Medicine Bundle

by Patrick E. Andrews

  Silsby McCracken shivered and pulled up the muffler around his face to cover his mouth and nose. He, Charlie Ainsley, Dennis Nettles, and Tommy Chatsworth sat their horses alongside a copse of dormant trees. The wind surged now and again to make the leafless limbs scrape against each other with an ominous noise. “Damn!” Charlie said. “That sounds like the devil scratching his ass, don’t it?”

  “I hate winter,” Tommy remarked.

  “Shit!” Silsby said. “You don’t know what winter is, you tenderfoot.”

  Tommy growled. “If I have to hear about Montana one more godamned time, I’m gonna puke.”

  “Me too,” Dennis said.

  “Y’all’re just jealous ’cause y’all ain’t had the experiences me and Charlie had,” Silsby countered.

  “Ha! Some great experiences,” Tommy chided.

  Charlie interrupted, saying, “Let’s get to work, boys.” Since he was the oldest and had once been their foreman, Charlie had quickly evolved as the leader of the small gang. It was almost habit for the others to follow his orders.

  The four were on a fenced-in spread near the Washita River in the old Cheyenne and Arapaho country. They had pulled down a section of the barbed-wire barrier only minutes before. This was their first venture into that area, and they had heard of that night’s target through casual conversation with a traveler passing through Kensaw. The fellow, who had stopped in Pete Baker’s saloon to wet his whistle, told them of a man who specialized in raising horses for the Army. It was a large operation that supplied mounts for Fort Sill, Fort Supply and Fort Gibson. With the cavalry’s constant need for horses, the business was a virtual gold mine.

  Now the four cowboys rode out onto the dark prairie, carefully following the dips and rises in the rolling terrain. They instinctively stayed below the dim skyline as they navigated toward their destination. After a slow ride of some fifty yards, Charlie reined up, announcing, “Take a look! You can barely see ’em out there.”

  Silsby squinted his eyes and stared through the gloom. “Damn, Charlie! There must be a couple of hunnerd head!”

  “More’n that,” Charlie said.

  Dennis looked around. “I don’t see no guards or campfires.”

  “This feller ain’t expecting rustlers,” Charlie said. “I reckon they ain’t been no trouble around here since the Injuns in the old days.”

  “‘til tonight,” Silsby said.

  Charlie grinned. “Right! ‘til tonight.”

  “They’ll be guards out after this,” Dennis opined.

  “Yeah,” Charlie said. “We’re here for our first and last time. This feller is a big-time operator. He can afford to hire reg’lar guards to watch his place. Maybe even Pinkerton men like the railroads do.”

  Despite the easy appearance of the job, the four were heavily armed in case of an unexpected incident. Each sported a Winchester carbine in a saddle scabbard. They also had two-dozen Colt and Remington revolvers between them stashed in holsters and saddlebags. So far in their past raids, they had been lucky in confrontations with guards. Although they had exchanged shots on several occasions, no one had gotten as much as a bullet’s nick on either side. Charlie attributed this good luck to being in the right place at the right time.

  “Listen up!” he said. “We’ll go east and south, then turn them horses toward the north and west. Them animals is broke in, so they don’t need no loud yelling or whistling to get ’em to move.” He looked at his companions to make sure all had heard his words. “All right! Let’s go!”

  They went to work with the same efficiency developed during their days on the Rocking H Ranch. The four communicated through silent signaling to get the horses moving in the desired direction toward the destroyed section of fence. The intruders did not alarm the trained mounts, and the animals’ equine moods remained calm as they walked along under the quiet guidance of the gang. The stamping of hundreds of hooves on the frozen grass and patches of snow made sharp crunching noises in the frigid night.

  Within a quarter of an hour, herd and thieves were well on their way toward the nearest crossing on the Washita. Charlie sent Tommy back to see if any pursuit had been mounted against them. A quarter-hour later he rejoined them to announce there was no signs of irate ranch hands. “That feller might not get around to checking his herd for a day or two,” Charlie said.

  “Yep,” Silsby agreed. “He’ll think they’re snug behind that barbed wire.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Hell, we’ll prob’ly be back in Kensaw when he finally finds they been rustled.”

  “Well, I ain’t for taking any chances,” Silsby said as they splashed across the Washita and headed toward the Canadian. “Let’s keep moving.”

