Journal Notes

There have been many frauds perpetrated on face book. Not too long ago, a friend of mine in Texas had a video posted to her site and a message under the video that read, “Chris, what are you doing in this video?” If you clicked on the video, you were quickly led to a site where someone tried to sell you life insurance. My friend from Texas didn’t think anything of it at first because the initial posting was in keeping with her interests. I’m sure she received all kinds of irritated response for reasons she could not immediately understand. I had something similar to that happen yesterday. The post hacked into my site brought up no initial flares because it was a posting in keeping with my interest anyway. Anyone who has read the face book posting about supporting my brother Rick would have known that. At first, I was devastated by the response I received from an angry, self-righteous individual. I took a long look at the article associated with the post and decided it was wrongly placed on the face book page – it really belongs on this site. It is an amazing news story. Since I deleted the post on face book I can’t remember the address for the link, but the story itself was fascinating. “A young mother who falsely cried rape, sending an innocent man to prison for nearly four years, will experience firsthand what he suffered — she’ll spend one to three years behind bars for perjury. “I wish her the best of luck,” said William McCaffrey last night of Biurny Peguero Gonzalez. “Jail isn’t easy.” McCaffrey, 33, of The Bronx, was locked up after Gonzalez accused him of raping her at knifepoint on a Bronx street back in 2005. It was a lie she repeated to doctors, cops, prosecutors, a grand jury and the jury that convicted McCaffrey. Steven Hirsch THE PRICE OF DECEIT: Biurny Peguero Gonzalez gets slapped into cuffs yesterday in Manhattan court for concocting a “rape” that ruined a man’s life — all to cover herself for ditching her girlfriends. “What happened in this case is one of the worst things that can possibly happen in our criminal-justice system,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said as he pronounced sentence. McCaffrey said he has some sympathy for Gonzalez and hopes she “doesn’t go through what I went though. “I was an accused rapist in prison,” he said, adding that in prison, “rape is the worst crime possible.” All is clearly not forgiven. A person who would “lie and paint somebody as a rapist is worse than a real rapist or a real murderer,” McCaffrey said. He also blamed “the arresting officers, the prosecution.” Everyone, he said, “wanted to believe the lie, the ADA [assistant district attorney] first and foremost.” Judge Solomon said, “It’s hard to imagine why anyone could have done this.” It turned out Gonzalez robbed McCaffrey of four years of his life for the most trivial of reasons. She’d been hanging out with a group of girlfriends when she accepted an invitation to get into his car. After she returned, her pals were furious that she’d ditched them — so she made up the rape story to gain their sympathy. She will be eligible for parole in a year — after serving a one-quarter of the time her victim was imprisoned. Gonzalez was taken away after making a tearful apology to McCaffrey, who was not in court. She also begged for mercy on behalf of her two sons, ages 3 months and 7 years. “To Mr. McCaffrey, I am aware that nothing I do or say to him can bring back the years he spent in jail,” she said. “I want him to know I will carry this guilt for the rest of my life.” Given everything that’s gone on with my brother, I can see why this article would not raise any initial flags with me. I am sorry for anyone who might have been bothered by insurance sales representatives and then thought to email me to tell me “They were through trying to have a relationship with me.” Maybe what bothered them had nothing to do with the insurance angle at all. Either way, what is done is done. From what understand that’s the mantra of the person who emailed me anyway.

The “coming soon” section of this website contains the new cover for the Elizabeth Custer book along with a description of the soon-to-be released tome. The launch party for the book will be held on May 20 & 21 in Dodge City, Kansas. I am very much looking forward to returning to the area. Dodge City was listed as one of the top ten Wild West towns to visit by True West Magazine and I can tell you from personal experience it’s well worth the trip. There are many people in Dodge who help to preserve the history of the town, but no one does it better there than Brent Harris. Brent maintains historic Front Street and is the face you see in all the advertisements and billboards touting the benefits of the famous place. Hope all who read this can be at the event in May. I’ll post more details about the book and the celebration in weeks to come. And speaking of Dodge City, on this day in 1880, Mysterious Dave Mather killed Joe Castello in a street brawl in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Mather was a constable in New Mexico and had been a lawmen in Dodge City. He was a frequent associate of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. The date and circumstances of Mather’s death are not known with any certain facts. However, the most plausible account is that he was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, in 1886 and left on the tracks of a railroad. The body found matched his description, and the bondsman holding a $3,000 bond on him was released of the obligation that same year on the pretense that the client had died.  Not a great deal is known of Mather’s life. The gaps in his life and his taciturn manner may have been what earned him the sobriquet “Mysterious Dave”.

