If Bennett hadn’t hung me by then, he’d hang me when they found Miriam, near certain.

What could I do?

The deputy had left, and I didn’t know how to break out of a jail cell. I weren’t the mean sort that knew his way around a lock. I could barely fire a pocket pistol, and my aim were only accurate when I didn’t mean it to be. Doomed! I was doomed. The jail were safer, but I didn’t want to face Judge Bennett and his noose. All I wanted was a quiet life, a quiet death.

None of this violence. Not another gunfight.

“Tom Kade?” A short kid carrying a shotgun crept through the door. A posse of burlier men followed. Shield’s boys. And there were no deputies in sight. I told Bullock my shack was safer, no one would have ever found me there.

The kid approached the cell. “Mister Kade, are you crying?”

“No, of course not.” I swiped my sleeve over my eyes. The kid’s sandy hair and crooked nose rung a bell in the back of my tired brain. “You’re Wes Porter’s kid?”

“Yessir.” He shifted his grip on the shotgun, and

his eyes dropped to his mud-caked boots. “We’re here to, uh, we’re gonna break you out of here, Mister Kade.” His head rose again, and he aimed at the lock of my cell.

Bennett would hang me, near certain. Wes’s kid gave me the escape to my shack I needed. I could die quietly, dig myself a grave next to Miriam and lay down, peaceful.

The kid squeezed the trigger. Shot and metal exploded from the lock, and the deafening boom ricocheted between my ears. The barred door swung slowly open with a squeak that would have been head-splitting if the shot hadn’t already carved my head in two. I stepped out, and two of the kid’s posse grabbed me roughly by the arms.

“This is him?” one asked the kid. He didn’t wait for an answer before jostling my arm and hollering in my ear, “You’re Tom Kade?”

“It’s him,” the kid said, and I nodded.

“You killed Percy Shields,” another man said. A coil of rope rested on his hip. He fidgeted with one end, wrapping and unwrapping it around his wrist.

“It weren’t my fault.” But I didn’t protest further. I didn’t squirm in their arms. I told Bullock my shack was safer.

The two men led me outside. The rain had stopped, and mud puddles spotted the dirt road. The posse dragged me east, out of town, up a steep hill, and into a secluded forest, but they couldn’t possibly know where my shack was, where Miriam was. I tripped on a root, and Wes’s kid prodded me in the back with his shotgun. Three miles deep into the woods, the tree line broke around a clearing. A decrepit shack sat in the center. Two unmarked gravestones stood vigil at the far edge of the clearing. The man with the rope began to uncoil it while the other two pulled me to a tree. The lowest branch, about twenty feet high, stretched over the mossy forest floor, weighed down by a bird’s nest.

“Sorry, Mister Kade.” The kid sadly smiled at me. “My father….”

I nodded.

I understood.

Shield’s boys tied the rope into a noose and tossed one end over the branch. The bird’s nest tumbled to the ground. I shifted my gaze to my shack and the graves.

I didn’t cry as they slung the noose around my neck. If I were to die, I’d die quietly. {

THE AUTHOR

Before she could write, Abigail Dotzler would hand her mother a pen and paper and dictate stories, insisting that her mother transcribe her words exactly. Though she grew up addicted to fantasy novels, the American West called to her, and after seeing Tombstone, she fell in love with westerns and promptly filled her bookshelves with Wyatt Earp biographies and Louis L’Amour novels. She studies Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she serves on the editorial staff of The Muse, the university’s literature and arts magazine. When she isn’t scribbling her stories or reading the classics, she loves to take long walks in the woods and wander through museums.

POKER QUEEN OF THE FRONTIER

From faro tables to saloon showdowns, Alice Ivers—better known as Poker Alice—ruled Deadwood with brains, beauty, and a .38, leaving legends in her smoky trail.

STORY BY

CHRIS ENSS

Asteady stream of miners, ranchers, and cowhands filtered in and out of the Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, (present day) South Dakota. An inexperienced musician playing an outof-tune accordion squeezed out a familiar melody, ushering the pleasure seekers inside. Burlap curtains were pulled over the dusty windows, and fans that hung down from the ceiling turned lazily.

A distressed mahogany bar stood alongside one wall of the business, and behind it was a surly looking bartender. He was splashing amber liquid into glasses as fast as he could. A row of tables and chairs occupied the area opposite the bar, every seat was filled with a card player. Among the male gamblers was one woman; everyone called her “Poker Alice.”

She was an alarming beauty, fair-skinned and slim. She had one eye on the cards she was dealing and another on the men at the game two tables down.

Warren G. Tubbs was studying the cards in his hand so intently he didn’t notice the hulk of a man next to him get up and walk around behind him. The

huge man with massive shoulders and ham-like hands that hung low to his sides peered over Tubbs’ shoulder and scowled down at the mountain of chips before him. Alice’s intensely blue eyes carefully watched the brute’s actions. He casually reached back at his belt and produced a sharp knife from the leather sheath hanging off his waist. Just as he was about to plunge the weapon into Tubbs’ back, a gunshot rang out.

A sick look filled the man’s face, and the frivolity in the saloon came to a halt. He slowly dropped the knife. Before dropping to his knees, he turned in the direction from which the bullet had come. Alice stared back at him, her .38 pistol pointed at his head. The man fell face-first onto the floor. His dead body was quickly removed to make way for another player. In a matter of minutes, the action inside the tavern returned to normal. Tubbs caught Alice’s gaze and grinned. He nodded to her and waggled his fingers in a kind of salute. She smiled slightly and wholly turned her attention back to the poker game in front of her.

Alice Ivers never sat down to play poker without holding at least one gun. She generally carried a pistol in her dress pocket, and often she also had a backup weapon in her purse. The frontier was rough and wild, and wearing a gun, particularly while playing cards, was a matter of survival. It was a habit for Poker Alice.

She was born on February 17, 1851, in Sudbury, Devonshire, England. Alice’s father, whom some historians indicate was a teacher, while others maintain he was a lawyer, brought his wife and family to the United States in 1863. They settled first in Virginia and later moved to Fort Meade, South Dakota.

Like most people at the time, the Iverses were lured west by gold. No matter what gold rush town she was living in, Alice always attended school. She was a bright, young girl who excelled in math. The yellow-haired, precocious child quickly grew into a handsome woman, attracting the attention of every eligible bachelor in the area. Frank Duffield, a mining engineer, won her heart and hand. After the two married, he escorted his bride to Lake City, where he was employed. The southwestern Colorado silver camp was an unrefined, isolated location with little to offer in terms of entertainment.

Apart from watching the cardsharps and high-hatted gamblers make a fortune off the luckless miners, there was nothing but work to occupy time.

Bored with life as a simple homemaker and undaunted by convention, Alice visited the gambling parlors. Her husband and his friends taught her how to play a variety of poker games, and, in no time, she became an exceptional player. The fact that she was a mathematical genius added tremendously to her talent.

Most every night Alice was seated at the faro table of the Gold Dust Gambling House, dealing cards, and challenging fast-talking thrill seekers to “put their money into circulation.” She won most of the hands she played, whether it was five-card draw, faro, or blackjack. Her days of gambling for pleasure alone ended when Frank was killed in a mining accident. Left with no viable means of support, Alice decided to turn her hobby into a profession.

Some well-known gamblers, like Jack “Lucky” Hardesty, were not as accepting of a woman cardsharp as others. He made his thoughts on the subject plainly known one evening when he sat down at a faro table and glanced across the green felt at Alice. He refused to play against her, insisting that faro was a man’s game.

Alice didn’t shy away from the verbal assault. She

Undated photo of Alice Ivers, purported to have been taken sometime in the 1880s. She would have been in her 30s, and already well into her poker-playing career.

Born in England in 1851, Alice Iver’s family immigrated to the United States in 1863. She was known to be both beautiful and highly intelligent, excelling in mathematics.

calmly conveyed her intention to remain at the table until he dealt her a hand. Hardesty eventually gave in, but, before he let her have any cards, he warned her not to cry when she lost to him. Poker Alice simply grinned.

At the end of the night, Hardesty was out everything. Alice had won more than $1,500 off him and the other men who wagered on the game. Curious onlookers were reported to have remarked that he had “lost his money like he had a hole in his pocket as big as a stove pipe.” Hardesty attributed Alice’s numerous wins to luck alone.

Alice took that so-called luck from Colorado to other gambling spots in Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Along the way, the fashionable beauty developed a habit of smoking cigars and a taste for alcohol. Wherever the stakes were high, the whiskey smooth, and the smokes free, that’s where Alice would be. She generally said nothing if she won, but, if she lost a hand, she’d blurt out, “G-damn it!”

The name Poker Alice meant increased business for gaming houses. People flocked to see the highly skilled poker player “packing a heavy load of luck” and puffing on a thin, black stogie. Warren G. Tubbs was one of the many who came to see Alice play cards. Warren was a house painter and part-time gambler. He was captivated by her; so much so, he didn’t mind losing a hand or two to her. She found him equally charming, and, after a brief courtship, the pair married.

Alice was the better card player of the two and was the primary financial supporter for the family. Tubbs continued with his painting business but would not give up the game entirely. The couple spent many evenings playing poker at the same parlor. Whatever Warren lost Alice made up for in substantial winnings. The average night’s win for her was more than $200.

Alice’s reputation preceded her. To every town the pair traveled, she was offered $25 a night plus a

Deadwood’s rough and tumble Main Street, pictured here in 1876. It was amongst these saloons and gambling houses that Poker Alice became known as the “Faro Queen of Deadwood.”

portion of her winnings to act as dealer for the gaming parlor. Alice and Warren were bringing in substantial amounts of money and spending just as much. Alice made frequent visits to New York where she would purchase the finest clothes and jewels, attend several theatrical performances and musicals, and lavish her friends with expensive gifts. When the cash ran out, she would return to her husband and her cards and begin rebuilding her bank.

