by Bill Russo
“It’s just like mine Chalk! And it’s just like the one your Dad had too. I’ve also got something else for you. It’s getting on towards winter and there’s not going to be a lot for you to do here until spring. You’ve got a car now so you could come to town every day if you accept this.”
The Don held out a shiny tin star which the youth joyously accepted.
“You’ll be the youngest deputy in the West Chalky and since you’re Jimmy Hidalgo’s boy, I think you’ll also be the best.”
“I have something for you too Chalky,” said Ma Glockner, her long, soft silver hair framing a face that still retained the vibrancy of her youth and southern beauty. “It’s not much but on the tiny paycheck the Don is going to part with, this will be a help.”
Happily opening a thick manila envelope Chalky read the enclosed carefully lettered document, “This entitles Deputy Chalky Hidalgo to free meals anytime and any day at Ma Glockner’s Restaurant.”
Not to be left out, Doc Galen provided the young man with a sizeable wad of cash to purchase new clothes and of course, a new pair of leather boots.
After the birthday party Ma and Doc decided to take a stroll to look at the new hay barn that Chalky had built at the Northern edge of the Larkin farm, with the help of a few men from town,.
Excusing herself, Vicky Larkin went to the kitchen to tend to the dishes.
“It’s a little cold for Doc and Ma Glockner to be out walking, isn’t it Don Jose?”
“I’m pretty sure they will be warm enough Chalk. Ol’ Doc doesn’t want to admit it and neither does Ma, but I think those two are starting to get pretty friendly.”
“Sheriff that reminds me of something I have been meaning to talk to you about. I guess now’s as good a time as any.”
“Sure Chalk. What’s on your mind?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time here Don Jose and I don’t think it’s just because of me. It’s well known in town that you have a close friendship with Miss Red at the Whiz Bang house.”
“What are you getting at Chalk?”
“Well Don Jose, you are my hero and my friend, but Mrs. Larkin is almost like a mother to me. She’s been so kind to me that I swear I would have a problem with anyone who hurt her.”
“If you mean me son, I certainly have no intention of harming that lovely lady.”
“You may have already done so. She’s lonesome naturally, what with being a widow and all. I think she’s beginning to fall in love with you and I think that you might take advantage of the situation.
I keep thinking of something my Mother told me when I was about 12 years old. She was raised in a church going family, Don Jose. We didn’t have one near us but she told me about the bible and she read me the part about how a man cannot serve two masters, for he will love one and hate the other.”
“I’ve heard that Chalk, but how does it apply in this conversation. “
“Because I think it applies to women as well Don Jose.
I like Miss Red and I like Mrs. Larkin and I wouldn’t want either one of them to get hurt.”
“I see what you’re getting at Chalky. There’s no reason to worry. I like both of those ladies too and if you are implying they are the masters - I promise you that I’m not going to be trying to serve both of them at the same time.”
That ended the matter for the moment but Chalky had an uneasy feeling that if, instead of people; the sheriff, the madam, and the widow were ingredients in a test tube and a little heat was applied to the glass – there would be an explosion.
Chapter Nine: On the Job
The early part of the winter of 1923 was for the most part a quiet one. There was one tornado that ripped up neighboring Carter Nine, killing three people. The customary weekly thunderstorms commonly knocked out electrical power, stimulating sales of kerosene lamps at the Whiz Bang Seed and Feed.
In mid January one of the bigger snowfalls of the new century dropped close to six inches of snow on the rooftops and streets of the community. Within a day the temperature sprang back up into the high forties, quickly melting away the precipitation.
Rapidly mastering the mundane workings of the law business, Chalky learned everything there was to know about swamping out the cell block, sweeping the floors, and sorting out the mail in addition to sifting through the endless piles of Wanted Posters.
Whether the lack of excitement in Whiz Bang that season was due to the ever growing reputation of Sheriff Alvarado or because of a typical winter lull, Chalky wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he craved some action. He wanted to stand by the side of his mentor and gun down some desperadoes.