For several months, I’ve been working on a sequel to the book Outlaw Tales of California. The research I have done has led me to realize that one of the strongest human emotions is vengeance – a feeling I can all too well identify. In many instances, wanting to get back at the bad guys is what turned an ordinary western citizen into an outlaw. For example, a friend of Billy the Kid’s named George Coe swore vengeance against Sheriff Brady of Lincoln County, New Mexico, for cruel treatment at the time of his arrest upon a charge of which he was innocent. Sheriff Brady was a Murphy partisan in the Murphy-McSween feud and had just cooked up some excuse to jail Coe, who he knew was sympathetic with McSween. About this incident, Coe wrote in his memoirs, Frontier Fighter: “I groaned in agony at the thought. They took horse hobble and tied my feet together under the horse’s belly (a common method of preventing escape). At the same time, they bound Scurlock’s feet in the same manner. Then, with bed-cord, they tied my hands together after circling my arms about Scurlock’s waist. Talk about suffering! That was the most horrible three hours that anyone ever had to endure. I know, for I’ve been shot twice, had my leg broken in two places, and could say more, but that’s enough. A slow, drizzling rain had begun to fall, making the night more hideous. The cords on my wrists tightened up as they wet through, adding to my misery-if that were possible. That ride was hell!” Coe swore to get revenge upon Sheriff Brady and his cohorts because of this treatment if it was the last thing he did. This ride was the chief thing that induced Coe actually to join up with Billy the Kid and fight the Murphy-Riley-Dolan faction of the Lincoln County War. I don’t think Coe was right in killing anyone, but the desire to want to get back at someone for the bad they’ve done is overwhelming. Everyday I deal with the situation someone else created. I see my brother handcuffed and shackled and think about the people who lied to bring about this heartache. I don’t know how someone sleeps at night knowing they manufactured evidence to frame an innocent man. Like Coe, I’m fighting back against such horrors, but it’s being done legally and I won’t stop until at least one of the bad guys goes to jail. I’ve waited a long time for this. I’ve seen many bad things dealing with the prison system and I have become vengeful. As Coe wrote, “That ride was hell.”

Latin author Valerius Maximus once said, “The divine wrath is slow indeed in vengeance, but it makes up for its tardiness by the severity of the punishment” I’ve been waiting a long time…for not so much vengeance, but for my brother to be avenged. I suppose the two go hand in hand. He’s been sick for more than two years and I’ve prayed that he would go peacefully, but he’s still here. It breaks my heart everyday to know of his suffering. I guess it breaks the heart of the folks using the HCA Midwest Division computer system too. They spent a lot of time on my site last night reading the daily journal about him. Oh, how I want the bad people in this scenario to finally be exposed and get what they’ve been giving. I don’t know how Wyatt Earp hung in there so long. I’m fascinated with the year long vendetta ride he took. After the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October, 1881, and Morgan Earp’s murder on March 18, 1882, in a Tombstone, Arizona pool hall, Wyatt and Warren Earp, along with Doc Holliday, “Turkey Creek” Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters escorted the Earp family out of Tombstone to Tucson, Arizona on March 20th. There, Wyatt spied Frank Stillwell, who he suspected of having been involved in the killing of Morgan and heard, was now seeking revenge on Virgil. The next morning a very dead, bullet-ridden Frank Stillwell was found on the tracks next to the depot. This was the first death in what would become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. The entire Earp party, including Mattie, (Wyatt’s live-in girlfriend) accompanied Morgan’s body. However, in Tucson, Wyatt, Warren and Doc Holliday hopped off the train in search of Frank Stillwell, who supposedly worked in the railroad yards. The train went on to California without them. Spotting Stillwell, Wyatt chased him down the track, filling him full of bullet holes. A Coroner’s Jury named Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and two other men named “Texas Jack” Johnson and Sherman McMasters, as those men who had killed Stillwell and warrants were issued for their arrest. Earp sought vengeance on the men who shot Virgil and killed Morgan. Killing Stillwell was just his first step. Along with Doc Holliday, and others, Wyatt began what is known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. Wyatt heard that Pete Spence was at his wood camp in the Dragoons and on March 11, 1882, he and his men quickly headed out, finding not Pete Spence, but Florentino Cruz. The frightened Cruz named all the men who had murdered Morgan, himself included. Earp and his men filled Cruz with bullet holes. The Earp “posse” rode out once again and on March 24, 1882, they ran into Curly Bill Brocius and eight of his men near Iron Springs. A gunfight ensued where Curly Bill was killed and Johnny Barnes received a wound from which he eventually died. In just over a year, the Earp “posse” along with Doc Holliday eliminated “Old Man” Clanton, Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Dixie Gray, Florentino Cruz, Johnny Barnes, Jim Crane, Harry Head, Bill Leonard, Joe Hill, Luther King, Charley Snow, Billy Lang, Zwing Hunt, Billy Grounds and Hank Swilling. Pete Spence turned himself in to the authorities where he could “hide” in the penitentiary. Things are a bit more civilized now of days, but righting a series of wrongs still takes a long time. No matter how saddle sore I get, I am not stopping this ride.