  The quartet of rustlers had been operating all through the previous summer and fall and into the new year of 1891. They knew exactly what to expect if they were ever captured. Instant death by hanging, as they would have done in dealing with horse or cattle thieves in their days as cowboys. Charlie made sure they conducted their raids over a wide area, and didn’t establish patterns that would make it easy for the law or vengeful ranchers to set traps or ambushes for them.

  The income they earned came from a man by the name of Marvin Waring. He was a lawyer in Wichita who dabbled in several enterprises that meandered on both sides of the law. He kept holding pens on a ranch he owned near the town of Liberal, Kansas. The place was in an isolated area with both Texas and the Oklahoma Territory within easy distance. The locale was also noted for the way the inhabitants minded their own business.

  The looted herds could be kept indefinitely on Waring’s property for the creation of bogus paperwork regarding ownership. Other activity included altering of brands and ear notches prior to shipment to legitimate markets. Silsby, Charlie, Dennis, and Tommy were always paid off in cash. They knew better than to use any banks to hold their money. Footloose drifters making large deposits would attract attention. They located a secluded spot in the bottom of an isolated gully north of Kensaw where they dug a cache. A certain amount of their earnings were stashed away in a metal box they wrapped in a castoff slicker. The big plan was to keep the money hidden until enough was saved to head for Texas and buy that ranch of their dreams.

  At first the stalwart rustlers agreed to put three-quarters of their gains away, with Silsby using his book learning in arithmetic to figure out the correct amount. This left them the remainder to either spend on necessities or squander on drinking and whoring. Their expenses were few, having to do mostly with livery fees, food, and room rent paid to the Baker Hotel in Kensaw.

  The items in the squandering column of their ledger put the most pressure on their finances. They began going broke before the next job so many times that it was mutually agreed that instead of three-quarters, they would put away two-thirds. “And that’s plenty, fellers,” Charlie assured them.

  “Yeah,” Silsby echoed. “We’re doing damn good saving that much for the ranch.”

  A little less than a month went by under the new system when the four noticed that the increase in frivolity had added to their thirst and passion so that they were still not making it through the desired period of debauchery before emptying their pockets. They decided that salting away half the loot was the proper and most sensible thing to do. “They ain’t nobody as saves money like us,” Charlie said. “How many folks spend only half what they earn?” The others happily acquiesced to this new arrangement, agreeing it was just too much to carry on with a three-quarters or two-thirds savings plan.

  This new arrangement hardly lasted three weeks.

  Kensaw’s evolving atmosphere was the cause of the constant drain on the boys’ funds. This was not only because of the perpetual increase in vice available in the town, but a new type of migrant population was now moving in and out of the place. These were all men who, like Silsby and his friends, earned their money the easy way.

  The new territory was wide-open and poorly policed, surrounded by a plethora of tempting targets such as
banks, trains, and travelers where stick-up men could ply their violent trade with little fear of being apprehended. The best place was Kansas, where an expedition of plundering could be successfully concluded with a quick easy escape back to the Oklahoma Territory.

  These outlaws’ contribution to the local economy was not lost on the Kensaw businessmen, and they openly offered sanctuary to the criminals. The merchants also charged plenty for their faithful guardianship. Liquor cost more, whores charged more, and the gambling games were more crooked than in other places.

  The high cost of entertainment continued to hit Silsby and his three friends in a bad way. They went down to saving a third, than a quarter of their loot until they ceased going to their saving cache at all. They quickly adapted to a lifestyle of pulling jobs, then going directly to Kensaw where they squandered every dime they earned. The thought of getting that ranch in Texas still danced in the back of their minds, but was never talked about.

  Unfortunately, the prices in Kensaw kept going up at an alarming rate. It wasn’t long before the quartet was dipping into the cache in the gully until all those greenbacks were in the coffers of community merchants.

  Now, driving the latest stolen herd across the Cimarron River toward Waring’s place, they crossed into Kansas, veering into a northwest direction. In less than an hour they reached a large section of pasturage near a cluster of buildings. “Hold ’em here,” Charlie said. He rode up to the structures, dismounting in front of the largest. He went inside for a few minutes before emerging with a tall, lanky fellow at his side. They both waved at the other three, pointing to a large corral off to the south.