With the tenderness of a loving mother for her newborn, the youthful deputy took doting care of his Remington. He could disassemble and reassemble the ’1875’ in less than 10 seconds. He inspected, cleaned, and lubed it regularly.
Fast draw practice consumed most of his spare time. Whenever he had the chance he sharpened his shooting eye by blasting tin cans and old glass jars. His progress was so swift that his mentor Don Jose remarked that the boy was faster on the draw than any man he had ever seen.
Doc Galen and Big Red broke up the monotony of early February by sponsoring a shooting contest on the big vaudeville stage of the Whiz Bang House.
Chalky surprised and amazed the town by winning first place; beating out the best hands in all of Osage County.
Claiming the honors at the Whiz Bang House in front of an audience of 200 hombres was satisfying, but Chalky yearned for a bona fide scrum to overtake the town and give him a chance to display his skills under combat conditions.
Neither he nor the Sheriff realized that just such a situation was brewing in Southwestern Oklahoma and was working its way to Whiz Bang.
Chapter Ten: Trouble on the Way
In early summer, convicted bank robbers Divitt Brant and Roll Stockdale, while on work detail, staged a bloody jail break in Wichita, Kansas.
Feigning a fight, they overpowered and killed a guard when he intervened. Using his weapon they murdered four other corrections officers during their desperate break. There were 20 prisoners in the detail and all escaped - but 18 of them were rounded up within three days.
Only Brant and Stockdale had an effective flight plan; which was long in the making. Aided by paid accomplices said to have run with Butch Cassidy’s gang at the turn of the century - they fled to Mexico and evaded capture for several months by holing up in a ‘safe town’ just over the border from Douglas Arizona.
By Christmas, with their funds swiftly diminishing the pair decided to head back to the States. Working their way to New Mexico and on to Texas, they stuck up a few businesses and banks as they travelled. They did it both for sport and to expand their depleted bankroll.
During a brief respite in a Texas panhandle saloon, the murderous escaped convicts were drinking tequila and planning their gory itinerary. A fracture in their partnership developed when Brant said he wanted to strike out for Oklahoma while Stockdale favored motoring towards California.
“It’s too dangerous there. The heat’s still on in Sacramento. We’ll have a far better chance if we go north,” claimed Brant.
“It’s just as risky going to Oklahoma. I’ve had enough of that state. There’s nothing there but red clay and oil rigs. I want to set on the veranda of an elegant San Francisco hotel while drinking fancy booze and sampling low toned women.”
The rift between the killers widened and rapidly threatened to go lethal.
Graff Headley, a drifter and part-time train robber who had been drinking with them, suggested that the only fair way to settle the matter was a duel.
“You two guys stand back to back,” Headley directed, “and take ten steps forward on my count. When I reach ten, turn and fire.”
Rising from their stools, Stockdale and Brant went to the center of the saloon’s sawdust covered floor and stood up straight, their backs a thousandth of an inch from touching.
“One – two - three,” counted Headley as a space of more than two yards opened up, dividing the combatants.
“Four, Five, Six, Seven,” he continued as the gunslingers gingerly stepped off the paces in opposite directions in time to his tally. The separation between the opponents had grown to better than fifteen feet.
“Eight...”
Divitt Brant whirled around at the count of eight, cleared leather, and fired two deadly shots into the middle of Roll Stockdale’s back.
As Graff Headly stared in disbelief at the trickery, Brant shot him twice; first in the head and then in the heart.
Waving his pistol wildly in the air Brant screamed, “I’ve still got a dose of lead left for anybody who tries to stop me.”
There were 24 men in that little saloon situated about 20 miles south of the Oklahoma border. Many of them were hard cases, fast on the draw and accurate with their shots. Not a single one wanted to tangle with the ‘maniac’ who had just shot his partner in the back and slaughtered the ‘friend’ he’d been playing cards with.
Brant was fearsome even when he didn’t have the look of a raving lunatic; but when the killing fever came on him, Divitt looked like he had just marched in from Hell.