One hundred and thirty years ago today, citizens in Charleston, Arizona were up in arms over the shooting death of W.P. Schneider. Schneider was the chief engineer of the Corbin Mill. He was well-liked and considered an honorable man, but not great at poker. A miner and card-shark named Michael O’Rourke ended Schneider’s life prematurely. O’Rourke had been working around the Tucson area when news of a great silver strike in the Tombstone bluffs reached the town. O’Rourke and hundreds of others headed for the silver boom in quest of fortune. There, O’Rourke labored as a miner for four dollars a day in the excavations of the Tough Nut and Lucky Cuss among others. O’Rourke began visiting the gambling halls and became a tinhorn gambler. Because of his habit of betting heavily when he held a no more than a deuce as his hole-card, he earned his everlasting pseudonym: Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. Sometime in 1880, he pulled up stakes and crossed the San Pedro River into Charleston, an untamed boom town where the day-to-day routine consisted of gambling, visiting “houses of ill fame,” fighting, swearing and drinking. The Deuce made no specific impression upon the denizens of Charleston—that is, not until Friday, January 14, 1881. That day, Quinn’s Saloon was crammed with miners and cattlemen and with soldiers from nearby Fort Huachuca, when W. P. Schneider, the chief engineer of the Corbin Mill, decided to cash in, after losing a fortune in an all night poker game. As he left the table he made a disdainful remark about the winner cheating, directing his attention to Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. One word led to another. Both men went for their pistols. When the smoke cleared, Schneider lay sprawled on the floor, blood oozing from a hole in his chest. The event would provide newspaper fodder, and it would stamp Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce as something more than a tinhorn gambler. Irate miners, most of them employees of the late Schneider, began drinking and talking about a lynching. As a result of their wheedling, a wrathful crowd, led by a man named Johnny Ringo, gathered at Quinn’s Saloon. Someone brought a rope. Men with six-shooters felt satisfied that they could overwhelm the local police force, which consisted of only one man, George McKelvey. On the other hand, McKelvey, with visions of an angry mob stringing up the hapless gambler to the nearest cottonwood, was too good a lawman to knuckle under to a bunch of drunks. He hitched up a team of mules to a springboard, loaded Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce into the vehicle, and galloped for the distant mountains of Tombstone, the mob in pursuit. Although McKelvey utilized the whip vigorously, the mob gained on him. About two miles outside Tombstone, the mob pulled into rifle range. Bullets whizzed around McKelvey and the Deuce all the way into the silver camp. By the time they reached  Jack McCann’s Last Chance Saloon, the exhausted mules collapsed. McKelvey, with the Deuce in tow, crashed through the batwing doors of the nearby Oriental Saloon, where none other than Wyatt Earp, the famed Tombstone lawman and gunman, was playing poker. McKelvey yelled that an angry lynch mob of two hundred was on his heels. “Take the prisoner to Jim Vogan’s bowling alley,” Wyatt told his two brothers, Morg and James Earp. “If they get past me, give him a gun and turn him loose.” The angry mob surged up to the Vogan’s adobe bowling alley with its high walls. Wyatt Earp, cradling a scatter gun, stepped in front of the men. They stopped in their tracks. “Drag him out!” someone yelled, anxious for the Deuce’s blood. “Don’t make any fool plays, boys,” Wyatt replied coolly. “The price you’ll have to pay won’t be worth that tinhorn inside.” “Earp can’t stop us all!” a man urged from the rear ranks. Wyatt cocked both hammers of his shotgun. The wide bores made an impression on the men in the front ranks. Two barrels of buckshot would cut quite a swath through the tightly packed mob. According to Tombstone legend, Earp turned away the maddened lynch mob while Marshal Ben Sippy, Virgil Earp and Johnny Behan loaded Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce into another springboard. There was no one quite like Wyatt Earp.

