You call it a novel because there's a story you want to tell, an angle you want to reach thinking - hoping - the way you've put it down will reflect the illumination you're trying to achieve without corrupting the shine of the history you've set it in. But sometimes you miss things, sometimes things get by you.
So, after all the edits are made, the presses roll, the bookseller shelves are stocked (virtually or otherwise), you come across a little something you wish you'd been able to include. Such is the case with my book, Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr.
My friend and Oklahoma historian, Dr. Bill Woodard, came across a little piece concerning Henry Starr. It literally fell into his lap. Bill was doing some research on Western artist Joe De Yong - who grew up in Oklahoma and was a protege of Charles M. Russell - about whom he was to give a talk at the Bartlesville (Oklahoma) History Museum.
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Bill Woodard |
In the
early days, well before statehood, when there were only four or five businesses
here, no streets or sidewalks, no rural
highways and no banks, the business men would take their money to Caney,
Kansas to bank [a distance of about 20 miles].
The story
goes that one time Keeler had assembled some cash and was beginning
to feel quite nervous. In those days this locality was the headquarters for
a lot of bandits, among them the famous Henry Starr.
Keeler
decided that he would saddle up and take off for Caney with the bank roll, for
it began to look like that was the less desperate chance to take. As Keeler
would tell it, he started up the trail toward Caney, hoping he would be
lucky and not meet up with some of the bad boys and get relieved of the cash.
He had
traveled about a fourth of the distance when he saw a man on horseback coming
down the trail toward him, only a short distance away.
“When I
got a little closer,” Keeler would relate, “I saw that it was the one whom I
most feared to meet – Henry Starr himself.
“It was
too late to run, for Starr always had one of the fastest mounts in the country,
and he would be sure to overhaul me and take my money.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhIqwMKo7dHLCxONeuKQrBWbk8LnAKhPnqhyUHFAQQGPxNZp3nOoWH5T6RMjVL6-toGGeRKAoCptMW2hJ51famyeEI0Q2G8bFgIVnGAq-h2fIO-7pIPUnB7zIOE3hH5i7mdty81rPnG3P/s200/Debtor+to+the+Law+2.jpg)
“And, do
you know, Starr took me up on the proposition and rode guard over me all the
way to Caney. And I got every cent of the money in the bank."
I wish I could've used this story in my novel because it perfectly illustrates the picture I wanted to paint of Henry Starr - he was certainly a thief and an outlaw, but he was surely no scoundrel.
Please check out my other novels:
GAME
Legends of Tsalagee
3 comments:
Great story. And fast thinking, for sure. Thanks.
Outlaws of yesteryear had their own code of ethics,would only shoot in self defense. Thieves of today would rather shoot you than make a clean getaway. They actually enjoy the killing part.
People are as trustworthy as you want them to be--sometimes.
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