The Saga of Henry Starr

by Robert J Conley

  Henry Starr had lost nine years of his life, and the world had gone on without him. He was twenty-nine years old. It was January 1903, and Henry had been summoned to the warden’s office.

  A prison guard accompanied Henry to the office, opened the door, and motioned Henry to go on in. The warden sat at his desk, studying a piece of paper in his hand. He looked up as Henry stepped in.

  “Henry,” said the warden, “you’ve been a model prisoner the years you’ve been here. I almost hate to see you go.”

  “Am I being transferred, sir?” said Henry.

  “I’ve got a letter here,” said the warden, leaning back in his chair, “saying that you’re to go free. It’s a full pardon based largely on your bravery in securing Cherokee Bill’s gun during that incident at Fort Smith. And it’s signed, ‘Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States.’ ”

  Henry was incredulous.

  “The President?” he said.

  “Congratulations, Henry. You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you yet. Make something useful out of them. You’ve got what it takes.”

  So at twenty-nine, Henry Starr walked out of prison a man nine years behind the rest of the world, yet a free man, a man with a second chance, a man full of hopes and dreams, and a man absolutely alone.

  24

  Kid Wilson walked down a Tulsa street, not aimlessly, nor yet in a hurry. He walked with a purpose, looking for something. Tulsa was beginning to take on some of the characteristics of the city it would become. It was 1907, and Kid Wilson had become an anachronism: an Old West outlaw in the new twentieth century, a man with no other name than “Kid,” who was crowding thirty. He was also a man very much alone. No one who knew him ever knew where he had come from. His background he kept absolutely to himself. Wilson was likely not even his real name, although no one knew even that for a fact. He had cut himself off from family, and he ran alone. He ran alone, that is, except for the time he had spent as a member of the notorious Henry Starr Gang, and he had never gotten close to anyone other than Henry Starr. It was funny, he thought, that he should care so much about that Indian.

  It was Henry Starr who had brought Kid Wilson on his search to Tulsa, for he had heard a rumor that Starr was out of prison and working there. Kid Wilson stopped walking and read the sign on the front of the real estate office he had come up to. He pulled a small, crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and read a note on it, then wadded the paper and tossed it aside. He had found the right place. He opened the door and stepped inside. A man got up from behind a desk and approached him with a professional smile.

  “May I help you, sir?” he said.

  Kid Wilson looked the office over. Through a room to a back office he could see the backs of a man and woman and, facing them from behind a desk, sure enough, he said to himself, Henry Starr. Henry was hunkered over the desk, writing. The Kid grinned and, for an answer to the man who had greeted him, just pointed in Henry’s direction.

  “I’ll wait,” he said.

  “That’s fine,” said the other, and he went back behind his desk to fuss with papers.

  Kid Wilson figured that this man with the main desk must be Henry’s boss. He chuckled to himself. It was amusing to think of any man trying to boss Henry Starr. It was equally, if not more, amusing to think of Henry Starr selling real estate. Henry looked up from his work, and his voice carried easily out to where Kid Wilson waited.

  “I hope you enjoy the house,” he said.

  “I’m sure we will,” came the voice of a young man.

  “Oh, yes,” added a young woman’s voice.

  “Well,” said Henry, standing up behind the desk, “here are your keys. If there’s anything more I can do for you, just let me know. And thank you very much.”

  “Thank you,” said the young woman.

  “Good-bye now,” said the man.

  The young couple, leaning on each other and smiling, walked out of the office and past Wilson, who stepped into the doorway to Henry’s cubicle and leaned casually on the door frame.

  “Somebody told me that all real estate salesmen are crooks,” he said, “but this is ridiculous.”

  Henry looked up and saw Kid Wilson there in the doorway. Something inside made him want to jump up, run, and clap his old comrade on the shoulders, but instead he leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve certainly got the background for it.”

  Then, laughing, he stood up and moved around the desk. He held out his right hand to Wilson.

  “What are you doing, Kid?” he said.

  “Oh, I heard you were around, and I thought I’d look you up.”

  “It’s been a long time,” said Henry. “About fourteen years, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, sit down, Kid. Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

  Wilson sat down in one of the two chairs recently vacated by the young couple while Henry went out to the coffeepot in the main office. He came back soon with one cup and set it on the desk in front of Wilson.

  “You still not a coffee drinker, I see,” said Wilson.

  “I’ve never tasted it,” said Henry.

  “I hear you’re a family man now.”

  “I’ve got a wonderful wife and a fine young son,” said Henry, the pride obvious in his voice.

  “Henry, Jr.?” said Wilson.

  “No,” said Henry. “Theodore Roosevelt Starr.”

  Kid Wilson leaned back and laughed.

  “I heard you got a full pardon from the President, himself,” he said. “So how’s Mae?”

  “Mae?” said Henry. “Oh. No, I don’t know. No, she couldn’t wait. Well, actually I never saw her again after Colorado Springs. No, I married a Cherokee girl named Olive Griffin.”

  “Oh, well, hell,” said Kid Wilson, “they come and go. Well, Henry, real estate. Damn, that’s the worst thieving you ever done yet. Do you like it? I mean, this life.”