Warren drank to excess and frequently started fights. Poker Alice was very protective of her husband and got him out of trouble many times, ending any squabble that threatened his life.

Sober, Warren might have been faster on the draw against an offended cowhand. Alice was the better shot most of the time. Her father had taught her how to shoot using his Starr Army .44 revolver. By the age of twelve, she was as fast and accurate with the weapon as any boy her age. When she got older and there were lulls between poker games, Alice would practice her marksmanship by shooting knobs off the frames of pictures hanging on the walls. Her proficiency with a gun was proof to anyone who thought of crossing her or Warren that she could handle herself.

In 1874, Warren and Alice made their way to New Mexico. They had heard that the money to be made at the poker tables in Silver City were some of the richest in the country. Within hours after their arrival, Alice joined a faro game. Hand after hand, she raked in piles of chips. Saloon patrons pressed in around the game to watch the brilliant blonde win again and again. Before the sun rose the following morning, Alice had broken the bank and added to her holdings an estimated $150,000.

Alice and Warren followed the gold rush riches to the town of Deadwood, South Dakota. There, they hoped to continue increasing their winnings. Her expert card playing, and beautiful East Coast gowns brought gamblers to her table. Residents referred to her as the “Faro Queen of Deadwood.”

Whenever Wild Bill Hickok was around, he liked to play against the Queen. In fact, he had invited her to sit in on a hand with him on August 2, 1876, the day Jack McCall shot and killed the legendary Western character. Alice had declined, stating that she had already committed to another game. When she heard he’d been killed, she raced to the scene. Hickok was sprawled out on the floor, and McCall was running for his life. Looking down at her friend’s body, she

sadly said, “Poor Wild Bill. He was sitting where I would have been if I’d played with him.”

In 1910, Alice and Warren celebrated thirty-four years of marriage. Together, they had won and lost a fortune, bought, and sold several ranches in Colorado and South Dakota, and raised seven children. In the winter of that year, Warren contracted pneumonia and died. Alice remarried less than a year later. Her new husband was an obnoxious drunk named George Huckert. Huckert died on their third wedding anniversary.

At this point in her long life, Poker Alice had rid herself of the fashionable dress she once subscribed to and took to wearing khaki skirts, men’s shirts, and an old campaign hat. Her beauty had all but faded, and her hair had turned silver. The only thing that remained of the Alice of old was her habit of smoking cigars.

After moving back and forth from Deadwood to Rapid City and back again, Poker Alice left Deadwood

In Deadwood, Alice befriended Wild Bill Hickok, who enjoyed playing cards with “The Queen.” In fact, he’d invited her to sit in on a hand with him on August 2, 1976, the day he was shot and killed by Jack McCall at the No. 10 Saloon.

for good in 1913. She relocated to Sturgis, South Dakota, and bought a home a few miles from Fort Meade. She also purchased a profitable “entertainment” business, one that attracted hordes of soldiers stationed at the post. In addition to female companionship, she also sold bootleg whiskey. There were times in her career as madam that the combination proved deadly.

It was a warm, mid-July evening in 1913 when twenty-six-year-old Private Fred Koetzle began hurling rocks at Poker Alice Tubb’s brothel in Sturgis, eventually shattering the upstairs windows. Koetzle and several other soldiers with K Company from Fort Meade stood outside the business throwing rocks and cursing at the occupants inside. Moments before the rowdy, intoxicated group had begun pelting the two-story bordello with stones, one of the men had cut the electrical wires leading to the house, casting it into darkness. Owing to their unruly behavior, it was 10:30 at night when Koetzle, Private Joseph C. Miner, and more than fifteen other infantrymen had been evicted from the business by the feisty madam who ran the resort. Less than two weeks prior, the men had been thrown from the premises for the same reason.

In retaliation, the soldiers had gathered every rock and pebble in sight that July evening and had begun

destroying the property. The misguided troops were assaulting the house with another volley of rubble when shots from a Winchester automatic rang out. Koetzle, Miner, and the other men scattered to avoid the spray of bullets.

When the magazine of the gun was empty, all but two of the soldiers emerged unscathed. Private Koetzle had been shot through the head, and Private Miner had been hit in the chest. Both men were transported to the post hospital. Koetzle died shortly after arriving, while Miner was in critical condition and, in time, made a full recovery. Poker Alice was arrested and charged with the shooting death of Private Koetzle. Six prostitutes were also taken into custody. The gun the notorious madam used was found outside the door of her house, and the magazine was found laying on Alice’s bed. A box of shells was found under the bed.

In addition to being charged with killing a man, Alice was charged with violating the state law prohibiting the operation of a house of ill repute. Her bond was set at $1,000. The bond for the women who worked for her was set at $200 each. The five patrons in the brothel at the time Alice opened fire on the soldiers were taken to jail along with the business

By 1914, when she was widowed for the third time, Poker Alice had long rid herself of the fashionable dress she had once subscribed to and took to wearing khaki skirts, men’s shirts, and an old campaign hat. Here she is pictured dealing a game of Faro at Deadwood’a Days of ‘76 Celebration in 1924.

owner and her employees. Each man was fined $15 for frequenting a house of prostitution.

Alice was scheduled to appear in court in September 1913, but a few weeks before the hearing, state and city authorities decided not to prosecute. The facts of the case laid out for the judge showed that the madam had acted justly in defending her property and life, and she was released. Alice and the women who worked for her returned to their jobs soon after.

Poker Alice’s gambling house and bordello continued to peacefully service the Fort Meade clientele until 1924. Two separate incidents that year prompted law enforcement to investigate Alice’s business. Both incidents involved prohibition violations. On February 20, 1924, Rose Fillbach, one of the soiled doves at Alice’s brothel, was arrested on the premises when moonshine was found in her room. The man she’d been seeing claimed the liquor was his, and Rose was let out of jail.

Four months later, Alice’s resort was raided by the sheriff and his officers on a hunt for alcohol. More than a gallon of moonshine was discovered, and Poker Alice and five men visiting the women in her employ were arrested. She was released after paying a hefty fine for her transgression. The following year, Alice was arrested for operating a house of prostitution. The seventy-four-year-old woman spent a few days in jail and again paid a fine. To justify what she did for a living, Alice insisted that much of the money she made at her business was used to help Black Hills residents in need. “If I had all the money that I have passed out…I would be rich,” historians noted she remarked, “And there would be many haunting faces looking up at me from the past.”

An article in the June 6, 1927, edition of the Rapid City Journal announced that Poker Alice was going to take some time off from work to visit her sisters in Virginia for a few weeks. “Poker Alice, who was acquainted with Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Deadwood Dick, and many other of the famous individuals of the early days, was in Rapid City Friday,” the article read. “She was here to renew old acquaintances and to inspect Rapid City…. She has been in the Hills for many years and enjoys nothing better than relating incidents of early Black Hills days.” Alice returned from her trip on September 28, 1927.

Prior to leaving town to visit family, Alice had informed friends and newspaper editors that, along

with former Kansas City Star and Denver Post reporter Courtney Ryley Cooper, she was writing an “interesting sketch on her experiences in Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, and the Black Hills.” Alice’s story entitled “Easy Come, Easy Go,” was published in the December 1927 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. “Easy Come, Easy Go” was about Poker Alice’s life as a woman gambler in various mining towns.

“I had set my poker face and chewed my big black cigars and brought the cards from the faro box in practically every big camp of the West before this time,” she noted in her tale. “I simply cite the journey as an instance of what the gambler of the old days—man or woman—would undergo to reach a new camp and to be on the ground floor when the boom really broke.

“The term ‘professional gambler’ has a greatly different meaning today from what it possessed forty or more years ago. Then, it was not an outlaw practice to live by one’s wits and one’s ability to outguess the other person in a contest of cards. Dishonesty and crookedness were not the constant companions of games of chance. The gambler played because he loved it for the thrill of the turn of a card or a tight pinch in a contest with persons as sharp as he. Dishonesty hurt the thrill; when crookedness came to gambling, the real professionals quit, leaving the game to be taken by men—and women—who should have been called professional crooks instead.

“I dealt faro in old Fort Fetterman when the soldiers were there—a fort, incidentally, that has been abandoned now for more than thirty years. I saw Bob Ford killed just as I came off the afternoon faro shift in his gambling hall at Creede. I’ve won and lost in Alamosa, in Del Norte, in El Paso, in San Marcial; during the boom days of Leadville, Georgetown, Central City, and when miners’ money was plentiful in Lead and Deadwood and a score of other camps; but in all that time I handled a cold deck only once and that for a joke.”

Alice elaborated on her card playing skills in the story and told of other women gamblers who helped pave the way for her, women such as Madam Mustache, Haltershanks Eva, and China Mary. She also described gambling life in locations such as Creede, Colorado; Cheyenne, Wyoming; and El Paso, Texas.

“In the Cactus gambling hall in El Paso,” she recalled in her story, “I once saw a famous financier of the West lose $34,000 on what we called in those

days shoot-mouth. In other words, he had brought but little money with him when he entered the place, and, losing that, had begun to borrow from the game to make his bets. When he retired from the gambling hall, there was no promises, no agreements, no signing of notes or writing of checks. It was an affair of honor; everybody knew that the next morning the colonel would arrive and, in courtly fashion, hand over to the game keeper $34,000 in bank notes in payment of his honest debts. That was in fair-and-square days.

“Against that, I have seen men with their fingers sandpapered until the blood oozed through the skin. Card marking at that time was done by very fine indentations made with a pin or needle. The crook, as he dealt, must have fingers sensitive enough to read markings that would pass unnoticed in the ordinary man’s hands; and the person who helped these men the most was the crooked saloon keeper.

