Western Writers Chat Newsletter October 2005
OCTOBER Vol. 9 No. 10
PART #1
Month of October old time news
RENO BROTHERS ROB THE OHIO-MISSISSIPPI TRAIN
October 6, 1866
In a remote section of Jackson County, Indiana, the Reno brothers, John and Simeon robbed the Ohio-Mississippi train of $13,000. This was thought to be the "first train robbery of the century." Other lawless men soon followed their example.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RUBY'S LUCK
by Frazer Williamson.
Al Spade, a young cowpoke, worked for Davis Burns, rancher. It took a while for him to realize that Ruby Burns, the ranchers wife, was interested in him. She'd picked him, but Al did not know that. He thought that this attractive woman, more his age than her husbands, loved him.
"The time has come," she said one day. "You know what you have to do?" It was half statement, half question.
"Sure," Al said. "We been through it time and again. You want me to go through it again?"
"I guess not. Just go and do what needs to be done." Her full moist lips brushed his own, lightly; an erotic promise of more to come when he had done what had to be done.
He rode off to gain Ruby Burns and the ranch, which would fall to her when her grizzled old man had bit the dust.
* * *
Davis Burns owned the hotel, so there was always a suite of rooms available for the rancher and his wife whenever they stayed in town.
From the Burns' Hotel, Ruby made her way to the Sheriffs office. Rick Clancy, the Sheriff asked Mrs. Burns what he could do for her.
"You look worried," he said.
"I am worried, Sheriff Clancy," Ruby said. "I believe my husbands life is in danger."
"How might that be?"
"My husband went to Fairfax and is probably on his way home now. He is travelling alone and I fear he might be ambushed."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because Ive been a fool."
"Who do you think's going to bushwack him?"
"A young cowhand who thinks Im in love with him. Of course that is just ridiculous. I love only my husband."
The Sheriff wondered why she just didnt come right out and say who was going to bushwack her husband. He gave her a prompt. She ignored it.
"It's really all my fault," Ruby said. "I didn't think he'd be so foolish as to misunderstand my consideration of him. He seemed such an unfortunate young man. The other hands picked on him and played him practical jokes and laughed at him all the time. I just felt sorry for him and spoke with him more out of pity than anything else. He was an orphan, you see. He'd been unhappily raised in one of those terrible orphanages back East. They were so cruel to him there. Let me give you an example of what they did to him in that home when he was six"
"Mrs. Burns," Sheriff Clancy broke in, exasperated. "Just tell me who he is, and where he is now. If Mr. Burns' life is in danger we can't waste any more time."
Ruby Burns looked hurt, then, collected herself.
"You're quite right, Sheriff Clancy. What was I thinking of? His name? Al Spade. Where he is now, I dont know, but I suspect he might be lying in wait for my husband."
"What makes you think that?"
"He came to the hotel, and the things he said to me."
"What things?"
"That he loved me. That I was too young to waste my life on such an old man. That if Davis was dead, he and I could be wed and enjoy everything Davis had because everything would be mine then. It was horrible. I had to put him right. He went away mad swearing that he would kill Davis anyway. That's why Im so frightened. He's not long gone."
"Which trail does Mr. Burns usually take when he comes from Fairfax?"
"The upper."
"Thats the long one."
"He likes the view from up there. He can see everything he owns."
"If my Deputy was here I'd send him to cover the lower trail, but as there's only me, lets hope youre right."
"I'm sure I am."
Sheriff Clancy rode out to save Davis Burns life.
* * *
Ruby returned to the hotel smiling. She reckoned she'd delayed and misguided the Sheriff long enough to give Al Spade time to kill her husband. The Sheriff would go after Spade and maybe kill him but even if he didn't and took him prisoner, it would be her word against Spade's.
Late that evening she heard a key turn in the door to her suite of rooms, and when she looked to see who came through the door she was shocked.
"Hallo, Ruby," her husband said.
Recovering. "Davis, I expected you earlier."
"I was delayed, but Im here now. Why don't you get ready for bed? I'll sit here awhile."
She went into the bedroom wondering what had gone wrong. She threw herself fully clothed on the bed and fell asleep. She awoke next morning to find her husband still sitting where she had left him.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
There was a knock on the door.