  “Yeah,” said Henry. “Yeah. It’s fine. Just fine.”

  But something about Henry’s voice left Kid Wilson less than convinced that Henry Starr was finding the good life totally satisfactory. He decided to change the subject.

  “Well, boy,” he said, “what do you think about this state of Oklahoma business?”

  Henry’s brows furrowed into a scowl.

  “It sure wouldn’t do to put in print what I think about it,” he said. “This is Indian country. We’re sitting right now in the Creek Nation, in this Tulsey Town, and just a few miles over yonder is the Cherokee Nation—my country.”

  Henry hesitated and expelled a long and weary sigh.

  “But that’s all in the past now,” he continued. “It looks as if we’re going to be the next state no matter what anyone thinks about it—especially the Indians.”

  “Yeah,” said Kid Wilson, because he could think of nothing else to say. He was almost sorry that he had brought up the subject.

  “Listen,” said Henry. “You’ve got to come over to the house and meet my family. How about tonight? We’ve got lots to talk about, you and me.”

  “That sounds fine, Henry,” said the Kid. “Thanks. Tonight will be just fine. I’m not doing a damn thing.”

  25

  It was 1907. Henry Starr took his wife and child to Guthrie, the capital city of the new state of Oklahoma, for the grand celebration. Kid Wilson accompanied them. There were banners everywhere for “Oklahoma” and “the 46th state.” There was an atmosphere of celebration and festivity seemingly permeating the very air. There was no place to escape the teeming crowds. Indians of fifty-seven different tribes and blacks and whites and some of indeterminable racial mixture rubbed shoulders with each other, crowded against each other. The formalities of the statehood ceremony were planned for and carried out outdoors because of the tremendous number of people in attendance. For the main ceremony a large platform had been constructed in the open, and the people mobbed around it. The platform was crowded with dignitaries. C. N. Haskell, the
newly elected first governor of the state of Oklahoma, was up there, and Robert L. Owen, prominent Cherokee politician, now United States senator from Oklahoma, was also there. A band had been playing, followed by speeches from Haskell, Owen, and others. Finally a symbolic wedding ceremony was held in which a white man, young and handsome and dressed in white cowboy clothes, representing the Oklahoma Territory, was married to an Indian girl, beautiful in her white buckskin dress, representing the Indian Territory.

  A master of ceremonies stepped forward and bellowed to the crowd through a megaphone.

  “And that’s the marriage of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory—the union that has resulted in the creation of the forty-sixth state in the United States of America—the great state of Oklahoma.”

  The roar that went up from the crowd was deafening. Fireworks were set off in the background, and a few slightly rowdy celebrants fired off six-guns. In the crowd, standing beside his wife and holding his infant son, Henry Starr spoke out loud, though his voice was obscured by all the noise.

  “Why is it an Indian woman and white man?” he said. “Why not the other way around?”

  At that instant Kid Wilson came pushing his way through the crowd. Squeezing up to Henry, he leaned over as if to whisper in Henry’s ear. Yet he did not whisper. He shouted.

  “Henry,” he said, “come out of this crowd.”

  Henry handed little Theodore Roosevelt to his mother and fought his way with Kid Wilson out of the crowd. It took some doing, but they finally got away from people to a spot where they could talk unlistened to by others.

  “What’s this all about?” Henry asked.

  “The word’s out,” said Wilson, “that just as soon as Oklahoma statehood is official, Arkansas is going to ask extradition on you for that Bentonville bank job.”

  “That was years ago,” said Henry. “I’ve been straight for nearly five years and spent the nine previous in the pen. That’s counting the Fort Smith jail time.”

  “I guess them hillbillies don’t never give up.”

  “Can they do that to me, Kid?” asked Henry. “I got a pardon from the President.”

  “What I’ve been hearing is that the pardon just only covered the crime that you was in prison for at the time. You got pardoned for that, but not for anything else. Arkansas still has a live warrant on you, and it’s enforceable.”

  “But the new governor of Oklahoma will have to agree to it. Right?”

  “That’s right,” said Kid Wilson.

  Henry paced away from Kid Wilson a few steps, then paced back. He scratched his head underneath the white Stetson he wore as a dress hat.

  “Kid, you’ve got to help me,” he said. “I’m taking my family home. You stay around the capital here and find out what they decide. Call me just as soon as you know. Do you know the number?”

  “I’ve got it wrote down here,” said Wilson.

  “All right,” said Henry. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  Henry left Kid Wilson and headed back into the crowd to find his wife and child. Fireworks and gunshots continued. The celebration would last long into the night.

  26

  Henry Starr and Kid Wilson rode out of Tulsa into the night. They rode two stolen horses, and they rode west. They had no real specific plans other than to lose themselves somewhere. Henry had gotten the telephone message from Guthrie, and the message had been that Governor Haskell had approved the Arkansas request for extradition. Kid Wilson had stolen the two horses and met Henry back in Tulsa to join him on the getaway. Henry would not voluntarily go back to prison. He had never had much respect for Arkansas or its general population, and this incident simply strengthened his impression. He had not been able to face his wife with the news that he would once more become a fugitive from justice, would once again “go on the scout,” so he had secretly made his arrangements with Kid Wilson, left Olive Starr a note of brief explanation and apology, and quietly slipped out of her life.