“…Other [mining] camps beckoned me, among them Deadwood and Lead, in the heart of the last frontier of America’s various mining rushes in the Black Hills. …There was a well-known character there who would take a stranger into a back room and with a deck of cards show the stranger almost inconceivable feats of manipulation, hereby promoting a partnership by which he announced that he could win all the money in the world.

“But when he got into a game with the sharp eyes of professional gamblers upon him, the courage necessary to that crooked skill wilted and he became only a frightened, exceedingly bad player who lost his stacks of chips almost as soon as they were set before him.

“One night in Deadwood, I felt the urge of luck and the stronger urge of gambling. I bucked the game with disastrous results to my own money. Then I took my husband’s money and gambled that, too. The result was the same. Broke, flat broke, I looked about for a new stake and thought of Mike Russell, a pioneer saloon keeper in Deadwood.

“Women were not allowed in Russell’s place of business; only one was ever to break the rule – Calamity Jane – and that only because she dressed like a man and acted so like a man that the rule against femininity hardly held for her.

“It is still good to play, still a thrill to look at the faces about a [poker] table and to know that you are matching your brains against those of whom card playing is a passion. But I want those men, in these new and hectic days, to be ones with years

of friendship behind them. Otherwise, I obey the signs of the Pullman cars: Don’t Play Cards with Strangers.”

In late 1928, Poker Alice ran afoul of the law again and was arrested for “keeping a house of ill repute” and “possession of intoxicating liquor.” She was found guilty and sentenced to a six month stay in the state prison at Sioux Falls.

Friends of the elderly madam appealed to South Dakota governor William J. Bulow for mercy. Alice was in poor health, and they didn’t think she would survive incarceration. Several people in Deadwood and surrounding areas signed a petition asking the governor to grant Alice a full pardon. He did so on December 19, 1928.

Seven months after Alice was released from prison, a Catholic priest stopped by to visit her at her home and discovered that she was seriously ill. Her doctor called on her but couldn’t determine the problem. She refused to go to the hospital for testing and decided to stay in bed until the ailment passed. For a time, her health was improving.

Poker Alice was often invited to take part in parades and other festivities celebrating the history of the Black Hills. She would sit on the back of an elaborately decorated float, dressed in a dark suit, a man’s gray shirt, and regulation army cavalry hat, and wave to the throngs of people who cheered for her as she passed by. City founders and area residents recognized her contribution to Deadwood’s colorful past praising her business sense and her genius at the poker table. Not everyone agreed that a gambler and madam should be publicly honored. In February 1930, Alice was hospitalized in Rapid City and was rushed to surgery to have gallstones removed. Doctors were hopeful she’d make a full recovery and be able to return home. Sadly, that was not the case. Alice Ivers died on February 27 at the age of seventy-nine. She was laid to rest at the Catholic Cemetery in Sturgis. Her estate, which at one time estimated to be worth millions, had been reduced to $50 and a few possessions.

DON MONEY

TELL NO TALES

A SHORT STORY

“Iwarned him about travelin’ alone and unarmed and he told me ‘The Bible is my protection. It has never failed me yet.’” Owen Casey said to Sheriff Seth Bullock. The Deadwood sheriff had asked the blacksmith to tell him about the last time he saw Reverend Smith. “He stopped by my shop and told me he was going to Crook City to preach and expected to be back later in the day.”

“And he set out after that?” Sheriff Bullock asked. The body of Reverend Henry Weston Smith had been discovered on the road three miles outside of Deadwood by a passerby two hours before, and the sheriff had been notified to investigate the death.

“That’s right.” Casey laid down the hammer on the anvil where he had been working on a horseshoe. “I said to him I was worried about his safety, but he told me he weren’t worried about the Indians, and he was a man of God and trusted in the Shepherd’s protection—I told him it’s because he is a preacher that I was worried.”

Bullock looked at the blacksmith curious about the comment. “What did you exactly mean by that?”

“I don’t wanna to go causin’ trouble and gettin’ ’em after me,” Owen said, giving a nervous look up and down the dusty street. “But the reverend was a friend to me. There are some folks here ’bout not happy with all the talking he did about them dens of inequity around Deadwood.”

Sheriff Bullock rubbed his hand across the stubble of his weathered face. “Heard talk similar to that too. Al Swearengen weren’t too keen on how Reverend Smith tried to get the Gem Theatre closed down. That’s somethin’ the preacher and I agree

wholeheartedly on—that brothel has been the ruin of many good men and too many innocent women.”

“Al even swears that Smith was behind an attempt to burn the building to the ground,” Owen said. “Place ain’t nothin’ but an American Gomorrah. Wish it’d meet the same fate.”

The sheriff walked back, unhitched his black mare from the railing, and swung himself up onto the saddle. “Swearengen is already running his mouth around town that Indians got Reverend Smith.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Naw, too convenient and don’t match anything about previous attacks.”

“Robbers?”

“Reasonable assumption, but nothing was taken from the preacher’s body. Had some gold coins and a watch left on his body. Just a single shot that took him straight through the heart. Don’t sound much like an Indian or a road agent.”

The blacksmith shook his head. “Sounds more like an assassination, not revenge or thievin’.”

“I got some questions, and I know a feller who always has his ears open and might give me an answer with the right persuasion.” Sheriff Bullock nudged his horse and headed out of Deadwood toward Whitewood Creek.

“Dammit, Bullock, enough.” Turner Griggs looked up from the floor of his cabin where the punch had sent him reeling to the floor. “That’s all I know. I overheard Swearengen talkin’ to Delpherd Vaniel about some money he’d pay him to shut up that Bible thumper.”

“When was this?” the sheriff rubbed the knuckles of his right hand.

“Last night, out behind the Gem. Al told him to do it today and then see him in his offi ce tonight after dark to collect,” Turner replied, not wanting another chance to be at the receiving end of Bullock’s famous temper.

“Where’s Delpherd likely to be found in the evenings?” Sheriff Bullock asked, already planning his next stop to figure out what had happened to Reverend Smith.

“He’s got a place he stays in Chinese Alley. I suspect he’s laying low there until he collects his payout tonight. After that, he’ll be in the wind.”

Bullock reached out and pulled Griggs up from the floor. “Shoulda told me about this last night, Turner. If you’d done that, then a good man might still be alive.”

Through the front window of the Bella Union Saloon, Sheriff Bullock watched the passageway that led out of Chinese Alley. It was not the first time the lawman had staked out the location waiting for an outlaw to emerge from the dens of evil that dotted that part of Deadwood.

Twilight was creeping upon the town when Bullock spied Delpherd Vaniel slinking out of the alley heading in the direction of the Gem Theatre. In a few quick steps, the sheriff was through the swinging doors and on a course to intercept his suspect in the murder of Reverend Smith.

Ten steps from away, Bullock watched as the nervous Delpherd looked up and made eye contact with the lawman. Both men in realization of what was about to happen came to a dead stop.

Sheriff Bullock smoothly drew his Remington 1875, aiming at his quarry. “Don’t you rabbit, Mister Vaniel. I have some questions for you.”

Whether out of a general fear of the law or knowledge that Bullock was likely there to arrest him, Delpherd turned and bolted back into Chinese Alley. Not willing to shoot the man in the back, the sheriff took up the pursuit.

Entering the alley of closely placed ramshackle buildings, a shot tore into a wall next to Sheriff Bullock’s head, sending him into a less than graceful headlong tumble for cover behind a row of wooden barrels. The few people on the street scrambled for

the indoors as two more rounds splintered the wood of the lawman’s refuge.

“Delpherd! It don’t have to be this way.” Bullock peeked around the edge of a barrel and saw the pistol and arm extending out from behind a building where Vaniel hid. “You and I can talk about this. I know you were put up to what you did.”

Another round hit the barrel and Bullock scooted back. “I ain’t ending up at the end of a rope for something you think I did.”

“Don’t have to be the noose, you confess to the killing and testify against who paid you to do it, and you can go to the territorial prison. Ain’t a great place, but at least you’d be living.”

“Killing? I ain’t killed nobody. You’s just setting me up.”

“Why did you run when you saw me?”

“I thought you were after me for roughing that girl up.”

A single shot echoed amongst the buildings. Bullock flinched but no shot came his way. “Delpherd?” No response came in return. “Delpherd, just throw down your gun and we can talk this out.”

Again, there was no response. Sheriff Bullock, with his revolver leading the way, emerged from behind the barrels. Keeping his aim at where his ambusher had fired from, the lawman moved cautiously along the street. Stepping quickly around the corner, his gun drew a bead on the body lying dead on the ground. A bullet hole was visible in the back of Delpherd Vaniel’s head. Blood trickled down, and

in the fading light, Bullock watched it drip into a pool in the dirt.

“Dammit.” Bullock swung his pistol around looking for who had killed the man, who moments before, had been trying his best to kill the sheriff. No one presented themselves, and it confirmed the dark suspicion that settled on his mind. Vaniel hadn’t been killed to save the lawman, but to shut up the man who knew too much.

“Well, Sheriff Bullock, what brings Deadwood’s esteemed lawman into the Gem Theatre? Change your mind about the vileness of this place and come for some comfort?” Al Swearengen’s crooked smile punctuated the arrogance with which the notorious businessman spoke.

“Comfort for who? Certainly not the poor women you force to work here. No sir, there is nothing I need from a whoremonger like you other than a confession.” Bullock’s temper was on the rise.

“Confession. Why, whatever would I have to confess to? Bringing employment opportunities to destitute young women?”

Bullock pushed back the urge to draw his revolver and club this scum of a man over the head. “What I speak of is the conspiracy to kill Reverend Smith, and likely, just minutes ago did the same to Delpherd Vaniel to keep him from talking.”

