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Thunder Over the Prairie:

The Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the

Greatest Posse of All Time.

A crowd of Texas trail hands watched the prairie hurry past them as they pressed their rides into a full gallop. A whistle from a train racing in the opposite direction issued a long blast that floated over miles of grassy fields. Dr. Henry Hoyt, part-time cowboy and physician for the King Ranch, was out in front of the riders, an unlit cigar was clamped tightly between his jaws. Like the others on horseback beside him, he was dressed in rough clothing of the cattle trail. His tall hat was pushed back from his sunburned face. When he and his cohorts left Dodge City, they had in mind to intercept the posse pursuing James Kenedy and give the wealthy cattleman a chance to get out of the territory safely. Shortly after they started on their way, it was decided they should return to the ranch in southern Texas and inform James’s father about the incident involving his son.

The King Ranch, located between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, sprawled across six Texas counties. Hundreds of hands worked the more than twelve hundred and eighty mile spread. Dr. Hoyt suspected when Mifflin Kenedy learned about the trouble James was in, that he would dispatch a legion of dutiful men, indignant over the harsh treatment of a fellow Texan. Hundreds of discontented cowboys who believed their occasional, illegal actions deserved a free pass because of the hundreds of dollars they spent in Dodge, would go to great lengths to champion one another. Dr. Hoyt knew this and knew that Captain Kenedy was aware of it as well. Mifflin’s organized efforts on behalf of his son would be more effective than 25 or 30 rogue hands acting independently. It was with that thought in mind that Dr. Hoyt and friends headed off in the direction of the Chisholm Trail towards home.

A cold wind hissed through the cracks of the walls and doors of a sprawling, dilapidated mud and wood store near a place called Mulberry Crossing, 27 miles south of Dodge City. With the exception of an inebriated trail hand, the dusty stretch in front of the business was deserted and still. A weathered sign over the entrance read, A.H. Dugan, owner. Dugan, a heavy man who had sagging jowls and thinning black hair combed across his sweaty scalp, ran the stage stop which was a combination mercantile and saloon. He was wiping a mop rag over a rugged wood table when Bat Masterson and Bill Tilghman entered. Three riders with the look of seasoned cattlemen and the sound of Texas in their voices, were seated in the back of the room and looked up from their poker game at the police officers. The tension in the air seemed almost visible.

The cowboys continued on with their game as Bat and Bill meandered over to the bar. “It’s two bits for a bucket of water for your horses,” Dugan said, blowing the dust off a can of peaches and putting them back on the shelf. “We’re looking for someone who might have come by here,” Bat stated. “It’s still two bits,” Dugan replied unimpressed. The lawmen politely explained who they were looking for and described James Kenedy. Dugan told them no one that looked like Kenedy had been through. “And I would know,” he added. “I know every teamster, trail hand, and stage driver that passes by.”

Bat turned his attention to the men playing cards. The cowboys were too engrossed with their hands to care. Dugan told the officers that the ranchers were part of a nearby spread that had come in to load up on provisions and decided to stay for a game and a bottle. Satisfied with the response, Bat and Bill turned to leave. “What did this fellow do?” Dugan asked before the men reached the door. Bill told him that he’d shot a woman in Dodge. “She was a singer,” he elaborated. “Her name was Dora Hand.”

Dugan’s expression fell. He removed a bottle of cheap liquor from under the counter and poured himself a drink. “Damn shame,” he said sadly as he lifted the glass to his lips. “My sister dragged me to the Union church some months back,” Dugan confessed. “Miss Hand sang a solo. Prettiest thing I ever did hear.” The gruff businessman hummed a bit of the hymn he was recalling before asking Bill if he had known Dora. “Yes,” Bill kindly answered, “I knew her.” Before exiting the building, Bat warned Dugan and his patrons not to say anything about their passing through. “When you find the murderer, I hope you kill him,” Dugan snapped. “It may come to that,” Bat promised.

Wyatt and Charlie, who had been surveying the area around the primitive store, hopped aboard their horses at the same time Bat and Bill mounted up. Charlie let them know they hadn’t had any luck finding Kenedy’s tracks. “I think we need to get a wire to the Sheriff of Cheyenne,” Bat said adjusting himself in the saddle. “We’ve been through this, Bat,” Charlie announced. “Kenedy’s talk about Wyoming is a blind,” Bill added looking over the landscape. “He followed the Arkansas River way west and is going to cut across the Texas Trail and rejoin the Jones and Plummer Trail to get to the shallowest spot on the Cimmaron.” Bat resisted arguing with them further and led the riders back onto the wide-open plains. “Kenedy’s caught in his own loop,” Charlie interjected. “That’s about all there is of him. He doesn’t have none of his old Daddy, that’s why he’ll run home to him.”

Bill brought up the rear of the posse, his mind on the pursuit, the lateness of the day, and Dora Hand. “Half the population (of Dodge) were gamblers or prostitutes…,” Bill wrote to his wife Zoe, in 1877. “The prostitutes were painted up like a present day respectable woman, and looked mighty pretty in their satins and laces.” Dora was among those “painted ladies” he found appealing drifting across the stage in her stylish fineries. There were some Dodge City residents who suggested she was a soiled dove, but female entertainers west of Independence, Missouri were often viewed as harlots by the general population.