  I should have known all along, he had told himself, that it just wasn’t meant to be. Ever since that first arrest, everything has worked toward making me a criminal. I’ve tried to go against it, and it won’t work. They won’t let me alone.

  Henry was sorry to leave Olive and Theodore Roosevelt, but he accepted his fate stoically. His sense of having been manipulated, if not by the fates, then certainly by the minions of the foreign legal system that had been thrust upon his people, allowed him to face this new twist with a bitter stoicism. He would not pine away over his loss. He would accept his fate and ride with it.

  A man is always alone, he told himself.

  Then he thought of Kid Wilson and his companionship—his friendship.

  That, too, will end, he thought. No matter how things may seem for a time, a man is always alone.

  Henry Starr and Kid Wilson rode by night. During the daylight hours they would find a place to sleep and hide until the safety of darkness returned. They slept in corn bins and barns, and they maintained this pattern until they felt that they were far enough away from Tulsa to be a bit safer. They had left the rocky foothills and wooded countryside of eastern Oklahoma behind and were riding across rolling prairie when Henry made the decision.

  “I think we’re far enough from home to cut out this night riding,” he said.

  “I could sure go for a genuine home-cooked breakfast,” said Kid Wilson.

  Henry looked ahead at a farmhouse that lay in their line of travel.

  “Let’s try that place,” he suggested.

  As the two riders moved into the yard, the farmer, a burly man about fifty years old, came out the front door of the house.

  “Fall off, boys,” he shouted, his voice open and friendly.

  Henry and Wilson dismounted.

  “Howdy,” said Henry.

  The farmer turned his head back toward the house.

  “Two more for breakfast, Mother,” he roared, “and hungry ones, too, if I’m a judge.”

  “You certainly got that one right, mister,” said Henry, “and we do appreciate your kind invitation. Is it all right if we water our horses here before we go in?”

  “Right over there. Water and feed. Help yourselves. We don’t get many visitors out here. A bit off the beaten path, we are, I’d say.”

  “Well,” said Kid Wilson, “we’re just as glad to have found you in our path.”

  At the breakfast table the jolly farmer talked incessantly, although somehow that fact didn’t seem to interfere any with his eating. He ate mounds of potatoes, any number of fried eggs, great stacks of pancakes, and countless slices of bacon. His wife was constantly refilling his coffee cup. Henry and Kid Wilson did their share of damage to the larder, having been for several days with only trail food, and the farmer’s talk didn’t bother them at all.

  “Yeah, boys,” the farmer said while chewing, “I’ve done right well. I settled this farm the day of the big opening back in ’89. Three hundred and twenty acres. And to prove that hard work pays off, I just last month turned down an offer of sixteen thousand for it.”

  He took a great slurp from his coffee cup.

  “Well, sir,” said Henry, “I congratulate you on your staying power. You have a fine-looking place here.”

  The big opening of ’89, thought Henry. The high-handed taking away of land from Indians followed by the casual giving of it to the whites. Worse. To the poor white trash. This farmer had probably had nothing before the opening. Otherwise there would have been no reason for him to have taken part in the process. This was his home. Then he had no other. He had nothing before. The government had taken the land away from Indians so that poor whites, with nothing, could take the land for themselves and, in a few years, have assets worth sixteen thousand dollars. Yet the farmer was hospitable, and Henry could not bring himself to hate the man. He could hate the government that had perpetrated the grand theft, but not the farmer.

  Riding out from the farm later, Henry did not reveal any of these thoughts to Kid Wi
lson.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, “for genuine, unaffected, all wool and a yard wide hospitality, the Oklahoman may be equaled but not surpassed.”

  “Yeah,” said Kid Wilson, “it was a good breakfast.”

  They made a camp that night. The land was barren and harsh. They ate hardtack and jerky, and over a small fire they boiled coffee for Kid Wilson. Henry drank water.

  “Where you reckon we are by now?” said Wilson.

  “I think we’re about dead center in that No Man’s Land,” said Henry.

  “Is that still Oklahoma?” said Wilson.

  Henry chuckled.

  “Just barely,” he said.

  Oklahoma’s panhandle, formerly known as No Man’s Land, is the only state area so designated that, pictured on a map, is worthy of its name. An elongated and nugatory excresence shooting off into the west from the extreme northwestern corner of the state, it’s not much more than a wide border between Texas and southern Colorado and Kansas. Pictured from the back of a horse, it’s desolate, barren, windswept, and lonely. No Man’s Land seems the best name for it then, for it has the appearance of a land that no man would want or could survive in. Its only real function seems to be to prevent its northern neighbors from having to touch Texas.

  “I figure Kansas is only about sixteen miles over there,” Henry went on. “Texas is about twenty. And we can’t be more than about sixty or seventy miles out of Colorado and New Mexico.”