“Sheriff, those are some serious allegations,” Swearengen spoke loudly to draw the attention of the saloon’s patrons to the conversation. “Just because you are unable, or unwilling, to track down the Indians who killed the good reverend doesn’t mean you should try and lay that crime at my feet.”

“Not even going to say you don’t know Vaniel or act surprised he was killed?” Bullock replied.

“I know Vaniel by name only, never met him. My girls would be closer associated with the man. As far as his death, I know just what a customer came in and told me. He was being pursued by you into Chinese Alley when some good citizen took it upon himself to assist in rectifying the situation of a man trying to kill you.”

“Funny that they didn’t stick around.”

“Not everybody in Deadwood feels the need to be thanked for their good deeds. Take me for instance. I just volunteered to pay for that Bible thumper’s burial, and I’m not bragging about it.”

“Bible thumper? That’s not the first time today I’ve heard the Reverend called that.” An idea began to form in Sheriff Bullock’s mind. “You know Turner Griggs?”

“Nope. Now if you will excuse me, Sheriff Bullock, I do have a business to run.” With that, Swearengen took a shot of whiskey and exited through a door in the back of the room.”

As Bullock approached the door to leave, a small hand grabbed at his arm. Turning around, one of the theatre’s dancing girls stood staring up at him, her right eye marked with a fading purple bruise.

“I heard you say my brother’s name when you was talking to Mister Swearengen,” the girl said.

“Delpherd Vaniel is your brother?”

“No, my brother is Turner,” she replied. “I’m Nexie Griggs. But I do know Delpherd. He’s the one that done this to me.” Nexie tipped her head so the sheriff got a better view of her black eye.

“What does your brother think of that?”

“Look, sheriff, I don’t wanna get my brother into any trouble, but he’s gone and done something to get into business with Mister Swearengen. I’m worried, Swearengen is not a good man.”

“I just want to help your brother if he’s done something wrong. But, I can’t help him if I don’t know what to help him from.” Bullock lowered his voice as he spoke.

Nexie looked around to see if they were being observed. “I don’t rightly know myself. When Turner came in here hopping mad about what happened to me, Swearengen told him he had a proposal that could help him settle the score with Delpherd and help the Gem also. Told Turner he could make a good bit of money also in the deal. Said to him, ‘enough to pay to get your sister out of working here and then some.’”

“Thank you, Miss Nexie. I’ll see what I can do for Turner.”

Sheriff Bullock headed home for the night to chew on all that he learned from his visit to the Gem.

The next morning the sheriff returned to Whitewood Creek. As he rode up and climbed down, Turner Griggs emerged from around behind the cabin.

“Morning, Sheriff, I heard tell you killed Delpherd

Vaniel. Serves him right for killin’ that Bible thumper… I mean Reverend Smith.”

“I wasn’t the one who murdered Vaniel.”

“Murdered? He killed a man, he weren’t murdered, he got his reckoning. Good riddance I’d say,” Turner replied.

“Oh, he was murdered all right. Shot in the back of the head. But you already knew that.” The lawman watched for a reaction from the other man. A twitch played across Turner’s face. “Turner, I’ve not seen you runnin’ around heeled before.” Bullock tipped his head toward the Navy Colt in the holster the man wore.

“I… I… I’m not sure what you are suggesting, Sheriff.” A line of sweat rolled down Turner’s face. “I think you need to just go on and get off of my property.”

“I get it. I saw what that man did to your sister. You wanted to get back at him.” Bullock prodded for answers. “You should have come to me. I could have handled Vaniel the law way.”

“You just saw her face,” Turner yelled. “Rest of her body was covered with bruises and more. He had no right to hurt her like that. She already suffers enough for what she has to do at that place to make a livin’.”

The sheriff saw an opening to try and help Turner—like he told his sister he would. “I know that Al Swearengen put you up to this, son. You testify what he had you do and I’ll see to it that you don’t swing. You’ll spend your time in prison, but you could get out at some point. Nexie doesn’t want to see you dead.”

“I’d hoped that by makin’ up that story I told you somehow Delpherd and Swearengen would both end up dead.” Turner’s hands began to shake.

“Al in jail may not be as good to you as dead, but he’d be punished for putting you up to killing Reverend Smith.”

Turner Griggs dropped his right hand next to his holster. “Can’t do that, Sheriff Bullock. If you take me and Swearengen in, he’ll have his cronies hurt my sister to keep me quiet. I can’t risk that.”

“I’ve never had to kill a man. I don’t want to start with you. Drop your gun belt, let me take you in, and I’ll arrest Al Swearengen. I can get Nexie to a safe place. We can get her away from here. With you in jail, you won’t need this place. We can sell it and move Nexie to where she can’t be hurt by Swearengen or any of his people.”

“Swear to me that you will get her out of that vile man’s clutches. Do that and I’ll talk—”

A rifle shot cracked, splitting the air between

them, striking Griggs in the chest. Bullock hunkered low to the ground pulling his revolver and searching for where the shot came from. From the woods to the side of the cabin, the sound of hoofbeats riding away sent the lawman scrambling to his feet and running to where Turner lay.

Kneeling down, Bullock lifted Turner’s torso up. “Give me your testimony against Swearengen. Your dying confession will hold up in court. Your sister will be safe.”

Turner Griggs coughed and some bloody spittle shot from his lips. “Remember you swore to get her out of Deadwood.”

“I will. Now talk.”

“I still can’t. I killed a man of God, I know where I’m a headin’ in the next life. And sooner or later, Al Swearengen is going to show up there too. Even in Hell, he’s sure to make my life worse there to punish me if I talk. But Nexie can have a life now. You see to it that she gets away from this place.” With that, Turner Griggs’ eyes closed and he crossed to his judgement.

Sheriff Bullock spoke through the window of the stagecoach, “Nexie, use the money you got now to start a new life for yourself back east. It’s what your brother asked of you. Get out of this place and make a new life for yourself.”

Nexie nodded and waved to the lawman as the stage departed. Bullock turned and stared at Al Swearengen who stood on the walkway in front of the Gem Theatre. “There’s at least three lives I know you owe for. The law will see it through. I will see it through.”

The familiar slick smile of Swearengen was pasted to his face. “I am sure I don’t even know what you are referring to. Course all of that hinges on you being a lawman anyway.”

Seth Bullock shook his head in disgust and walked back toward his office.

“Carter,” Swearengen called to one of his men. “Get a message to John Manning. Tell him I have an opportunity he will be interested in.” {

THE AUTHOR

Don Money was born and raised in rural Arkansas. He spent the majority of his youth exploring the woods around their family farm or with his face buried in a Western novel. After graduating high school he joined the United States Air Force and traveled the globe as a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Weapons Defense Specialist. After ten years in the service, Don returned to his roots in Arkansas and now teaches Language Arts to sixth graders. He holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in Education from Arkansas State University. Don is an active member of the White County Creative Writers group and enjoys writing fiction across multiple genres. He has sixty short stories published in a variety of anthologies and magazines. Don resides in Beebe, Arkansas with his wife, Sarah, where they are the proud parents of five children.

CowboyDreams Michael Len Boone

poetry by

I wish I’d been a cowboy, livin’ on the range, ridin’ high up in the saddle, lettin’ loose with the reins.

I’d punch all the little doggies and brand their leather hides. Gather grub for the chuck wagon; tomorrow’s the cattle drive.

I’d ride to Kansas City, on the long and dusty trail. Dance and hoot and holler, once we got our bill of sale.

I’d head west out to the mountains, climb right up to the sky. Hunt deer, elk, and antelope, watch eagles soaring high.

See Montana and Wyoming, lush valleys and the plains. Fish the River Yellowstone. Hot springs would ease my pains.

Head for California to start diggin’ for that gold. I’d hit it big and sell the claim when I found the mother-lode.

Then go south down to the desert, past the canyons, into the heat, With rattlesnakes and scorpions and tarantulas at my feet.

Each day would end beneath the stars, a magnificent, glorious sight, Counting all the meteors that blaze throughout the night.

Then the winter of my life would come, and I’d be gettin’ old. I’d find myself a fancy town and get in from the cold.

I’d spend my days in dark saloons, tellin’ of my deeds— adventures with the outlaws, and the fierce Indian breeds.

But I’d be spinning tales to strangers, folks I didn’t know. ‘Cause I wouldn’t have a family, being always on the go.

To be a cowboy means the sacrifice of what I’ve cherished most. So I’m glad I’m not a cowboy, considering the cost.

My cowboy dreams must be just that. With “little cowpokes” at my side, we’ll make our own adventures, finding different trails to ride.

MICHAEL KNOST CARRYING THE WEIGHT

A SHORT STORY

William Massie stole a glance at the imposing figure just to his left before placing his four sevens and a deuce on the table without a word. He’d worked hard at keeping the value of those cards off his face, but now perspiration beaded his forehead something terrible.

Hickok grunted and turned toward the barkeep. “Bring me fifty dollars’ worth of checks, Harry.” He flung his own cards to the table while glaring at Massie. “The old duffer broke me on that hand.”

With a queasy stomach, Massie reached for his winnings and jerked back when the roaring of a revolver sent excruciating pain into his now bloodied left wrist.

Gasps and grumbles erupted throughout the saloon, as well as a piercing ring that impeded everything as though underwater. Even the cadence of Massie’s riverboat pocket watch seemed to be affected.

Tick.

He gazed up to make sure he wasn’t about to be shot again and noticed a young man standing just behind the slumping Hickok with a reddened face and a smoking Colt.

Tick.

“Damn you, take that!” the man yelled at the legendary pistoleer before waving the revolver toward the crowd as a warning.

Tick.

