Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr

by Phil Truman

  This time, though, the board and the warden at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary really believed Henry no longer had it in him to rob a bank, even if he wanted to. At forty-seven, he seemed old beyond his years. The five years he’d spent in the dank, cold McAlester prison had taken its toll on his health, as had the bullet from that butcher’s boy back in Stroud, which was still lodged in his hip. He barked with a consumptive cough, stood stooped at the shoulders, and walked with a pronounced limp. There was no longer any need to keep him in prison, the warden had said. Not only was he a contrite and exemplary prisoner, he was a broken man. Besides that, all the men who’d ridden with him were either in prison themselves or stove up worse than Henry or dead.

  Bill Tilghman was the only man not to believe Henry Starr was through robbing banks. When he read the news of Henry’s parole, he shook his head and laughed. “You conned ’em again, didn’t you Henry?” he said to the walls of his office. He put down the paper and picked up the phone to call someone he knew in Tulsa. The man worked in the parole office there; Tilghman figured the fella could tell him how to get in touch with Henry. Bill had a proposition for the old outlaw.

  “Hello, Henry. This is Bill Tilghman.”

  Henry waited a few seconds before responding, listening to the static on the line.

  “Henry? You there?” came the voice from the other end.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Henry said at last. “Just trying to figure out why you’re calling me, Bill. I paid for my crimes fair and square. Warden didn’t see any reason to keep me locked away, and I ain’t done nothing since I been out, which is only a week now.”

  “I know, Henry. I know. I ain’t trying to arrest you. I got a business proposition I want to talk over with you.”

  More silence on Henry’s end. “Ain’t interested in becoming a lawman, Bill,” he said.

  Tilghman laughed. “No, I don’t expect you are, but it’s not that. You ever seen a moving picture show?”

  “Yeah, I seen me a couple.”

  “Did you ever see the one called ‘Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws’?”

  “No, can’t say as I have.” Henry began to wonder where this was headed.

  “I made that moving picture; wrote it, even played a part in it.”

  “Is that a fact?” Henry asked flatly. “Anything in the story about me?”

  “Yeah, I put in a couple things. Wouldn’t be much of a story about Oklahoma outlaws without you.” Tilghman laughed.

  “Well, thankya, Bill. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It’s done pretty well. Moving pictures seem to be the coming thing, and, see, that’s why I called. I’d like you to make a picture show about those bank holdups you pulled in Stroud. I know some picture people who’re looking for a story like that. Like to put them in touch with you.”

  “That wasn’t my best work, Bill. I can think of a half a dozen other jobs that turned out better… for me, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, Henry. Most of these movies you see about the West show the outlaws to be the heroes, and the lawmen to be the villains. I’d like to put it t’other way around. That’s what I done with ‘Oklahoma Outlaws.’ Stealing and killing just ain’t the way law-abiding citizens live. Lawmen are out there to keep things upstanding, and that’s what I’d like you to show with your story, Henry. It’d be a powerful message, especially coming from someone as famous as you.”

  “Famous, huh; is that what you call it?” Henry snorted. He held the phone to his ear with his right hand while he scratched the top of his head and side of his face. He sat down on the hotel clerk’s desktop. He hemmed and hawed, reaching out to shut the open office door from intruding ears, speaking softly. “I just don’t know, Bill. Even though I done outlaw things most my life, I’ve kept a pretty good reputation amongst the common folks. Everyone knew I robbed banks and such, but no one had to fear me. ’Spect that’s even true with most of you lawmen.”

  “No you ain’t been so fearsome in your criminal life,” Tilghman acknowledged. “I’d say confounding and worrisome more’n anything. Tell me, when was the first time you got in trouble with the law, Henry? How old were you?”

  “About sixteen, I reckon.”

  “You’ve got a boy, don’t you? How old is he now?”

  “He’s getting’ on about that age, too.”

  “Looking back on it, would you want that boy to have the kind of life you’ve had, that is, south of the law?”

  “Naw, I don’t suppose so.”