He was tall for the times, close to six feet. A bulky man who bristled with muscles, he was said to weigh 240 pounds without an ounce of fat. His coarse, black straw hair seemed to have a life of its own – jumping out from under his hat in roaming clusters that looked like spikes of raven colored lighting flashes. Bobbing up and down while he screamed at the crowd, his unkempt beard looked more like a bounding grizzly bear than facial hair.
His face was the worst of all – round like a pumpkin with eyebrows as big as hairy snakes hovering over oval eyes that burned like glowing campfire coals. The eerie grin that ran across his face from ear to ear looked like a broken fence with black spaces outnumbering the rotted, off-white pickets that passed for teeth.
Jumping over the bodies of his victims he raced to the parking lot and bounded into the beefy 1921 luxury, twin six Packard that he had been sharing with Stockdale.
Soon, driving through sparsely populated Osage County, Brant felt safe and in little danger since there were few lawmen in Northeastern Oklahoma. He had never heard of Sheriff Don Jose Alvarado and would still have headed for Whiz Bang even if he had.
Arriving in the boom town on a cloudy late afternoon in early March, Brant took a room at the National Hotel and swiftly fell asleep. After a few hours nap he woke up refreshed and hungry. Walking leisurely while casing the town, he went to the Whiz Bang House.
Taking in the final Vaudeville performances of the day, he was relaxed and in a good mood. Counting the house, he noted that the till was overflowing with cash from 200 paying customers. In addition, the East and West lounges had at least another 200 patrons each.
In 34 years of living Divitt Brant had never been called smart, but he could figure out that 600 customers equaled a huge pile of money – probably a lot more than he could get from a train robbery or a bank job.
As Maud Allan closed the Vaudeville program with her signature ‘Salome Dance’ that she made famous at the Palace Theaters both in London and New York; Brant began planning his heist of the Whiz Bang House.
The undulations of the nearly 40 year old Miss Allan distracted him for a few moments as she performed the fabled dance of the seven veils. Though it had been two decades since the lady had played big time Vaudeville, she was still able to command the rapt attention of every man in the theater.
Mellowed by the performance, Divitt decided to spend the night sampling the amusements of the house before devising his stick-up plan.
Getting up from his seat to participate in the standing ovation for Maud Allan, he decided to drift into the East Room to find some Rye Whiskey and a bar girl to share it with. Both were soon found with ease.
The next morning he woke up in one of the second floor suites of Big Red’s establishment. Brant found himself lying next to a well stuffed, raven haired woman who was a ‘dime a dance’ girl who aspired to be a singer in the Vaudeville chorus.
She wasn’t beautiful but she had been cheerful and willing. In a rare display of generosity, Divitt Brant dug into his wallet stuffed with ‘walking around money’ and left a wad of bills on the bedside table for the sleeping lady.
After a hearty breakfast of hotcakes, ham, and grits at Ma Glockner’s, he tossed out some feelers for men of dubious character that he could mold into a gang big and tough enough to skin the Whiz Bang House.
A series of questions among a few seedy looking rowdies led him to a string of ‘half-bit’ bars off First Avenue. He walked into “Skeet’s Hot House” because it looked to be the sleaziest of the row.
Plunking down ‘a long bit’ on the shabby bar, he forced a smile and began conversing with Skeet Grimmer, the barkeep as well as the owner. It rapidly became evident that he’d have to search no further; for he had surely arrived at a place where immoral men abounded.
Plying Skeet with a 20 dollar gold piece, he was able to gain introductions to six men who were vile enough to fit his model perfectly.
Using one of the saloon’s private rooms he invited the quartet to sit with him around a worn table that had seen thousands of poker games and probably almost as many scrums and gunfights.
He ordered beer and steaks for everyone, served by the best ‘five cent’ dance girls that Skeet had. Shooing the women away after the luncheon, he came quickly to the point.
“My name is Divitt Brant. There’s at least four or five Wanted Posters over at the post office with my name on ‘em. I prolly got a price of $500 on my head, dead or alive. If anyone wants to try for it, make your play now – or sit back and listen to a plan I got to make ten times that much dough.”