Massie pressed a handkerchief to his wound and flinched at the pain as the body of Wild Bill Hickok tumbled from stool to floor.

Tick.

The crowd took chase when the gunman bolted

through the back door while Massie collected his money, finished his whiskey, and exited through the front entrance, still holding the sodden handkerchief to his burning wrist.

Doc Pierce returned from his desk with bandaging and bourbon. “I couldn’t help but notice they called you captain when they brought you here.” He slid a chair closer to Massie and handed him the bottle. “Would you be retired from the Army? Furloughed?”

“I’m a riverboat captain.” Massie winced at the pain and took a quick drink before wiping his mouth. “Just as my father before me. God rest his soul.”

Doc Pierce took the whiskey and drizzled a portion of it over Massie’s wound before handing the bottle back to him. “Everyone recounts that there was just one gunshot,” he said, now drying the arm with a towel. “They say Hickok was struck directly in the head, and yet, right here in your wrist is the very ball that killed that man.”

“I honestly thought it was Hickok who had fired on me.” Massie downed another drink and released a sharp breath. “Afore I took notice of that fervid boy with the Colt in his hand.”

Leaning closer to inspect the wound, Pierce lifted his eyebrows. “It’s in there good. That much is certain. Better drink up before I start digging it out.”

“Could removal of the ball render the arm useless?”

“I suppose there’s always a possibility. However, the bullet does not seem to present a threat in its current location.”

Flickering lamplight cast lengthy shadows across the walls and floor, leaving sulfurous fumes throughout.

“And what would become of my limb should I merely leave the blasted thing where it is?”

“Other than nagging reminders of its presence?” Pierce shrugged. “More than likely no different than had the bullet never entered the wrist.”

Massie took out his pocket watch and held it momentarily in his palm while peering into its face.

“Are you to be somewhere soon?”

Massie studied the doctor. “Now, why would you ask that?”

“You keep checking your timepiece as though you have a harrowing schedule to keep.”

“My apologies.” He returned the watch to his vest and made an attempt to smile. “It’s an old habit, I’m afraid.”

Pierce rose when a knock came from the door. “Try not to move your arm.”

The night air swept through the room, sending a prickly shiver down Massie’s back and a sourness into his stomach.

“I’m looking for Doctor Ellis Pierce.”

“I’m Doc Pierce. What can I do for you?”

Removing his hat in spite of the blustery winds, the stranger grimaced. “My name is Charlie Utter. I am a friend…” He dropped his gaze with a pause. “Was a friend of James Butler Hickok.”

“Wild Bill?”

“That is correct.” He gestured toward the doorway. “Would it be possible to speak within the warmth of your residence?”

“Of course.” Pierce stepped aside. “Come in.”

“I shall keep you but a moment.” Utter stole a quick glance at Massie before turning back to the doctor. “I wish to seek your services in preparing my friend’s body for the upcoming funeral.”

“But of course. Whatever I can do to help.” Pierce gestured toward Massie’s wrist. “In fact, I have been examining the bullet that killed your friend.”

Utter stepped closer, eyebrows converging over the bridge of his nose. “Are you saying….”

Pierce nodded. “Mister Massie here was gambling with your friend when the shooter struck.” He pulled back the towel, revealing the wound. “And that’s where the bullet ended up.”

“I’ll be damned.” Utter placed a hand on Massie’s shoulder. “Sir, I would be willing to purchase that ball once it is removed.” He shrugged. “Hell, I’ll even pay the doctor’s fee if you are agreeable to such terms.”

Massie took the towel from Pierce and returned it to the wound. “I appreciate your offer, but I’m leaving the thing right where it is.”

“You’re not getting it cut out?”

“I am not.”

“Wouldn’t that pose a danger to life or limb?”

“No more of a danger than falling from his horse,” Doc Pierce said with a shrug. “Now let me finish him up and I shall visit your camp directly to care for your friend’s body.”

Massie drew on his pipe, allowing the tobacco smoke to linger in his lungs as long as he could before exhaling. Coldness bit at his hands and feet, but the solitude of the vacant alley brought a much-needed warmth to both head and stomach.

The river was calling him, there was little doubt of that. What felt like the gills of his soul yearned to

get back to the waters where he belonged. The mere thought of returning to the stern brought even more warmth and comfort.

“Give me the slug.”

Massie’s stomach clenched when the filthy man stepped from the shadows with an outstretched knife.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I followed you from the doctor’s residence,” the man said with a raspy voice. “And you look to be far too smart to allow the old pill to keep it.”

“Are you talking about—”

“Surely you know the slug that killed Wild Bill Hickok is bound to fetch a handsome sum.”

Massie raised his bandaged wrist. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I did not have the ball removed.”

“Out of luck?” The man’s smile became grotesque as he stepped closer. “Why on earth would I need luck when I have this knife?”

Coldness bloomed through Massie’s chest. “Now see here—”

“Do not make me slit your throat before cutting out that slug,” the man said, reaching for Massie’s arm.

“Drop the Missouri toothpick, or I’ll paint this

alley with what little brains you’ve got.” Charlie Utter was standing at the assailant’s back, holding a revolver’s muzzle against the poor fella’s head. “I said drop it.”

“No need to get worked up,” the man said, tossing the weapon to the ground.

“I’m going to give you a piece of advice, mister.” Utter’s words came through clenched teeth. “Run away now. Don’t ever let me see your face again as I will not be as gracious on our next encounter.”

The man glanced at the knife.

“Leave it.” Utter shoved him. “Go now before I rethink my decision.”

Massie picked up the blade as the thug hurried off into the night. “That man was about to cut the bullet out of my wrist with this dad-blasted thing.” He held out the weapon for Utter to take. “He was going to do it!”

Holstering his revolver, Utter shook his head. “Keep it. You obviously need the thing more than I do.”

“What I need is whiskey.” Massie searched for a place to stow the knife. “If you would be so kind as to accompany me to the Shoofly Saloon, I would be happy to purchase a bottle to share.”

Massie drank back his whiskey and immediately poured another. “I suppose you want the bullet so that you may profit from it, just as was the ruffian’s hope.”

“That is not my intention at all.” Utter took out his makins and rolled a paper of tobacco. “My intention is to prevent any profiting from the ball that killed my friend.” He lit the quirly and blew smoke toward the rafters.

“So you wish to keep it for yourself.”

“If wishes actually came to pass, I’d wish for my friend to still be alive.” Utter drew again and released the smoke. “But since that is not possible, I would wish to bury the bullet with his body.”

Massie took out his watch and stared at its back cover before downing another drink. “I assure you, I have no plans to profit from the ball.”

“I do not doubt that. And I shall respect your decision of leaving it be.”

“Thank you.”

Utter drank what remained in his glass and gestured toward Massie’s hands. “That appears to be a riverboat engraved on your watch. Was it a gift?”

“Hardly.” Massie flipped the timepiece over in his hand. “I’m afraid there is a long story behind it.”

“The good doctor asked to be alone while preparing Hickok, therefore, I currently possess the time required for such a story.”

Placing the watch onto the table, Massie took out his pipe and packed tobacco into its bowl. “My brother and I grew up on the Missouri River. I was barely thirteen when the two of us steered just past the Hermann wharf in a skiff and found that the steamer Big Hatchie had blown up, maiming and killing dozens of the crew and passengers.” He lit the pipe and drew. “We spent hours taking those who survived to shore. It was the most horrific thing I had ever witnessed.”

“I can only imagine.”

“John boarded the burning wreck to gather folks while I transported them to shore. One of the crew members was in dire shape when I got him on the skiff. He tried putting the watch in my hand, asking me to give it to his wife. I made him hang on to it and promised he would give it to her himself as I was determined to make sure he got home alive.” Massie placed his hand on the watch and paused for just a moment. “Unfortunately, the man died before I could get him to shore, and without him telling me his name or any details of his wife or family.”

“Were you able to find the wife?”

Massie shook his head. “We were recovering bodies for days before I had a chance to seek her out. And God knows I must have spoken to every woman in that area without finding a clue at the time.” He dropped his gaze to the watch. “And it eats at me to this very day that I failed that man so horribly, that his death was entirely my fault as I did not get him to shore in time.”

“You were thirteen. You saved dozens of lives and helped many others.”

Massie looked up. “And one man died because I couldn’t get him to help in time.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t even fulfill his dying wish.”

“You can’t go on blaming yourself for something that was never your fault.” Utter filled his glass and stared into it. “I’ll never forget the time someone asked Hickok how he felt about killing all the men he’d shot in his past. You know what he told that fella?”

Massie shrugged.

“Hickok said he realized he had to let go of those thoughts to survive.” Utter finally drank back the whiskey and sighed. “He said releasing guilt isn’t

about erasing mistakes, but it’s about releasing the weight of regret that was never yours to carry.”

Massie stood inside the trading post going through a pile of socks. “I’ll need a shirt as well,” he said to the proprietor. “Nothing fancy.”

“You say you’re heading back to the riverboat in Missouri?” The man pulled a shirt from near the top. “And so soon after the shooting?”

“So soon? It’s been more than three and a half months since it happened.”

“Has it been that long?”

A tall fella with a horseshoe mustache entered at the front door and made his way toward the two men. “I’m looking for William Massie.”

“I’m Massie.”

“My name is Ben Ash. I am the deputy marshal of Bismarck,” he said with a blank expression. “I understand you were at the table when Jack McCall shot James Butler Hickok.”

Massie nodded.

“I also understand you are carrying the evidence in your very arm.”

“That is correct.” Massie touched his wrist. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you are being summoned to testify at McCall’s trial.”

A laugh slipped from Massie before he could prevent it. “You’re a little too late for that, aren’t you? They found that boy not guilty over three months ago and set him free.”