Juan Soto and outlaw known as “The Human Wildcat” hated the Americans who were slowly establishing law and order in California. He terrified settlers in the southern portion of the state during the 1870s. He got away with his crimes because few witnesses were every left alive and those that were allowed to live were too scared to say anything. But all it takes is one brave soul to stop the bad guys. On January 10, 1871, Soto and his gang planned and executed a crime they believed would demonstrate the depth of their resentment toward the determined westward settlers they referred to as “piggish gringos.” A Sunol store clerk, known throughout the tiny village in Alameda County as Otto Ludovici, tidied the shelves and swept the floor of the business after a long day’s work. The store owner’s wife, Mrs. Thomas Scott, and her three children were assisting in the routine of closing the business by refilling candy jars, folding bolts of fabric, an restacking blankets. Otto weaved past his helpers, walked over to the door and locked it. As he turned the key a large rock shattered the front window. The door suddenly flew open and Juan Soto and several of his rough associates stepped inside. Mrs. Scott gathered her terrified children close to her. Otto slowly backed away from the bandits unsure of what to do next. “I’m afraid we’re closed now,” the petrified clerk stammered. “We’ll open again in the morning. “Soto laughed a little at how frightened the man appeared. I don’t plan to buy anything, senor…today or tomorrow,” the desperado said coldly. “But take…that I will do.” Otto cast a glance at a rifle on the counter next to him, but before he could make a move Soto pulled out his six-gun and shot the clerk in the chest. The man fell to the floor in a heap. Mrs. Scott hurried her children out of the room and down the hall and quickly disappeared with them into a storage area. A sly smile of content spread across Soto’s face as he watched them flee. While his outlaw group looted the store, Soto cocked his gun and fired several volleys in the direction of the place where Mrs. Soto and her brood was hiding. Their screams filled the air, and they could be heard crying. Soto then reloaded his weapon and assisted the bandits in looting the store. The crooks were so preoccupied with the robbery they did not notice Mrs. Scott run out of the back door with her youngsters in tow. Mrs. Scott served to be a fearless witness against the bandit. Soto was hunted down and shot to death. A witness can make all the difference in the world. Two witnesses have come forward for my brother over the last month. When the time is right, what they’ll testify to will be as life altering as the bullet that took down Soto.

We may not like to admit it, but America has always been a violent country. I spend my days writing about the violent actions of people in the Old West. Brutal men and women like Juan Soto, Tom Bell, Kate Bender and Belle Starr. The frontier was definitely a violent place – but nowadays we’ve gone off the Richter scale. I’m referring of course to the shooting that took place this weekend in Tucson, Arizona. It seems that violence has turned the American dream into an Imax version of The Sopranos. Look out over the landscape and what do you see? You see a demented Toontown, filled with carloads of gun-wielding maniacs exploding innocent bystanders like cantaloupes at a backwoods turkey shoot. You see a twisted bizarro-land gone crazy on a lethal cocktail made with equal parts of instant gratification, self-righteous anger, and notions of entitlement. But as I mentioned, America has always been subject to violence from such individuals. The difference now is the bad guys are no longer riding into town on their horses and shooting at the law, they arrive via Taxi with semi-automatic weapons and gun down innocent children. It was tragic behavior then and it’s tragic behavior now.