  “Well, this‘d be your chance to show him and a lot of other boys like him that outlawin’ ain’t as glamorous as they might think.”

  Henry had a mental flash of Kid Wilson confronting him on the streets of Inola. “Well, now, what you say makes sense, Bill. But I do got a couple questions.”

  “What’s that, Henry?”

  “What’s in this for you? Why you wanting me to do this?

  “Ain’t nothing monetary, really. Oh, the people who want to do this will give me a little something; you know, for my expertise and such. They asked me if I could get in touch with… guys like you. Asked me to see if you’d be interested in telling your story, then hook you up with them. But it’s like I said, Henry, I want the public to see—kids, mainly—that crime don’t pay.”

  “It don’t, huh? Well, how much you figure I’ll get for this venture?

  “The film folks, will let you do what they call ‘direct the story.’ That means you can tell all the actors what to do during the filming. You can even play yourself in the movie, if you want. That’s what they done with me on my picture. But it’s got to be the truth, no glamorizing. After it’s released for people to see, they’ll probably give you around ten or fifteen percent of the receipts.”

  “Ten percent?” Henry scoffed. “Now who’s the thief, Bill?”

  * * *

  He stood leaning against the brick wall of the building warming his bones. The afternoon air had turned mild on that early spring day, and the bright sun made the bricks radiant with their gathered heat. It was something he’d come to do in the yard wall at Big Mac the last couple of years, finding warmth for his old bones at the end of the winters. The basking also seemed to help him think more clearly.

  Tilghman’s proposition intrigued him. Acting wasn’t something he knew much about, nor moving pictures. Still, it wasn’t like he had a whole lot of prospects. Not many people wanted to hire a crippled-up old con. What contacts he’d had in the real estate business, and were still around, were on the other side of that bridge he’d burned the night he’d beaten up Bagby. Even though Bagby was dead from putting a bullet through his own pickled brain, and never much liked amongst his peers anyway, Henry’s association with him didn’t serve him well, even though most secretly applauded Henry’s thrashing of him. His old friend Feingold was still around, but not much help in getting Henry some honest work. Ollie still lived in Bagby’s big house. She seemed to have done alright for herself, but he didn’t have much contact with her, or Teddy.

  No, his prospects were thin. He thought he could probably still rob a bank if he had to, but he just didn’t think he had the energy. Besides, the thought of that meat locker of a prison at McAlester deterred him. Maybe the warden was right about him.

  He’d gone out earlier in the day to find a movie house, locating one called The Circle, and now stood at the west wall of that theater soaking up the afternoon sun’s heat and thinking. Coincidentally, the movie house was showing something called “The Great Train Robbery.” It was only about ten minutes long; Henry had paid his nickel and sat through it six times.

  It was a fascinating thing to observe that picture moving like it did, like the words of a story book come to life. Magical stuff, Henry mused as he watched a Model T Ford automobile clatter past him on the cobbled brick street. The world was becoming a whole different place from his fast riding days, he thought. Could be he didn’t fit into it anymore.

  He knew about train robberies, tho
ugh. He’d robbed one or two in his time, and those boys in that picture show didn’t appear to make what they done look too real. First off, there was only three of them and they unloaded about a hundred people off the cars and proceeded to relieve them of their valuables. No sane train robber would do that. It was too likely some yahoo would draw on them and shoot. And another thing, he’d never seen a train with that many people on it. Most he ever saw was about thirty. Third, they unhooked the engine from the cars and took off down the tracks in it. Now why would they take the time to do a blame fool thing like that? Then they stopped and went out into the woods to count their dough, and let the posse sneak up on them to shoot ’em dead. Stupid all the way around.

  No sir, he didn’t think whoever made that movie had ever robbed a train, or anything else. “If I make a movie about a robbery,” he said to himself, “… it’d damn sure be accurate.” He suddenly realized he was talking to the air, and looked around a little sheepishly. Seeing no one within earshot, he coughed out a short laugh. “Yep, I’ll show the world how a robbin’s supposed to be done.”