“Deadwood isn’t recognized as a legal territory and has no jurisdiction to hold court.” He pushed his hat back on his head. “So McCall is set for a real trial in Yankton in a little over a week. And we need you, as well as the others who were present, to testify.”

Massie dropped his gaze to the floor.

“We can count on your testimony, correct?”

Massie closed his eyes and released a deep breath. “I apologize, but I won’t be able to do it.”

“What do you mean you won’t do it?”

“Think of the disgrace it would be for my daughters to have it in all the papers that I’d been in a poker game where a man was murdered,” Massie said. “Besides, I could lose my job if Commodore Coulson heard about it.”

“Your testimony is crucial. Without your evidence, that murderer could walk free.”

“I understand, and, again, I apologize.”

Ash’s face reddened. “I will come back with a bench warrant forcing you to appear if I must.”

Massie turned back to the socks. “You shall be sure to find me on the Missouri River.”

Massie was pouring himself another whiskey at the Shoofly Saloon when Charlie Utter burst through the door and rushed to his table.

“What’s this about you refusing to testify?”

Massie downed the whiskey and pushed back his chair to put distance between himself and Utter’s glare. “I told the marshal—”

“I heard about what you said to Ben.” Utter pulled out a chair and plopped into it. “I heard all about it.”

Massie refilled the glass and slid it toward Utter. “You have to understand—”

“I do understand!” Utter swatted the glass from the table, sending it across the room and crashing to the floor. “I understand all too well that the man who murdered my friend could very well go free… again! That’s what I understand. Do you understand, Massie?”

Silence filled the room as Utter leaned into the back of his chair, released a heavy breath, and stared into the rafters.

Perspiration beaded Massie’s forehead, but he dared not move to wipe it.

“Don’t you think you’re carrying enough as it is?” Utter’s voice was calm and controlled now, the redness in his face leaving him. “Think about it. By refusing to testify, you could very well send that man back out to kill again. All the while, you put yourself in a position where you will carry around more weight than what you’ve already burdened yourself with.”

Massie silently stared at his hands as warmth moved into his neck and ears.

“But in this case,” Utter whispered. “By not doing what you can to make it right, you are forcing so many other individuals to carry that weight right along with you.” He rose to his feet. “And we do not deserve that.”

Massie reached for Utter’s arm. “Please,” he said without touching him. “Sit down.”

Utter eased back into the seat and fixed his gaze to Massie’s.

“It is not my intention to bring more pain to your grief.” Taking a drink directly from the bottle, Massie closed his eyes. “I assure you that is not my intention.”

The silence slipped away as conversations and activities slowly resumed in the saloon.

“About a month after the Big Hatchie incident, John and I were called upon to testify as to what we witnessed from the disaster. Keep in mind, we were but mere lads who knew nothing as to how the world ticks.” Massie removed his Breton and wiped his forehead. “We told it just as we’d seen it, not giving a thought as to saying the right things or avoiding the wrong.” He took another drink from the bottle.

“An hour after we got home, our father, a riverboat captain at the time, learned he was losing his job.”

Utter sat forward. “Because of your testimonies?”

“Aye. The owners of the companies and vessels were thick as thieves and punished our father for truths he had no idea we were going to speak.” He touched his chin to steady it. “Our family suffered greatly.”

“Those bastards.”

“Then I heard the tragic news of the woman who hung herself after learning her husband, First Engineer Bernard Mahan, had died in the explosion.” Massie held up the pocket watch. “Had I put this in her hands at the beginning, she very well would still be alive today.”

“Or it would have changed nothing. One can only speculate as to what might have come about in these instances.”

Massie lifted his eyebrows and nodded. “I suppose that is true.”

“Grief is but a storm that drowns all reason, my friend.”

Dropping his gaze back to the watch, Massie swallowed hard. “Aye, it most certainly is.”

The stage station was quiet as Massie had arrived early, as was his nature. “Should the coach make it here before scheduled, would it wait until departure time before leaving again?”

“Certainly,” the man at the counter said. “But you have nothing to worry about, this stagecoach is never early.”

Glancing at his watch, Massie caught himself smiling. “It will be more than an hour before its arrival by my estimation. Were I to conduct a few errands, would you be able to stow my things until my return?”

“That would not be a problem.”

The day’s sunlight did very little to bring warmth

to the December air. It was as though Deadwood’s pulse was slowly fading with each passing season.

Heading toward the Shoofly, Massie noticed a familiar face near the entrance. It was the back-alley ruffian who tried to hack the bullet from his wrist. Would you look at this? He realized the man did not see him coming and removed the knife from his vest pocket.

“You must be as stupid as you look,” Massie said, putting the blade to the man’s throat. “You were warned to leave this territory, were you not?”

“Hold on, hold on,” the man said, raising his hands. “I was just standing here minding my business.”

“Not long ago you were all about my business, do you not remember?” Massie pressed the blade closer into the man’s flesh. “Even threatened to slit my throat.”

“I apologize. That was a mistake on my part.”

“Indeed, it was.” Massie pressed the blade until a small portion of blood surfaced. “Egregious mistake.”

“Please. Please don’t kill me.”

Massie noticed Utter at the saloon door. “My friend let you go before.” He leaned close to the man’s ear. “And I will let you go this time. But when I pull the knife away, you had better run as hard as those chicken legs can carry you. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes.”

Massie pulled the knife away and shoved the fella from the porch. “Go!”

The man’s boots slapped the street as he fled away without looking back.

“Impressive.” Utter stepped closer. “Quite impressive.”

Returning the knife to his vest, Massie nodded. “You’re just the man I was looking for.”

“I hope you’re not planning to pull the knife on me.”

Massie grinned. “I’ve given what you said quite a bit of thought. And you are correct.”

Utter furrowed his eyebrows.

“I’m leaving on the next stage to Yankton to testify.”

Smiling, Utter offered his hand. “Thank you.”

“No. Thank you,” Massie said as they shook. “And I apologize for being difficult with the whole thing.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Massie glanced down the street at nothing. “You’ll never know what you’ve done for me.”

“You traveling to Yankton and testifying is the best way to show your appreciation.”

“Actually, I have something for you.” Massie nodded as he rummaged through a pocket. “A gift that is ultimately more for me than for you, if I’m being honest.

“Really?”

Massie handed him the pocket watch and cleared his throat. “I’m done with carrying this.” He smiled again and briefly dropped his gaze to the ground. “And I cannot think of anyone I’d rather release it to… than you.”

Utter stared at the watch for a moment before reaching out to touch Massie’s shoulder. He started to speak and paused. “You have time for a drink before you leave?”

“I most certainly do.” {

THE AUTHOR

Michael Knost is a two-time Bram Stoker Award®-winner and has written in various genres and helmed dozens of anthologies. His latest novel, Trail of Madness: Jack McCall and the Killing of a Legend, is a traditional Western with foreword by Johnny D. Boggs. His Writers Workshop of Horror won the 2009 Bram Stoker Award® in England for superior achievement in non-fiction. His Writers Workshop of Horror 2 won the 2021 Bram Stoker Award® in Denver for the same category. His critically acclaimed Writers Workshop of Science Fiction & Fantasy is an Amazon #1 bestseller. Michael received the Horror Writers Association’s Silver Hammer Award in 2015 for his work as the organization’s mentorship chair and was recognized as the 2021 Mentor of the Year from the organization. He also received the prestigious J.U.G. (Just Uncommonly Good) Award from West Virginia Writer’s Inc and will be inducted into the inaugural class of the Imagination Hall of Fame in July of 2025. His Return of the Mothman novel has recently been filmed as a movie adaption. He has taught writing classes and workshops at several colleges, conventions, online, and currently resides in Chapmanville, WV with his wife and daughter.

TALKING WESTERNS

Terry Alexander ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Wild Bill Hickok on the Screen

Wild Bill’s poker hand may have ended, but his story rode on through film.

Deadwood, Dakota Territory, and Wild Bill Hickok are synonymous with each other. Deadwood was the final stop in the life of Wild Bill. Born James Butler Hickok in Homer, Illinois, in May of 1837, his first nickname was Duck Bill because his upper lip protruded so far. Through the years it became Wild Bill. He was murdered on August 2, 1876 when Jack McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head while he was playing poker in the Number 10 Saloon. Hickok was holding black aces and eights.

WILLIAM S. HART

Hickok has been portrayed on screen many times by several different actors. I’m going to discuss three of these actors. The first is William S. Hart, the first actor to play Wild Bill on the big screen. He played the character in a silent film of the same name in 1923.

William Surrey Hart was born in Newbaugh, New York on December 6, 1864. His father, Nicholas was born in England, and his mother Rosanna was in Ireland. Hart had two brothers who died young and four sisters. He spent his teen years in the Dakota’s where he learned to shoot and ride.

He made his acting debut in

1888 with the Daniel E. Bandmann Touring Company. He toured with various companies and finally became director at the showhouse in Asheville, North Carolina. During this time, his youngest sister, Lotta, died of typhoid fever in 1901. Hart had always been attracted to the west. At one time, he even owned Billy the Kid’s sidearms. He was a friend to Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. His first film, His Hour of Manhood, in 1914, led to his first starring role in The Bargain in 1917, which cemented his star status. Hart wanted to make real-

istic westerns. He insisted that the clothing and the props be correct in his pictures. His horse, named Fritz, began receiving fan mail, becoming as much of a star as Hart. Hart married Winifred Westover on December 12, 1921. She was twenty-two, and he was fifty-seven. Six months later, Hart ordered his pregnant wife to leave his home. His sister Mary, who served as his manager, lived in the house with them. When the couple divorced on February 11, 1927, in Reno, Nevada. Winifred testified that Mary stayed in the house with them, her bedroom was right next to theirs and a connecting door was always open between the bedrooms. Earlier in 1923, Winifred filed for divorce. That same year, William Hart was approached by his friend Wyatt Earp, about making a movie with him included as a character. Earp was concerned about the public opinion of him because of the shootout at the OK Corral and his refereeing of the Fitzsimmon versus Sharkey prize fight. Wyatt ruled a

foul which led to accusations that he fixed the fight. Even though Hart’s career was on the wane, he agreed, if Wyatt would be on the film as technical advisor. The picture would be called Wild Bill Hickok.