The six men around him knew him by reputation only. His fame, or rather his notoriety, had spread all through the West. None of the six wished to make a move on Divitt Brant, and they were interested in hearing his scheme.
“Before I tell you boys what I have in mind, I want to hear your credentials. Tell me what you’ve done against the law. Don’t add nothing to try and impress me – I’ll know it if you do.”
“My name is Dart Davis,” an angular middle aged man spoke first. “I’m retired now and scraping by, pulling occasional jobs on the Q.T. - but back in aught-8, I ran with the Eastman Gang in New York City. I was close to the boss, Kid Twist. I was in on all the big heists and dozens of murders.
One of the best times we ever had was when the Kid and I got the drop on Louie the Lump, who led a rival outfit. We were drinking Rye Whiskey in a Coney Island dive; Kid Twist, me, and Cyclone Charlie. I clubbed the Louie the Lump over the head with my Colt 45 and we dragged him up to a room on the fifth floor. When he woke up, I gave him a choice of jumping out the window or getting shot up piece by piece.
“Louie the Lump was a tough guy so he chose getting blasted. He prolly figured I’d kneecap him and let it go at that. I had something else in mind. Sticking the 45 under his left ear lobe, I squeezed the trigger and blew off his ear! Since he was screaming in pain, I don’t think he was listening when I told him the next shot was going to take out a nut – but when he saw my Colt moving down towards his crotch, he flew out the window!
“By 1911 many of the New York gangs had been weakened and broken up by all the in-fighting. Kid Twist, Cyclone Charlie and I were ambushed. The Kid and Charlie went down fighting and I barely survived after being shot five times. Before I passed out, I got the last of the dry-gulchers. Don’t let the gray hair and this battered body fool you Divitt. I’m ready for one last big score.”
“I’ve heard of you and your gang Dart. You guys were as ruthless a pack of mad dogs as ever there was in any town on earth. Welcome to the club!” said Divitt Brant flashing a smile of approval.
The other five men, younger, and not as accomplished as Dart Davis, nonetheless were murderous thieves
in their own right; who had been waiting for some crooked opportunity to come along.
They were:
Diamond Jimmy Tea, a 27 year old card sharp who always carried three tiny, semi-automatic vest guns. Invented in 1911, the Colt Pocket 25 caliber, at just a half pound, was flatter, smaller, and more powerful than a derringer. It was an extraordinary ‘hide out’ gun. Diamond Jimmy had one in each sock and the third in his pocket. His skill with the mini Colts equaled his acumen with cards. He did well for himself.
Croaker Kelly: a black-jack artist and killer for hire. Originally from Boston the 25 year old had fled west to evade one of the largest manhunts in history, initiated after he had exterminated all the witnesses against a Massachusetts crime king, as well as the trial judge.
Kid Utica, an upstate New Yorker who was said to have had such a powerful hold on horse racing that he could give you a complete list of the winners at Saratoga a week in advance. Like Kelly the 31 year old ‘Kid’ had to flee the state after knocking off too many influential citizens.
Smoke Tarrette, a firebug from Philadelphia whose specialty was called “Jewish Lightning” or “Italian Lightning” or “Irish Lightning” - depending upon the ethnicity of whoever hired him. The 32 year old flame thrower had cost insurance companies more than $500,000 in claims they had to pay out for the buildings he torched. Dozens of human beings had died in the infernos he touched off.
Fingers Dugan. He was a 33 year old second story man whose specialties included safe-cracking, lock picking, and carving people up with a folding knife that he called a ‘butterfly’. When he slashed an enemy they thought they had been struck by lightning.
Upon hearing about the background and the crimes of his companions, Divitt Brant was satisfied that the motley group would be ideal for his purpose.
“I’ll give you the details over the next couple of days, but in a nutshell the plan is to hit the Whiz Bang House on Saturday, its busiest night. The six of you are going to split into two teams. One gang will knock off the East Room while the Second one takes out the West Room. I’ll work the middle and clean out the box office in the Great Room soon after the Vaudeville show starts,” explained Brant.