"Why dont you answer it?" Davis Burns said.
When she opened the door she got another shock.
"Go away," she said to Al Spade, "He's here."
"Who is it?" called her husband.
"It's me, Mr. Burns, Al Spade."
"Come in, Spade. You're just the man I want to see. Something I need to get straight. Why don't you go down and breakfast, my dear, while I talk to Spade?"
Ruby needing time to think went downstairs and outside in search of air.
Sheriff Clancy rode into town leading two horses with a body draped over each. He stopped when he saw her.
"Awful sorry, Mrs. Burns," he said. "Seems this time your husband took the lower trail and I didnt save his life. Got his murderer, Al Spade, though."
Ruby's legs grew weak and she would have crumpled to the ground had it not been for her husband and Al Spade, one on each side of her.
"Lucky for you, Ruby, my love," they said together. "We'll be here to support you for the rest of your life."
She screamed. Sheriff Clancy thought it was an expression of anguish and loss for her dead husband.
BACK TO THE PAST
by Doug Smith
I don't really believe that chair is dangerous. I'm just going to sit down and watch that movie. Should be interesting. They said push the right button to see the movie. The movie is on and it's so real. That stagecoach is really moving and right behind them Indians chasing them. The shotgun guard is shooting back at the pursuers and one fell from his horse.
I believe I'll push the button on my left and see what happens. Wow, I'm starting to spin and going faster and faster. Now I'm going forward like a bullet. I can't move. I'm pressed hard against the chair. Objects are flying by me so fast I can't tell what they are. I just hit a tremendous burst of speed and I'm traveling into a white light and now multicolor lights. I'm trying to put this thing into reverse but can't find anything to push that will send me the other direction. This must be a dream. Any moment I'll wake up find it was just a nightmare. Oh, Oh, something else is happening. I'm starting to turn end over end and picking up speed again. Now I'm slowing down. I've stopped but where did the chair go?
Lookout, there's that stagecoach coming right at me! Hope I'm seen before they run over me. I'll stand up and wave my arms so maybe he'll see me. Don't know if he's looking. Maybe I'm invisible. No, I guess not. I see he's pulling back hard on the reins.
"Jump in fast young man or you'll be left behind. If you can handle a gun, start using it. We've got to make it to the fort where we'll be safe. Climb on up and sit beside me. Those clothes you're wearing are certainly different. Where you hail from?"
"I'm from Central Point, Oregon. Are you putting on a wild west show?"
"Don't reckon so. Don't know where you've been but this is 1863 and those Indians are real and intend to take our scalps."
"How can it possibly be 1863? This is the year 2005.
"Well young man, appears to me you've been out in the desert too long. When we get to the fort, we'll have the army doc take a look at you."
"There is nothing wrong with me. You see I was sitting in this chair, I pushed a button and here I am. I've got to find away to get back to where I come from."
"We get to the fort, you rest up some and maybe you'll remember how come you happened to be out there in the desert. I'd get out of those crazy looking duds if I were you. I see the post coming up and the Calvary's riding out after the Indians. I'll tie my team to the hitching post over yonder an' then we'll go see the doc."
"I tell you there is nothing wrong with me but I'll see him anyway. Maybe he'll believe me and can help me."
Arriving at the doc's office they knocked and the orderly ushered them into the doc's.
"What can I do for you men?"
"I've got a young man that has been out in the desert too long. I reckon he's suffering from the heat. He says he's from the year 2005. My guess, too much sun, captain."
"I am from the future doc. that's why my clothes are different. I was in this chair and pushed a button and here I am."
"A little rest an' you'll be just fine. Maybe you're a deserter. We better talk to the captain. Here he comes now."
"What do we have here doc?"
"This young man must be having a heat stroke. Says he's from the year 2005. Could be he's a deserter an' makin' up this wild tale just to get out of going in the army."
"I'm not making it up, Captain. I am from the year 2005."
"Sorry, can't believe a wild tale like that. The Union Army needs men. Put him in the guardhouse corporal until tomorrow when he will be taken east with that other bunch that is trying to get out of fighting.
Doug Smith
"Wrong side of the Law" ISBN 1-4137-6141-0
"Texas US Marshal" 2nd book
dasmith@ccountry.com
http://dasmith8.tripod.com
http://authorsden.com/douglasasmith
.