The movie begins at the end of the Civil War with Wild Bill retiring to Dodge City. He’d hung up

time Wyatt Earp appeared as a character on the movie screen and the only movie made that featured him while he was alive.

Wild Bill Hickock was a disappointment at the box office. The movie going public became more attracted to the characters Tom Mix played on the screen. They

his guns to become a professional gambler. A lawless group of cowboys, led by Jack McQueen, moved into Dodge and ran rampant over everyone and forced Hickok to take up his guns again. He visited with George Custer to retrieve his sword and prepare himself for battle. Hickok enlisted some friends to aid him in ridding Dodge City of the criminal element. Calamity Jane, Bat Masterson, Doc Holiday, Charlie Bassett, Luke Short, Bill Tilghman, and Wyatt Earp pitched in to help their friend. Bert Lindley played Wyatt. This was the first

Stockyards. His mother, Maude Myrtle, helped raise Gordon on a ranch near King City. After high school, he briefly attended Rockhurst college, a Jesuit school in Kansas City. He soon departed for California with dreams of becoming an actor.

He appeared in a silent film

were flashy, with much more action. Hart only made three more pictures and retired from acting in 1928. He moved to his ranch in Newhall, California where he died on June 23, 1946.

WILD BILL ELLIOTT

This next actor played Wild Bill Hickok on the big screen more than any other person. He was born Gordon Nance on October 16, 1904, on a ranch near Pattonsburg, Missouri. His father, Leroy Whitfield Nance, was a commissioned cattle broker for the Kansas City

in 1925, and in 1927, he used the name Gordon Elliott when he made his first western, The Arizona Wildcat. He married Helen Josephine Meyers in February of 1927. His daughter Barbara Helen Nance was born on November 14, 1927.

In 1938, he appeared as the title character in the serial The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which went on to become a hit. In 1940, he played the character again in the film Prairie Schooners, which catapulted him into the top

ten of western actors, where he stayed for the next fifteen years. In the movie, Dub Taylor played his sidekick, Cannonball. Elliott’s final Wild Bill Hickok movie was Prairie Gunsmoke in 1942. Elliott then moved on to the Red Ryder series which also starred Robert Blake as Little Beaver. In total, he made thirteen Wild Bill Hickok movies, counting the serial and sixteen Red Ryder films.

In 1943, he took to calling himself Wild Bill Elliott since the movies he was starring in at the time had the main character of Wild Bill Elliott. He kept the name for the rest of his career and retired to a ranch in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1957. He became a spokesman for Viceroy Cigarettes and had his own show on local TV where he had guests and showed his movies. He divorced Helen in 1961 and married Dolly Moore that same year. Wild Bill died of lung cancer on November 26, 1965. He was sixty-one.

GUY MADISON

The studio received thousands of fan letters about him. The name stuck. At the end of the war, he played Henry Wilson in Till the End of Time in 1946. His acting style was described as wooden. In 1949, he married actress Gail Russell. They divorced in October of 1954. Later in

He was born Robert Ozell Moseley in Pumpkin Center, California, on January 19, 1922. Robert had three brothers, Wayne, Harold, and David, and one sister named Rosemary. Robert attended Bakersfield Jr. College after high school and joined the Coast Guard at the onset of the Second World War.

Robert appeared in his first role while on leave in 1944. He was billed as Guy Madison and appeared for three minutes in the film, Since You Went Away.

’54, he married Sheila Connolly in Juarez, Mexico. They divorced in April 1963. They had three daughters.

His big break came in 1951 when he was offered the role of Wild Bill Hickok in the television show, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok. The series ran from 1951 to 1958 with 112 episodes and was picked up in syndication at first, then with CBS, and finally ABC. Andy Devine played his sidekick Pete “Jingles” Jones. The pair even had a suc-

cessful radio show on the Mutual Radio station that ran from ’51 to ’56. During the run of the TV show, different episodes were combined to make a series of movies. In this way, Monogram Pictures released sixteen Wild Bill Hickok films. He won a Golden Globe award in 1954 for Best Western Star. In 1986, he was awarded a Golden Boot Award for his body of work in the western genre.

After the show ended in ’58, Guy appeared in some guest-starring roles, then went across the ocean to appear in a series of German and Italian productions. He appeared in several spaghetti westerns during the ’60s and ’70s. His last western TV appearance was in the 1988 remake of the movie Red River, with James Arness, Bruce Boxleitner, and Gregory Harrison. His last movie appearance was in the 1989 direct to video release of Crossbow: The Movie.

He retired to his home in Palm Springs, California. He died of emphysema at the age of seventy-four on February 6, 1996.

WILD CARDS

Now for a few wild cards and coincidences. Gary Cooper played Wild Bill in the 1936 film The Plainsman. The movie was later remade in 1966 as a TV movie with Don Murray as Hickok. The plot was basically the same in both movies. Gunrunners were selling repeating rifles to the Cheyenne, and it was up to Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Calamity Jane to

stop them. Both movies also had appearances by George Armstrong Custer. In the ’36 version, James Ellison portrayed Cody and Jean Arthur played Calamity Jane. In the ’66 TV movie, Abby Dalton was Jane and Guy Stockwell played Cody.

A father and son duo also played Hickok. In January 1964, Lloyd Bridges portrayed Wild Bill in the TV anthology series The Great Adventure in the episode “Wild Bill Hickok: The Legend and the Man.” The show also starred Larry J. Blake, Neil Burstyn, William Fawcett, Leo Gordon and was narrated by Van Heflin.

Lloyd’s son, Jeff Bridges, then starred in the 1995 release, Wild Bill. The movie told Hickok’s life story, in several flashbacks from his early days to his murder in Deadwood. David Arquette played Jack McCall and Ellen Barkin played Calamity Jane. Keith Carradine appeared in one of the flashbacks as Buffalo Bill Cody. Diane Ladd, John Hurt, Bruce Dern, James Remar, and Marjoe Gortner rounded out the cast. This was Gortner’s last film.

Baker in makeup. The Giant bear in Grizzly was supposedly mechanical, and so was the white buffalo. The trouble was the mechanical monster only had two moves. A straight-ahead charge on a track and a swishing of the head from side to side.

Wild Bill in five episodes of the HBO western series Deadwood, which told of his arrival and murder in the town. In this series, the town of Deadwood and its inhabitants are the stars, and it doesn’t concentrate on just a single character. The series starred Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, Molly Parker, Brad Dourif, and Powers Booth. Actress Robyn Weigert played Calamity Jane.

Charles Bronson played Wild Bill in the 1977 movie The White Buffalo, based on the novel of the same name by Richard Sale. This was a Dino DeLaurentiis Production and came at a time in cinema when mechanical animals were all the rage. Bruce, the shark in Jaws was mechanical, the giant ape in King Kong was supposed to be mechanical—although most of the scenes were filmed with Rick

The movie took place on Hickok’s journey to Deadwood. He was plagued by nightmares of a white buffalo charging him in the winter. When he found out the animal really did exist, he went in pursuit of the beast. The great thing about this movie was the actors who gueststarred in the production—Clint Walker as a bad guy, Will Sampson as Crazy Horse, and appearances by Stuart Whitman, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Jack Warden, Martin Kove, and Kim Novak. This was Bronson’s last true western. Keith Carradine also played

Bruce Dern had a great sequence in the movie Wild Bill. He was the man in the wheelchair that challenged Hickok to a shootout. He accepted and had two men carry him out into the street tied to a chair. Wild Bill won the shootout. Bruce Dern returned in 2017 in the movie Hickok which billed Luke Helmsworth as the title character with Trace Adkins as Dave Tutt. The movie also starred Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Dern. In the movie, Hickok was tasked with taming the wild cowtown of Abilene, Kansas. In the film, he and Tutt have their famous shootout. In reality, the shootout happened in Springfield, Missouri.

Wild Bill Hickok will live forever in the hearts and minds of anyone who loved the west and the movie westerns.

Terry Alexander and his wife, Phyllis, live on a small farm near Porum, Oklahoma. They have three children, thirteen grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. If you see him at a conference, though, don’t let him convince you to take part in one of his trivia games—he’ll stump you every time.

TRIBAL PASSAGES

Regina McLemore FEATURES WRITER

The Last War Chief

Two Sticks’ fight for survival ends at Deadwood’s gallows

The fact that the Lakota Sioux chief, Cha Nopa Uhah, better known as Two Sticks, lived to reach his 70s was something of a miracle. Born sometime in the 1820s in the Badlands, he experienced the joy of living free on the plains, the despair of fighting for the survival of his tribe, and the deadly consequences of defying the United States government. According to Lakota tradition, he received his name because of his habit of walking with two staves, and he is regarded as a great chief because his vision saved his people.

The story is told that one year the hunters could find nothing to hunt. The Lakota people seemed doomed to starve to death until Two Sticks shared his idea to lead his people northward, through snow and ice, to a place where the buffalo had not been decimated. The people ate well and thrived for a time, thanks to their chief.