To learn more about the death of Dora Hand and the posse that tracked her killer read Thunder Over the Prairie.

Enter now to win a copy of

Thunder Over the Prairie:

The Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the

Greatest Posse of All Time.

Four horsemen thundered out of Dodge City and quickly rode onto the open range. The land before them rolled for miles under a limitless sky. Wyatt Earp and Bill Tilghman held tight to their swift mounts, lagging a few feet behind Bat Masterson and Charlie Bassett. Charlie’s roan led the way. He sat forward in his saddle like a mad dog straining against a leash, his eyes fixed on the terrain ahead.

At 31 years of age, Charlie Bassett was the oldest among the riders. He had also traveled with more posses than the other men in his five-year law enforcement career in Ford County. He became the county’s first Sheriff when he was 26 years old and on June 5, 1873 he began the first of three terms in office. He had tracked vigilantes, jewel thieves, and cattle rustlers across Kansas’s mostly flat surface, and brought many felons to justice. Bill Tilghman claimed Bassett’s “boyish face belied the steel beneath” and described him as a “steady, level-headed officer who seldom displayed any kind of alarm no matter the crisis.”

Whatever Charlie felt about Dora Hand’s murder was evident in the way he sat his horse. His legs gripped the back of the animal firmly and he had the reigns threaded resolutely through his gloved hands with sufficient lead left over to spank the sides of the ride to make the horse go faster. His attentive gaze shifted from the horizon to the trail directly in front of him. He was driven. Charlie liked Dora. He thought she was, as Stuart Lake, the author of the Wyatt Earp biography Frontier Marshal wrote, “the most gracious, beautiful woman to reach Dodge in the heyday of its iniquity.”

Charlie had a fine appreciation for Dora’s talent as well. She had worked for him on occasion singing at the Long Branch Saloon, an establishment he opened shortly after he arrived in Dodge. The Long Branch, named after a celebrated sporting resort on the Atlantic seaboard, was the largest and most profitable in the region. As an east coast native himself, Charlie was familiar with the popular tavern. One critic called the Dodge City saloon “artistically functional. It offered a little of everything: a lengthy bar, gaming tables, music, entertainment, and dancing. On busy nights the swinging doors were kept open to expedite the traffic.” The doors were kept open every time Dora played the Long Branch.

Charlie’s second job as saloon owner wasn’t uncommon at the time. The risks associated with upholding the law were great and the rewards, especially the pay, were minimal. Charlie’s salary was $100 a month. Men like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson took on work defending the law in between gambling and mining projects. It was a solitary occupation for very few.

To learn more about the death of Dora Hand and the posse that tracked her killer read Thunder Over the Prairie.

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Thunder Over the Prairie:

The Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the

Greatest Posse of All Time.

Dora Hand

A steady beat of boots hurrying along the wooden plank sidewalks reverberated off the buildings and overhangs lining Dodge City’s Front Street. Curious onlookers peered out of the saloons and bathhouses as two familiar characters sprinted past. Lawmen Wyatt Earp and Jim Masterson, Bat Masterson’s younger brother, raced in the direction of town where a series of gunshots had popped five minutes earlier.

Both men wore the stern, focused look of peace officers accustomed to living in a dangerous unpredictable cow town. Each had a commanding presence that warded off as many as it attracted. Each wore a badge on their vest. Wyatt was an impressive man with blonde hair, a well-groomed mustache, and blue-grey eyes. His slender frame and erect posture made him appear taller than the six feet he stood. Jim was roughly the same height with dark hair and a thick mustache that covered a stubborn line on his thin mouth.

As the men neared the back entrance of the Great Western Hotel, they scanned the area carefully, their hands perched over their pistols, ready to draw if necessary. Fannie Garrettson was crouching near the back door of Mayor James Kelley’s home, sobbing. She saw the two men fast approaching as she backhanded a torrent of tears off her face.

As Earp and Masterson arrived, her plaintive eyes met theirs and before anyone could speak, she pointed a shaking finger at the house behind her. The men quickly noticed a bullet had splintered the door of the home. They entered Mayor Kelley’s place, lifting their six-shooters out of their holsters in the process. A fast inspection of the various rooms of the house led the lawmen to the spot where Dora Hand lay dead.

The two men made their way back outside. They were rattled by the singer’s blood soaked remains, but fixed on the job at hand. “Looks like four shots were fired,” Jim offered after a few moments silence, “maybe more.” Wyatt bent down next to Fannie and waited for her to gather her composure. “She was sleeping in the Mayor’s bed,” she said stammering. “He’s been sick for two or three weeks and last Monday he was obliged to go to the hospital at the post, Fort Dodge.”

The lawmen asked if she had seen the shooter. The grief stricken woman shook her head. Unable to continue holding back the flood of tears that insisted on coming, Fannie broke into more hysterical sobs. The officers waited for the wave of emotion to subside. “What a horrible death,” she cried. “To go to bed well and hearty and not dream of anything and be cut down in such a manner, without a chance to breathe a word.”

