by Tim Slessor
One day a young itinerant cowboy called Mike Cassidy came by, and was taken on as a temporary hand alongside LeRoy on the ranch. He was obviously a likeable, though rascally, character. For the young LeRoy, already skeptical of the law, that seems to have been part of his attraction. After all, his new friend knew a maverick when he saw one; he knew how to use a running iron; he knew some interestingly shady characters; he knew how to shoot straight; he knew how to break a feral horse; and, no doubt, he knew how to say the right things to the girls. Presently, he gave young LeRoy an old six-shooter, and then some lessons on how to use it. That was probably not all he taught him. In time, when his drifter friend moved on, LeRoy wanted to go with him, but his mother prevailed. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before the young man, now growing into his late teens, would cut loose.
When LeRoy did go, some months later, he appears to have left in a hurry; he had almost certainly gotten too close to some of those interestingly shady characters who seemed to make a living by selling other people’s cattle and horses. Anyway, whatever the reason, he said some quick goodbyes and rode off east, 250 miles through the Rockies, to the mining town of Telluride in the mountains of Colorado. There he got a job as a muleteer, hauling gold and silver ore from various small “high country” mines down to the central Telluride smelt-mill. Before he was 18, he was accused of stealing a horse. He was eventually acquitted, but the experience almost certainly reinforced his doubts about the law. Perhaps he was beginning to think that, if people were going to suspect him anyway, he might as well give substance to those suspicions, if and when a worthwhile opportunity came along.
From The Bandit Invincible, we learn that at some point he joined up with two other drifters, Matt Warner and Tom McCarty. Together, they set up a horse-racing venture. Traveling from town to town, they would bet that their horse - a particularly fast filly called Betty - could outrun anything the locals could produce. Betty seldom let them down. As a sideline, the partners also dabbled in the business of buying and selling horses, a risky occupation in a country where the legitimacy of any such deals was always likely to be questioned.
An exact log of his wanderings in those early years is not too important; it seems that he and his friends went hither and thither across Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska as the spirit moved them. But we can pick up their trail more accurately a year or two later (which is more than a pursuing posse was able to do) when the threesome galloped away, $20,000 better off, from the San Miguel Bank of Telluride on a June afternoon in 1889. It was a classic armed hold-up, over in minutes. It had been temptingly easy. LeRoy was just 23.
In later years he became renowned for the care with which, on behalf of his crew, he planned their various hold-ups and, more specifically, their getaways. Evidently, the Telluride venture was something of a prototype. Some days before the raid, the gang had quietly “planted” three or four fresh horses every 20-25 miles along their planned escape route. The horses and their minders - to be well rewarded if things went well - were hidden away in remote draws and canyons or on thickly timbered mountain slopes. Coming away from Telluride, it seems that Bert Charter, Boyd’s father, was one of these minders. Anyway, thus organized, the robbers would be able to outride any pursuing posse who, even if it could find and follow the robbers’ trail, lacked the advantage of fresh mounts every few hours. And the horses used in the initial getaway? Usually, they would be driven ahead of those just swapped at the relay; without the weight of saddles and riders they could make the pace.
It was a technique used again and again in the years to come. By means of such relays, and often traveling through the night (thus making their trail more difficult to follow), the robbers could cover more than 150 miles in the first 24 hours. After that, probably twisting and turning along little known tracks, they might ride more gently, but ever watchfully, for another day or two until they pulled into some remote valley where, shielded by friendly rustlers, assorted ne’er-do-wells, and even small ranchers who did not ask too many questions, they could sort out the loot and rest, safe from pursuit.
The Telluride crew rode for more than 200 miles before they finally dismounted in a remote Colorado valley called Brown’s Park; even today, it is one of the loneliest tracts of country anywhere in the West. (In Colorado, valleys are still called “parks”.) Here, for several weeks, they relaxed and partied with the thin scatter of inhabitants who could be trusted to keep quiet. Then, with winter coming on, George Cassidy (he had now given himself the cover of a new name) emerged; he headed for central Wyoming and the small towns of Rock Springs and Lander where, as The Bandit Invincible has it, “there was plenty of hard men but Verry [sic] few bad ones”. He must, one supposes, have been relieved to hear the saloon gossip that one of those robbers away south in Telluride was thought to be some Utah boy called Robert LeRoy Parker - obviously nothing to do with him.