But Two Sticks was not always a Peace Chief. Sometimes he donned the garb of the War Chief, as related by author T.D. Griffith in Outlaw Tales of South Dakota. A close friend of Sitting Bull, Two Sticks joined him and Crazy Horse in the slaughter of General Custer and company in 1876. Their victory was short-lived as the

United States retaliated by sending more soldiers to attack Indian villages and forced the Indians to move to reservations. Meanwhile, Native Americans found hope in participating in “Ghost Dances,” in the belief their efforts would bring back the buffalo and their way of life and banish the whites from their lands. Two Sticks was an ardent participant in the Ghost Dance movement.

In an effort to squash what they perceived as a rebellion in December 1890, soldiers shot down hundreds of unarmed Lakota elders, women, children, and warriors at the Wounded Knee Massacre. Two Sticks escaped the tragedy.

He vowed to never go to a reservation, and he and a few companions, including his two sons, First Eagle and Uses a Fight, a nephew, Kills the Two, and three more men, No Waters, Hollow Wood, and Whiteface Horses, roamed throughout South Dakota, stealing cattle and raiding ranches. The Black Hills Daily Times described them as “Uncompapas” in a February 11, 1893 article, a derogatory term that implied they were sneaky. The newspaper went on to say they were “still nomadic and had remained as uncivilized as they were a quarter of a century earlier.”

Cha Nopa Uhah, better known as “Two Sticks,” was an Oglala Lakota chief who was wrongnly accused, convicted, and executed for the murder of four cowboys in 1894.

Earlier in February, Two Sticks and his band targeted the Humphrey Cattle Ranch, located on the White River, a day’s ride from the Pine Ridge Agency. The ranch was especially important to the government, providing meat for the agency. During the same time frame, Two Sticks and his men encountered some Humphrey hands and visitors and killed four of them—R. Royce, John Bennett, sixteen-yearold William Kelly, and thirteenyear-old Charles Bacon. Griffith wrote they completed their vengeful acts by shooting thirty cows and three horses.

Different newspapers related different accounts of what happened at the Humphrey Ranch. On January 6, 1895, the Syracuse-Herald Journal claimed that the act of ghost dancing led to the deaths of the four white men. Some reports say Two Sticks and

his followers, immediately before the killings, engaged in ghost dancing until they were weak, exhausted, and in a delusional state. They then visited the ranch house and asked if they could stay for a while and warm up. Two other visitors, young William Kelly and Charles Bacon, were present, having asked if they could spend the night. As Two Sticks and his men turned to leave, they opened fire, killing the two ranch hands and the two young visitors.

The February 5, 1893, edition of the Los Angeles Times offered two versions of what happened at the ranch. In one, it was reported that drunken cowboys caused the trouble. A number of these cowboys, who were hands at the Humphrey Ranch, mistreated Two Sticks and drove him away by shooting at him. Later that night, Two Sticks returned with his followers and fired

on the cowboy camp, killing three and mortally wounding one.

In the second version, the four men, herders for the ranch, caught Two Sticks and his men killing a steer. They said they were going to report the act to the Indian agent, but the Indians grew angry and threatened them with violence if they did. Several hours later, Two Sticks’ band carried out the threats by killing them in their cabin.

Sometime, during this period of time, word was sent about the raid and the murders to Captain George L. Brown, the Indian agent at Pine Ridge. Brown quickly telegraphed the soldiers at Fort Meade, near present-day Sturgis, and the Eleventh Infantry captain sent six tribal police officers to capture Two Sticks and his followers.

The captain underestimated Two Sticks, and the skirmish ended badly for the police officers. After

A contemporary illustration titled, “The Ghost Dance of the Sioux Indians in North America.”

a short exchange of gunfire, five of the officers were dead, and the sixth was wounded. Two Sticks and his men escaped unharmed.

In retaliation, Brown immediately sent tribal policeman Joe Bush with twenty-five native policemen under his command. They learned that Two Sticks was hiding in the camp of Chief Young Man Afraid of His Horses. While there, he had reportedly said that the killings were the idea of his young followers who said the Great Spirit told them to kill the Whites for exterminating the buffalo and for stealing from the Indians.

Two Sticks and his band refused to surrender to Joe Bush and fired upon him and his men. After the bloody battle was over, First Eagle was mortally wounded, and Two Sticks, Kills the Two, and White Face Horses were seriously wounded. Some of the other Indians present wanted to kill the tribal police, but Young Man Afraid of His Horses stopped them by ordering his followers to surround the tribal officers. He finally convinced all present that harming the officers would lead to all their deaths. Two Sticks and his surviving followers were taken into custody.

Fearing more violence, Captain Brown invited more than fifty chiefs to Pine Ridge on February 6, 1893, to discuss the situation. At the end of the two-hour meeting, most chiefs agreed that Two Sticks was a troublemaker, and they wanted no part in his rebellion.

Due to the severity of their wounds, reservation officials agreed to hold Two Sticks and White Face Horses until they were well enough to travel to Deadwood for trial. The men refused

to allow white doctors to examine them, and their conditions worsened. Whiteface Horses, who was wounded in his lower legs, had one leg amputated but succumbed to gangrene. Two Sticks recovered to face trial.

After standing trial on the charges of instigating and conspiring to commit murder and resisting arrest, Hollow Wood, No Waters, and Kills the Two were sentenced to five years in jail. Hollow Wood and No Waters died in jail, but Kills the Two served out his term.

As the leader, Two Sticks faced a more severe penalty. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

The April 11, 1893, Black Hills Daily Times reported Two Stick’s statement. “My friend and I have not much to say for my part. I had nothing to do with the killing of the white men. My son that was killed by the Indian police was the cause of all of the trouble. I cannot lie, my boy that is dead killed three of the white men and Whiteface Horses killed the other one. My boy (Uses a Fight) that is in jail at Deadwood did not have a gun. He had a bow and arrows. He is only eighteen-years-old and is a coward. My son that is dead had a rifle. Whiteface Horses had a Winchester. The reason we killed them (was) white men did not treat us right. My son said that he wanted to die and be hung.”

Around Christmas in 1894, preparations were made for the execution. Admission tickets had been issued for December 28. The tickets read: “You are invited to attend the legal execution of Cha Nopa Uhah, at Lawrence County Jail, in Deadwood, S.D., December 28, 1894, at 10 o’clock A.M.” The day of the hanging arrived, and by

10:15, two hundred people were crowded into the courtyard where the gallows stood.

That morning Two Sticks had eaten his last meal of grilled steak, bread, and two cups of strong coffee. After he finished, he was told by Father Florentine Digmann and his attorney, W.L. McLaughlin, that President Cleveland had refused to pardon him for his crimes, and only the promise of everlasting life awaited him. When U.S. Marshal Peemiller asked him if there was any reason the sentence should not be carried out, Two Sticks stated his case again. “My heart is not bad. I did not kill the cowboys. The Indian boys killed them. I have killed many Indians, but never killed a white man. I never pulled a gun on a white man… The white men are going to kill me for something I haven’t done… The white men will find out sometime that I am innocent and then they will be sorry they killed me. The Great Father will be sorry too, and he will be ashamed. My people will be ashamed too… My heart knows I am not guilty and I am happy. I am not afraid to die. I was taught that if I raised my hands to God and told a lie that God would kill me that day. I never told a lie in my life.”

Two Sticks grasped the priest’s hands and told him he was a good man. He made similar remarks to his attorney and the marshal.

Next, he sang his death song and reportedly met with his wife, a Chinese woman called China Mary. He told her, “I’m going to die and go to heaven.”

She is said to have replied, “You go to heaven. I’ll go to China.”

Two Sticks grabbed a leather strap from a nearby chair, slipped it around his neck, handed one

Over fifty Native chiefs gathered at the Pine Ridge Reservation on February 6, 1893, to discuss the Two Sticks situation.

end to an Indian in an adjacent cell and jerked violently against it. Eventually he calmed down and listened to Digmann’s command to cease his struggles. Claiming he was only trying to die by the hands of his own people, he quietened.

Marshals tied his hands behind his back, and the walk to the gallows began. He was escorted from the jail to the courtyard where the gallows stood.

Two Sticks was led up the steps to the platform. During his last moments at the gallows, he bowed as a clergyman prayed a short prayer and then he raised his head toward heaven and sang his death song once more. Someone placed a noose around his neck and pulled a black hood over his head. In a few minutes, his body was dangling at the end of a long, strong rope. After surviving seventy-one years of hunts, raids, and many historic changes, Chief Two Sticks of the

Lakota Sioux left a strange, new world behind.

On December 29, 1894, the Black Hills Daily Times described Two Sticks in a headline as “A Good Indian,” a reference to the callous saying, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

His body was placed in a pine box and buried outside the Mt. Moriah Cemetery in an unmarked grave because Deadwood citizens didn’t allow Indians to be buried in their graveyard.

On January 5, 1885, Deadwood’s Black Hills Weekly Times told how Two Sticks distributed his last possession. He sent his blue cloth leggings and a photograph to his wife and gave the red handkerchief he wore around his head to his attorney, W.L. McLaughlin. He gave his white felt hat to Sheriff Reimer and his pipe to the warden of the jail, Alex Bertrand.

Tim Giago in his article, “The

Execution of Lakota Chief Two Sticks”, July 6, 2009, for Native News offers more information. His pipe was later displayed in the Adams Museum in Deadwood until his descendants won their fight to get it returned to his family. On December 9, 1998, the museum repatriated his pipe to his great grandson, Richard Swallow, Sr. and the Oglala Lakota Tribe in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection Act of 1990. They have always believed Two Sticks when he said… “I am not guilty”…, and they believe the United States hanged an innocent man.

Regina McLemore is a Will Rogers Medallion Award-winning author and retired educator of Cherokee heritage. Her great, great grandmother, Susie Christie Clay, survived the Trail of Tears in 1839. Regina’s Young Adult Trilogy, Cherokee Passages, is a fictional retelling of her family’s history from the Trail of Tears down through the modern day.