FROM AFRICA TO THE AMERICAN WEST
by Allen L. Lee
Halloween Special
This year I wanted to do as I did last year and find a unique story of
African Americans in the West and ghost legends for the Halloween season. I
think I found a few and though some aren't scary, they are interesting tales
of ghost towns and times gone by. I'll start with the easy stuff first and
get to the scarier stuff later.
The first story is of a ghost town in Nevada called Henry. Henry began as
a railroad water and depot station in the 1920's. The town was named for a
Black cattle foreman named Henry Harris who came from Texas to Nevada and earned respect as a knowledgeable cattleman. Henry Harris used the depot that was named after him to ship cattle for the Sparks-Harrell cattle
empire. The town folded before the railroad that served it, the Oregon Short
Line, pulled up its tracks in 1978. If ever a ghost cowboy had cause to
hang around a ghost town watching the ghost cowpokes load ghost cattle on a ghost train, then Henry Harris would be that cowboy. Can you hear that train a comin'?
My second story is going to cover two ghost towns, actually one is a town
and the other is a section of a town. The reason I include two- in -one is
because of the similar incidents of unsung race relations between African
-American western pioneers and European immigrants in the 1800s. The first
town is Buxton, Iowa, settled by Blacks in the early 1880s. Buxton was a
coal-mining town that recruited Black miners from Virginia after White
miners struck a nearby mining operation for higher wages. With an estimated population of 6000, 5500 of the population claimed African ancestry. What was interesting was the make-up of the minority population, mostly Swedish and some Scottish people. They lived in a Black labor town that also had Black lawyers, doctors, teachers and judges. Part two of this segment brings us to a section of town called Calvert in Texas began around 1875 as the planned seat of Robertson county. It had a German section of town called 'The Garten Rhien, and along with bowling lanes and card tables they had for entertainment their own Negro band. The town itself still exists but no one seems to know exactly where the park was located. I like to point out whenever I can that race relations in the American West were dramatically different after the Civil War not because of the laws, which continued in racist perpetuation through the states, but because new European immigrants to the West had a different view about race relations than Colonial Europeans did. Calvert also claims a Calvert Ghost Railroad which was once the Calvert, Waco, & Brazos Valley Railroad, so I wonder if ghost cowboy Henry Harris ever takes a ride back to his home state of Texas to hear the Negro ghost band at the Calvert "Garten Rhien Park."
My final scary story is about a fort in Oklahoma called Fort Washita and a
ghost known as Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane has several different versions but one
version claims Aunt Jane as a free Negro woman who had come to the Fort
after it was taken over by Confederate troops to spy on them. It was said
at the fort she was executed for spying by beheading and her body was buried separate from her head. The two other version of the story are of White women who also suffer the same fate of losing their heads by homicide, one is based on a love triangle and the other based on a robbery and murder done by bandits. Because history points to the common habit of calling African-American women and men Aunt or Uncle instead of a Mr. or Mrs., I tend to lean toward the African-American version of the story. On a few occasions private tenants attempted to live at the fort but were "haunted" from the place before it was purchased by the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1962. Today, Civil War re-enactors as well as ghost hunters fill the tourists rolls of Fort Washita and some report eerie shadows of a woman. They say it is Aunt Jane looking for her head or hidden treasure especially during the full moons of March and October. Sounds like an opportunity for Tim Burton to write an adaptation to Rodgers and Hammerstien's, "Oklahoma." Aunt Eller would most likely be swapped for Aunt Jane.
Maybe the old ghosts get a charge from re-enactors who are pretending to be people that that they once knew and decide to show up for the parties, I don't know, but I won't be visiting any ghost towns or ghost forts in the West this Halloween.
Thanks for reading,
Allen L. Lee
NIPPER'S GRAMMAR NITS
by Pat Decker Nipper
Over use of the Word GOT
The word is a catch-all for lazy writers, while so many better words can be substituted for it. The first paragraph below shows how easy it is to fall into the rut of using the word with the paragraph below it rewritten to show improvement.
I got ready for my bowling night. I got my bowling bag, got my coat, then got into the car. After I got to the bowling alley, I got a beer and got in line to bowl.