Now he got a job butchering the carcasses of cattle at a small meat works. (Although there is some debate, it seems probable that this new occupation prompted the nickname “Butch”.) It was probable that in time, tempted by the smell of easy money, he developed a sideline of quietly slaughtering and cutting up animals brought to him by some small-time rustlers. We certainly know that it was not too long before he was arrested and accused of knowingly receiving stolen goods: specifically three horses - though it could just as easily have been cattle. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty, and was taken off to the Wyoming state prison in Laramie for two years of hard labor. Butch always maintained that those horses were, in effect, a trap set by some big ranchers (Englishmen amongst them) to get him, an alleged rustler, out of the way. As his third-person comment in The Bandit Invincible has it: “Butch was the goat in that deal and inocent [sic] of the trap he was placed in.” He may have been right.
Despite his bitterness, Butch behaved himself in jail and, if the tale is true, it is said that after a year he got a message through to the Governor of Wyoming; with admirable chutzpah, he suggested that if he promised not to commit any more robberies within Wyoming, he might be pardoned and released early. Strangely, the Governor agreed. As far as Wyoming banks were concerned, Butch would keep his promise. But, as events over the next few years would show, he obviously reckoned that railroads were not part of the deal. Perhaps, as trains started and finished their journeys far beyond the bounds of Wyoming, he decided that they were fair game.
Anyway, on release he headed back to central Wyoming. But those earlier enemies, the big ranchers, had evidently heard of his return and “he found that he was on the black list in earnest and every place he went there were no hands wanted”. In short, he could find no work -not even as a butcher. In The Bandit Invincible, he is reported as telling an old acquaintance, “I want to go straight if they will let me. It is the stock mans [sic] move and if they move in the wrong direction I will give them plenty to chase me for”. In other words, “If that’s the way the ranching barons and their cronies want it, then I’ll give as good as I get...”
Within a few weeks, Butch was taking the first steps towards fulfilling his threat. He contacted some helpers: Ellsworth Lay and Bub Meeks. Elzy (as he was always known) was a quietly spoken cowboy whom Butch had first met when, after the Telluride raid, he had gone into hiding in the remoteness of Brown’s Park. Bub Meeks is a rather shadowy figure, but we know that he (like Butch) came from a Mormon family; maybe he too had found domestic life too dull.
Butch’s target would be a bank - what else? But mindful of that promise to the Governor, it would have to be a bank outside Wyoming. With the warmer weather of spring, he rode west and, after quietly observing several small-town banks in south-east Idaho, he decided that the one in Montpelier met his criteria. The deciding factor seems to have been that there was a good escape route. As at Telluride, there was nothing haphazard about Butch’s planning. First, he and his two colleagues got work on a ranch just out of town. Then, riding into town separately
over several days, so as not to arouse suspicion, they examined the layout of the bank and the habits of its staff. Once again, a chain of relay horses was put in place. Additionally, the gang made sets of leather “boots” that could be slipped over their horses’ hooves - an old Indian trick to make a trail more difficult to follow. Then, when all was ready, the outlaws headed into town. Dismounting outside the bank, they pulled up their neck-scarves, drew their revolvers and, while Bub held the horses, the other two went inside.
Everything worked as planned. Customers and staff were lined up, safes were unlocked, notes and coin were dumped into the several sacks that they had brought with them There was no shooting and only minor violence: Butch is said to have told Elzy to relax when he saw that he was about to cuff a hesitant cashier with his pistol butt. Within a very few minutes, the outlaws were mounted and galloping off.