  But at that moment he had more immediate concerns, like where and how he’d get his next meal. He’d already been to Feingold asking for a loan and the old Jew had given him one, more out of sympathy than good sense. Henry had a few bucks of that left, having paid a week in advance for his flophouse room. He thought he had enough to rent a horse and saddle. His older sister lived southeast of Dewey, some thirty miles to the north. He was pretty sure he could go up there and play on her sympathies some, too. Plus, her place was on the road to Nowata, and there was someone else he wanted to check in on up there.

  * * *

  The house looked pretty much how he’d remembered it. Maybe a room or two had been added, a new porch. Painted now a pale yellow, with a picket fence around it, and a yard. Two shade trees stretched up from the sides of the house; one on the east side, one on the west. Elm, he thought. Their limbs still bare in their winter sleep.

  Someone was going in and out of the barn, working the morning chores, it looked like. It appeared to be a strapping young man, perhaps a teen-aged boy. Henry couldn’t rightly tell at the distance from which he watched. At the back of the house, white smoke whipped and swirled away from a kitchen stove pipe in the brisk March wind.

  Looking north, Henry sat and watched the scene as he once had almost twenty years past. He wondered if Meg would mind seeing him now, would even recognize him. That boy at the barn must be the one she was pregnant with the last time he saw her. He looked to be a big fella, much like his pa.

  He’d asked his sister Elizabeth, “Do you know anything about some folks named McGuinness over around Nowata?”

  “Of course, I do,” she said. “Everybody knows of the McGuinnesses in these parts. Probably the most prominent people in the area. Good people, too. Always helping out folks struck by tragedy or misfortune. Had their own hard times, though. The oldest McGuinness boy was lost in the Great War. Probably what did in Mister McGuinness. After his boy was killed, grief seemed to take over his life. Died himself not a year after his boy. Word is his heart give out. But Miz McGuinness, Megan, she still works hard in the community over at Nowata. Used to be a school teacher there, but she gave that up some time back. Heads up a lot of doin’s by the church ladies. Still a handsome woman, even as a widder. Everybody thinks highly of Megan McGuinness.”

  Henry smiled and nodded. Elizabeth had no idea the woman she spoke of had once been his wife. Oh, she knew he’d carried off a girl from Nowata, but she never put it together that Megan McGuinness and that girl were one in the same. Elizabeth had been married and living off near Dewey, fifty miles away, when all that had taken place. Henry hadn’t been real close to his sisters over the years, only making a re-acquaintance now that he needed some help.

  “Why you want to know about the McGuinnesses?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I had some dealings with Mister McGuinness some years back,” Henry answered. “He helped me straighten some things out in my troubled youth. Like you say, he was a beneficent man.”

  His sister nodded, letting Henry’s explanation go at that.

  So there he sat, on his horse on that hill looking down at the McGuinness estate again. He had the desire to spur the animal forward, but something kept him from it. Presently, he noticed the boy at the barn had spotted him. He stood looking up at Henry, wiping his hands on a cloth, studying the outrider on the hill, their hill. Then the boy went into the barn and came back out carrying a shotgun, making sure Henry could see it. He started walking slowly toward the house, cradling the gun, never taking his eyes off Henry. When the boy reached the porch, Henry reined the horse around and rode back out of sight heading south.

  Megan had come from the kitchen to open the drapes of the big south window in the parlor. Emily was coming up from Tulsa with her children for a week’s stay, and Megan was excited about their visit. When she threw back the heavy curtains, she immediately caught sight of the rider on the crest of the south hill. It startled her and she gave out a small gasp. Something about the man triggered a barrage of old memories—the way he sat on the horse, the lean body, the toss of the hat on his head. He was too far away to make out distinct features, but there was something about him she knew. She put her fingers to her lips. “Henry,” she whispered involuntarily.

  The rider turned his horse and rode out of sight down the back side of the hill. She stood watching the ridgeline for several seconds wondering if he would re-appear, half hoping he would.