Sympathetic friends of the slain entertainer and of Fannie Garrettson were sent for at the same time the acting coroner; Judge Refus G. Cook. The distraught singer was escorted to a hotel, and the coroner was delivered to the deceased.

The mood inside Mayor Kelley’s home was heavy and foreboding. Wyatt and Jim, who had now been joined by Sheriff Bat Masterson, looked on as the Judge lifted Dora’s arm to inspect the spot where the bullet had entered her body. The Judge was a man of medium build with ice-blue eyes that reflected his mighty prowess and serious tone. He handled her still form with gentleness ordinarily reserved for the living. “Coward,” he said under his breath. Bat, a stout, compact man with broad shoulders, dark hair and heavy eyebrows and a mustache, turned away from the scene and headed into the sitting room, disgusted.

To learn more about the death of Dora Hand and the posse that tracked her killer read Thunder Over the Prairie.

Enter to win a copy of

Thunder Over the Prairie:

The Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the

Greatest Posse of All Time.

Dora Hand was in a deep sleep. Her bare legs were draped across the thick blankets covering her delicate form and a mass of long, auburn hair stretched over the pillow under her head and dangled off the top of a flimsy mattress. Her breathing was slow and effortless. A framed, graphite- charcoal portrait of an elderly couple hung above her bed on faded, satin-ribbon wallpaper and kept company with her slumber.

The air outside the window next to the picture was still and cold. The distant sound of voices, back-slapping laughter, profanity, and a piano’s tinny, repetitious melody wafted down Dodge City, Kansas’s main thoroughfare and snuck into the small room where Dora was laying.

Dodge was an all night town. Walkers and loungers kept the streets and saloons busy. Residents learned to sleep through the giggling, growling, and gunplay of the cowboy consumers and their paramours for hire. Dora was accustomed to the nightly frivolity and clatter. Her dreams were seldom disturbed by the commotion.

All at once the hard thud of a pair of bullets charging through the wall of the tiny room cut through the routine noises of the cattle town with an uneven, gusty violence. The first bullet was halted by the dense plaster partition leading into the bed chambers. The second struck Dora on the right side under her arm. There was no time for her to object to the injury, no moment for her to cry out or recoil in pain. The slug killed her instantly.

In the near distance a horse squealed and its galloping hooves echoed off the dusty street and faded away.

A pool of blood pored out of Dora’s fatal wound, transforming the white sheets she rested on to crimson. A clock sitting on a nightstand next to the lifeless body ticked on steadily and mercilessly. It was 4:30 in the morning on October 4, 1878, and for the moment, nothing but the persistent moonlight filtering into the scene through a closed window recognized the 34 year-old woman’s passing.

Twenty-four hours prior to Dora being gunned down in her sleep she had been on stage at the Alhambra Saloon and Gambling House. She was a stunning woman whose wholesome voice and exquisite features had charmed audiences from Abilene to Austin. She regaled love starved wranglers and rough riders at stage and railroad stops with her heartfelt rendition of the popular ballads Blessed Be the Ties That Bind and Because I Love You So.

Adoring fans referred to her as the “nightingale of the frontier” and admirers competed for her attention on a continual basis. More times than not pistols were used to settle arguments about who would be escorting Dora back to her place at the end of the evening. Local newspapers claimed her talent and beauty “caused more gunfights than any other woman in all the West.”

The gifted entertainer was born Isadore Addie May on August 23, 1844 in Lowell, Massachusetts. At an early age she showed signs of being a more than capable vocalist, prompting her parents to enroll her at the Boston Conservatory of Music. Impressed with her ability, instructors at the school helped the young ingénue complete her education at an academy in Germany. From there she made her stage debut as a member of a company of operatic singers touring Europe.

After a brief time abroad, Dora returned to America. By the age of twenty-four she had developed a fondness for the vagabond lifestyle of an entertainer and was not satisfied being at any one location for very long. The need for musical acts beyond the Mississippi River urged her west and appreciative show goers enticed her to remain there.

To learn more about the most intrepid posse of the Old West read Thunder Over the Prairie: The Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the Greatest Posse of All Time.

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West by best selling author Chris Enss is among more than two dozen books recognized by Western Writers of America as a finalist for the 2017 Spur Award. Entertaining Women is a finalist in the category of Juvenile Nonfiction.

Spur Awards are literary prizes awarded annually by the Western Writers of America. The purpose of the Spur Awards is to honor writers for distinguished writing about the American West.

Enss’s book Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West tells the stories of the most popular female entertainers of the mid- and late 1800s who performed in boomtowns across the frontier. Entertaining Women will be honored at Western Writers of America’s upcoming convention in Kansas City, Missouri, June 21-24.

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West is available through National Book Network (1-800-462-6420) and wherever fine books are sold.

Congratulations to Roger Southard, Guy Brunt, Janice Ashton, and Krista Soukup.  They are the winners of the book The Death Row All Stars.

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