It took time to put a sheriff’s posse together - too much time. Butch, Elzy and Bub got clean away. When one recognizes that, in those days, even a cowboy in full-time employment would have been lucky to make $400 in a year, a haul of $25,000 was a huge sum. Subsequent accounts about where Butch and company eventually came to rest are confused, even contradictory - which, one supposes, is just the way they would have wanted it. But if The Bandit Invincible is to be believed, Butch Cassidy made a secret visit to see his sweetheart, a girl called Mary Boyd who lived near Lander in central Wyoming. Then the narrative goes on to tell how he got out of the West altogether, by train for more than 1,000 miles to Chicago, and then on beyond to Michigan.
As far as the world knew, he had disappeared, until an April afternoon when, in the small Utah coal-mining town of Castle Gate, he quietly stuck a revolver in the ribs of a pay-roll clerk. The poor man was walking back from the nearby railroad depot where he had been to collect a heavy satchel. The satchel was bulging with two weeks’ pay for the employees of the local coal mine. Within seconds, Butch and Elzy Lay were galloping away down the street, heading for the hills. Once again, they had left little to chance. For example, Butch and Elzy must have made it worthwhile for someone to tip them off about which train would be carrying that satchel. Further, when someone ran across to the depot to telegraph other towns to send out posses, they found that the wires had been cut. And as usual the escape route had been worked out, with back-up teams (probably including Bert Charter and Bub Meeks) and fresh horses waiting at convenient points.
The haul came to over $8,000. The next month or two were spent in the wild and many-canyoned sanctuary of the aptly named Robbers’ Roost. Their likely presence in those parts, along with other outlaws, was probably no secret. But, as far as any lawman’s posse was concerned, the risks of ambush in such broken country were too great; so they kept clear. The law would just have to wait.
About now, Cassidy found himself at the center of a small band of like-minded pirates. He was not their leader in any formal sense, but he certainly seemed to set the pace and the tone. Today, we would talk about “charisma”. Riding alongside him, sometimes literally, were Elzy Lay and Bub Meeks. Other “notables” among the crew were his Telluride friend Matt Warner, Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan, “Flat Nose” George Curry, Ben “Tall Texan” Kilpatrick, young Bert Charter and, of course, Harry Longabough. The last, while still in his teens, had served a sentence of hard labor (for horse stealing) in the small Wyoming town of Sundance. So from then on he was usually known as the Sundance Kid. Collectively, this rough-hewn crew was just that: an informal “collective” dedicated to a life outside the law. Soon they would be known as the Wild Bunch; indeed, it was not long before even the American Bankers’ Association, meeting in distant Chicago, would be using that label in one of its annual reports.
The next robbery, at the small Dakota town of Belle Fourche, nearly 500 miles east of Castle Gate, came later in that same summer of 1897. For some reason Butch Cassidy did not take part; maybe he was visiting Mary Boyd. Anyway, apart from the fact that no one was killed, the raid was a small disaster. They should have had Butch along.
The raiders, six of them, decided that four would go inside while the other two would hold the horses. Early on, before the bank’s safe had even been opened, someone on the other side of the street realized what was happening and started shouting. The raiders, nervous and alarmed, came tumbling out of the bank, threw themselves on their horses and everyone headed for the hills. It was said that they found their way within a few days to the Hole-in-the-Wall country, 160 miles away. It turned out that their total profit was just $97, taken from the pocket of one of the bank’s customers right at the start of the raid. One can only guess what Butch had to say.
It is difficult to avoid writing about Butch Cassidy and his Merry Men in admiring terms (the analogy with Robin Hood is an obvious one). Like any bunch of brigands who “get away with it”, and who thereby cock a snoot at authority without killing anyone in the process, they become endowed with a patina of bravado and glamor. But the fact is that by the late 1890s a growing number of people in Wyoming were beginning to take a less tolerant view of what one of them neatly termed “all this unnecessary lawlessness”.
Perhaps Butch Cassidy sensed the change. There is an attractive story that, with the outbreak of the Spanish-American war (following the blowing up of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor), Cassidy put it to his immediate confrères that they should join one of the cavalry regiments, like Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, which was then being formed of volunteer cowboys. Maybe Cassidy was moved by patriotism, along with the hope that military service would bring a subsequent amnesty. In the event, the plan came to nothing; the Governors of Wyoming and Colorado, who through discreet intermediaries would have been approached, were unsympathetic. Indeed, they authorized the funding of bounty hunters to be set on the Wild Bunch’s trail. Cassidy’s reaction was typical: snubbed by the authorities who were obviously out to get him anyway, he might as well give the bastards a (literal) run for their money...