  The front door opened, and Megan watched her son Silas come in. She glanced down at the double-barreled shotgun grasped in his left hand.

  “There was a rider up on the hill, Ma. He was just sitting there looking down here. Wasn’t sure what he wanted, so I came back to the house. He looked kind of suspicious. Reckon we should call the sheriff?”

  Megan looked out the window again, at that vacant spot on the hill. “No,” she said. “I believe he’s moved on now. I doubt he’ll be back.”

  There was something strange in the way she’d said that, sort of a sadness, Silas thought. He looked at his mother curiously, but didn’t say anything.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Henry, old chap, why don’t you brandish two revolvers?” DuMer asked.

  The man was small and slight, kind of frail looking, despite his well-tanned face and neck. He had delicate hands with long, thin fingers unaccustomed to manual labor. His small green eyes were set over a sharp nose, above a pencil moustache, atop a nearly lipless mouth. His straight red hair was lacquered to his head like a coat of paint, but most of the time hidden under a strange looking little cap he called a beret. He always wore a tan linen coat with what he called “riding pants,” sort of puffed out at the side of the thighs and tight at the calves. He talked with an accent that wasn’t quite British and wasn’t quite Yankee. Whatever it was, even Henry could tell it was fake and snobbish. You got the feeling he felt he was superior to everyone around him even though he spoke in a convivial manner. His name was DuMer; first and last, only DuMer. Said he was from Los Angeles, California, as was the film crew who’d come with him. Henry took a dislike to him the minute they met.

  He called himself The Producer/Director, whatever that was. DuMer informed Henry at their first pre-production meeting that he, Henry, would play the lead role in the film and would be the Story Consultant. Henry, not exactly sure what that job entailed, just shrugged.

  “It’s not what I done,” Henry answered.

  “Yes, but it would make you look much more forceful, more menacing.”

  “Mebbe so, but the fact is I never belted on two guns. Always wanted one hand free to do other things. Like I said, holding two guns ain’t what I done.”

  Looking down, DuMer touched his forehead with a skinny index finger and closed his eyes. He sighed. Then, as if talking to an unruly child, he looked at Henry and said, “It doesn’t really matter what you… done or didn’t done. What matters is what th
e movie audience perceives. And they must perceive you as a ruthless, deadly criminal.”

  “Why?” Henry asked.

  “Because that’s what puts their butts in theater seats, my good man.”

  “But it ain’t the truth. I never carried two pistols, and I never was a deadly criminal, just a bank robber. This is supposed to be a true story,” Henry argued.

  “And so it shall be, Henry,” DuMer said in a patronizing tone. “But it’s our job to make the truth more entertaining. And to be entertaining, we need to make you a dark villain. This is a tale about classic good versus evil. You’re to be the Evil; young Curry over there is to be the Good.”

  So it had gone their first day on the set. DuMer had earlier scouted the streets of Stroud and decided the location would fit the scene of the actual crime. Not much had changed there in the five years since the Starr Gang’s dual robberies.

  A week before, when they’d first met in Tulsa, DuMer said he wanted to go to Stroud to see if the location would fit the story, or look for someplace else. Henry was perplexed. “Why wouldn’t you film the story in Stroud? That’s where it happened,” he queried DuMer.

  “Well, mon ami, actual historic locations in movie making don’t often work for the lens. We need to make sure these two banks are situated in such a way that our filming can make your story seem convincing.”

  Days later, DuMer decided the streets of Stroud would indeed work for the filming. “Yes, I believe we can make this film believable here,” he said. He patted Henry on the shoulder and walked toward the film crew setting up on Third Avenue between the two banks.

  Henry, made speechless by DuMer’s remarks, watched the little dandy walk away. He’d gone forty paces before Henry could gather himself to speak. “Believable?! Hell, You can damn well believe it’s believable!” he yelled. “I got a bullet in my ass to prove it!”

  Paul Curry, the boy who’d put that bullet in Henry, walked up to stand beside him, looking toward the film crew and the receding DuMer, too.