The research I’m doing on a book about women outlaws of the Midwest led me to a lady named Laura Ellen Reno. Laura’s brothers were members of the notorious Reno Gang. She was quite a character. According to historical records, Ellen was famous throughout the West for her beauty. She loved danger and adventure, was an expert horseman, and unerring shot, and as quick with her gun as any man. She worshipped her brothers, whom she aided in more than one of their criminal undertakings, shielding them from justice when hard pressed, and swearing to avenge them when they were hung. I like her. Not the criminal part of her personality, but the devotion to her brothers. On that level she wasn’t any different from some of the other famous people of the Old West who stood up for their brothers – Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman, Bat Masterson, just to name a few. There’s something very noble in that in my estimation. Naturally, my thoughts ran to my own brothers and how I want to avenge Rick. It’s become a preoccupation with me and it’s not healthy. I’m hurt and want to know the why. But hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger, travel too far down that road and the way is lost. I think that’s what Laura Reno finally learned when she was burying her brothers. She never got over the hurt though. Her family said that on her deathbed she was crying because she felt she had let her brothers down by not protecting them from the “son’s of bitches who lied to make a case against them.” I feel your pain, Laura. On this day in 1874, gunman Chunk Colbert was feeling pain as well. He tried to bushwack Clay Allison after a horse race in the Indian Territory. After the two reportedly raced their horses and had dinner, Colbert had picked a fight with Allison. The two men entered the Clifton House, an inn located in Colfax County, New Mexico, where they sat down for dinner. Colbert had allegedly already killed six men and had quarreled with Allison several years earlier. Some say that nine years earlier, Allison had killed Colbert’s uncle in a gunfight. Whether that claim is fact or legend is unknown. What is known is that at some point during dinner Colbert attempted to raise his gun to shoot Allison, but the barrel hit the table as he raised it. Allison fired once, hitting Colbert in the head, killing him. Asked later why he accepted a dinner invitation from a man who would likely try to kill him, Allison replied, “Because I didn’t want to send a man to hell on an empty stomach”.

The spectacular poster for the new True Grit movie features a tagline that reads, “Punishment comes one way or another.” It’s a great movie by the way, and I couldn’t appreciate the sentiment behind the tagline more. It’s a sentiment that only has meaning in a specific time period, however. If this were the Old West I’d embrace the notion and just like Mattie Ross, set about to avenge my lost family member. It’s been four days since I’ve heard from the prison. I don’t know if my brother is in the infirmary there or has passed on. If they needed more money for his care they wouldn’t hesitate to phone, but they’re slow to inform family of the welfare of a loved one beyond that. So I wait and imagine myself on a western ride to make sure punishment comes one way or another. Farmers in Nebraska must have felt the same frustration on this day in 1891. A confused election situation in the state led the Young Farmer’s Alliance to try to prevent the governor’s clerk from taking office. The Alliance conducted a fully armed session of the legislature, which recessed when a sheriff’s posse appeared. But the plight of the farmers in Nebraska remained desperate: drought and falling crop prices have left the state’s farmers overwhelmed by debts. The Populist Party and William Jennings Bryan will be among the offspring of this crisis. Minus the drought and falling crop prices, my plight seems just as desperate on certain days – this being one of them. I’ve got press releases to write for the Elizabeth Custer book, chapters to complete for the revised version of Hearts West and Outlaw Tales of California. I better get to it – daylight is burning.

New Year – same dogged determination to do what’s necessary for my brother. I have been working feverishly on the book about the matter. Next year’s release date is contingent on many factors – none of which I am at liberty to expand upon now. All in good time. As the Roman philosopher, Seneca once said, “Time discovers truth.” Of course I think Groucho Marx said it best when he said, “Time flies like the wind; fruit flies like bananas.” This quote has nothing at all to do with the situation, I just thought it was amusing. I’ll be busy this week working on chapter 3 of the Sam Sixkiller book, chapter 12 of the revised Outlaw book, and researching mail order brides to add to the revised Hearts West tome. I’m going to pour myself into my work. I enjoy writing and it helps somewhat to take my mind off the situation with Rick. No day would be complete without a walk through Old West history and news of what happened on this day 100 years ago. On January 3, 1913, female rancher Josie Bassett poisoned her husband, Nig Wells, with strychnine in Lynwood, Wyoming. She was trying to sober him up after a 4 day toot by unknowingly serving him coffe in the wolf bait cup. Josie and her sister “Queen” Ann Bassett were best known for their love affairs and associations with well known outlaws, particularly Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.