Very early on a Friday in June 1899, while it was still dark, one of the Union Pacific’s crack trains, the Overland Express, was slowly hauling itself up an incline toward a place called Wilcox in eastern Wyoming. Presently, the engineer saw a red lantern flashing on the track ahead: danger on the line. Then, even as he was slowing his locomotive, he and his fireman were surprised by several masked men who had come clambering over the tender to take the crew from behind. The engineer was ordered to take the train on beyond a small bridge which, with pre-positioned charges, was then blown up. Now, when the clerks inside the mail car refused to open up, a small charge was used to blast their door off its hinges. Then, with the train crew and the clerks held at gunpoint, the robbers used bigger charges to open two safes; in the process (as the photograph taken a day or two later clearly shows) they blew out the wooden sides and most of the roof of the mail car. The gunmen scooped up all the money (mostly notes) that had not been wafted away on the night air. Then they were gone.
It was later claimed that the total haul from the Wilcox hold-up was more than $60,000. While, of course, the Union Pacific did not admit to losing such a huge sum, it was quick to offer a reward of $18,000 for the capture of the outlaws. It also put together what, today, would be called “a rapid response unit”: a well-armed posse on almost permanent stand-by with its own dedicated locomotive and horse wagons. Yet further, it suggested that the army should get involved, and there was talk of bringing in bloodhounds. Whatever the means to be employed, the hunt was really on - though the stand-by posse, which would first have to be railed to the scene of any hold-up, would seem to have been a particularly futile notion.
Trying to unravel the movements of the different members of the Wild Bunch across the vastness of the West, especially after a robbery, is almost impossible. Not only does each of the many historians of the period have his/her own theory (sometimes supported by impressive but conflicting research), but, to muddle things further, the outlaws themselves used any nu
mber of aliases and disguises. Nevertheless, it does seem that, after the Wilcox adventure, Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay eventually decided to lie low as mere cowboys on a far-away ranch in southern New Mexico. They became Jim Lowe and Mac McGinnis.
A Union Pacific mail car after being visited by the Wild Bunch
The WS Ranch was managed and part-owned by an Englishman, William French. Despite the fact that Low and McGinnis were hard-working and likeable, the part-owner had his suspicions. Further, with rumors that a Pinkerton detective had arrived to ask questions in nearby towns, he became worried that he himself might be implicated for harboring two cowboys whom, it might be claimed, he must have suspected or even known were outlaws. On the evidence available, it seems that Cassidy too may have been concerned that he was becoming an embarrassment to an obviously understanding employer. He may even have been prompted to think that it was worth making one more attempt to go straight, to return in peace to his family in Utah. Anyway, we know that he soon made his way north to Salt Lake City. There, he asked a lawyer to approach the Governor of Utah to see if he might be granted an amnesty if he promised to behave himself. The lawyer pointed out that even if the Governor were receptive, he would not be able to speak for the Governors of the other states - Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho - where Cassidy was wanted for armed robbery. Further, it would be unrealistic to suppose that the Union Pacific would allow bygones to be bygones. Perhaps in response to that last point, Cassidy (in despair or optimism?) came up with another idea: if he promised not to organize any more train hold-ups, maybe the UP would drop all charges against him. He even suggested that, with his considerable expertise (to say nothing of his chutzpah), he might become what today would be called a “security consultant” to the UP: advising the company on how best to avoid future depredations. Amazingly, the UP seems to have thought that there might be merit in the idea. Accordingly, arrangements were made that Cassidy would rendezvous with railroad representatives at a remote spot in deepest Wyoming. On the agreed day, but wary of a trap, Cassidy watched the meeting-point from a distance. He waited all day. Then, when still no one came, he left a note saying that he had been double-crossed and that “the UP can go to hell”. In fact, the railroad negotiators had been delayed by the weather.