I prepared for my bowling night. I retrieved my bowling bag, put on my coat, then climbed into the car. After I arrived at the bowling alley, I bought a beer and lined up to bowl.
AN INNOCENT AID TO A CRIME
by Ruth Silnes
In the early 1860's, in Visalia, California, my father Leon Goldstein got his first job as a delivery boy for Sweet's Department Store. Mrs. Sontag called the store and ordered a ten-cent spool of thread. She lived far from town on a farm. Not much of an order but she was a good customer. Leon was sent to deliver it in the store's horse drawn wagon. He liked going there, Mrs. Sontag was very nice, but her son was a known troublemaker.
The first day after Leon had been promoted to clerk. Mrs. Sontags son came into the store to buy a yard of red cloth. Leon measured out a yard of the red cloth, assuming Sontag was buying it for his mother. He put the charge on her account, wrapped it and gave it to him. The next day the local newspaper headlines were about the Great Train Robbery by Sontag and Evans. The robbers had flagged the train to a stop with a red cloth and the train robbers got away. That was one of many trains Sontag and Evans robbed and they became folk heroes.
Find about Sontag & Evans at: _http://www.eshomvalley.com/sontag_evans.html_ (http://www.eshomvalley.com/sontag_evans.html)
KEEPING AHEAD of WINTER:
4100 Nautical Miles Inside America
by Ruth Silnes
_www.ruthsilnes.com_ (http://www.ruthsilnes.com)
650-342-4846
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference
between lightning and a lightning bug..
Mark Twain
GHOST WALK IN TOMBSTONE
by Margaret Bzovy
Think there aren't any ghosts? Take a walk in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona at midnight and the ghosts will come out and walk with you. Who might these ghosts be? Maybe Curly Bill, Johnny Ringo, or Billy Claiborne? None of the ghosts will reveal who they are, but they walk the streets around midnight, following you wherever you go.
On November 16, 2003, while visiting Tombstone along with numerous members of the Old West Clanton Historical Society, the twenty or more members began their annual midnight walk outside of the Birdcage Theater on the corner of Allen and Sixth Street. Their cameras were ready for action to capture weird ghostly lights in actual foggy forms on film or on digital cameras. Aimed into dark windows at most established old time Tombstone business buildings many members were surprised at camera results and obtained ghost light orbs that could not be seen by the eye and definitely were not reflected bounce lights.
One of the members was surprised when taking a shot through the Birdcage theater window with their digital camera to see ghostly figures invaded the camera frame. Revealed on the camera were figures outlined in a white-blue tint posed in their Shakespearean costumes. These figures were interesting if not unreal when printed out on photo paper the next day. Strange how the camera could capture these figures, yet the human eye could not detect them.
More than strange was the feeling one gets while walking along the darkened streets. Old houses and buildings in shadowed outlines become larger than they actually are and add to the chilly, apprehensive sensation. Trees and shrubs transposed into strange forms. We clutched coat collars tight against our throats to ward off the cold air and walked along the blacktop streets with the noise of pebble rocks scraping under our shoes. We followed after the other members with nervous eyes fastened on the various dull, yellowed street lights that allowed us to know where we were headed.
Then, a dark figure of a man dressed in a black western outfit wearing a wide rimmed cowboy hat, ran through the streets and passed our walking group. We could not hear his running feet, there wasn't any sound. Some saw him and others didn't. He disappeared into the darkness of the night and no one, who saw him, knew where he went. He was also seen going in and out of different buildings. He didn't need to unlock a door and walk into a place, he just slipped into the building without opening the door. He materialized again outside and accompanied our group as we moved along. Who was he? We couldn't really tell. Maybe one of the cowboys from the Clanton gang entertaining his 21 st. century relatives? Or could this have been Doc Holiday, maybe one of the Earp brothers? He seemed cordial and young spirited as he mingled with our group to show us around town.
If you want an experience with ghosts, go to Tombstone at midnight and walk any street. "They" will cordially catch up to you. Don't be afraid, "they" appear to be friendly
Watch out for spooks in your neighborhood . . .
they might be in the flesh real children.
Your ghostie hosties,
Marge, Sandy, Kim
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