  Silsby, Dennis, and Tommy got the horses moving for the last time, heading them toward the enclosure. Within only a few minutes, the animals were inside and barricaded. The man with Charlie stepped up on one of the corral railings. He was called Stubbs, and was Waring’s buying agent. He chewed a large wad of tobacco while carefully surveying the herd. “Them’s fine horses, boys,” he pronounced.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah. A feller passing through Kensaw told us about ’em. They come from an outfit that raises horses for the Army. But this is one bunch of critters no soljer-boy is ever gonna ride.”

  “Hey! I don’t want to know where they come from or where they was supposed to go,” Stubbs said. “The less I know the better it is for you.” He looked at the herd again, counting. “You got forty-eight head.”

  “Fifty-one,” Silsby interjected.

  Stubbs feigned counting again. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Top price,” Charlie insisted.

  “Not quite top,” Stubbs said. “These is gonna be a little harder to sell seeing as how they’re all proper broke in. Once they’re found missing, somebody is gonna be more’n casual curious as to where they was took.” He paused thoughtfully. “Twenty dollars a head.”

  “Twenty dollars?” Charlie said angrily. “Them’s fifty dollar horses under any circumstances and that’s less’n half the market price.”

  Stubbs grinned wisely. “Do you want to sell them horses in Wichita? Go right ahead. We won’t do it for you and you’ll get pure profit.” He let that sink in for a moment, then added, “And about ten years in jail.”

  “I’ll tell you flat out that we ain’t taking no twenty dollars,” Charlie said.

  “We’ll turn ’em aloose before we do that,” Silsby warned.

  “Yeah!” piped Dennis and Tommy simultaneously.

  “Now simmer down,” Stubbs said. “I’m just pricing out loud in my head. Let a man think without jumping down his godamned throat, will you?” He looked back at the herd as he considered what to offer. “Twenty-five a head.”

  This began a flurry of offers and counter offers until the final price of thirty-five dollars for each horse was reached. After the deal was finalized and the price paid, the four rustlers immediately left the property. They rode in a direct southeast direction toward Kensaw.

  Each had close to four hundred and fifty dollars in his overcoat pockets.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lorenzo Markham, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, learned his trade in the law offices of an attorney who was desperately crooked. The employer spent years milking a half-dozen trust funds assigned to him by the local courts, until the depletions became so apparent that several banks reported him to the authorities.

  His greed could be attributed to keeping two mistresses in grand style along with regular payments to a blackmailer who threatened to reveal all the sordid details to the lawyer’s independently wealthy wife. If she learned of his numerous dalliances, the lady would have immediately cut off his access to her family’s fortune. This would mean a loss to him of everything: the company of beautiful women, expensive clothes, eating in the best restaurants, and other luxuries required for the demands of a truly bon vivant lifestyle.

  But eventually, as happens in many cases, all the intrigues and lies began to unravel in a downhill spiral of revelations and betrayals. This began, of course, with his exposure as an embezzler. From that point on, the attorney’s fall from grace was accelerated simultaneously but by a spurned mistress and a rival for another courtesan’s affections

  The wife, the courts, and the public found out everything.

  The lawyer went to prison broke, disgraced, and divorced. By that time Lorenzo Markham was licensed by the Ohio Bar Association to practice his profession in that state. After stealing the expensive law library from his ex-employer’s abandoned office, he went out to establish his own place in the legal profession.

  Markham learned several important lessons from the incident. One should pick one’s projects carefully, then as things progressed, pile on layer after layer of procedural confusion. This could gradually be accomplished enough to muddy the waters of his activities to the extent that only an exhaustive investigation would reveal any misconduct on his part. And such an undertaking would be extremely costly to anyone curious enough to want to dig into his business. Thus, the practice of covering up quickly became an on-going procedure in the running of the office.

  An intelligent practitioner of extralegal law should also develop a dupe or two to take the hits in case any slick deals were exposed. Unfortunately the young lawyer was unable to test this self-discovered maxim because older established attorneys in the city had already taken up all opportunities for legalized pilfering. And they had no welcome mats out for younger partners or competitors.

  Never one to surrender to circumstances, young Markham turned his attention westward, where he soon discovered opportunities in the Indian Nations. His instincts told him it was only a matter of time before government and commercial interests would use their powers to wrest great tracts of lands from the Five Civilized Tribes. Markham set up a new office in Kansas with Lionel Densberg, the clerk from his old law firm. Markham admired Densberg because he was discrete and had no scruples. In fact, it had been Densberg who helped him carry the purloined law books out of the old office.

  Another of Densberg’s attributes — as far as Markham was concerned — was that the man harbored no private or personal ambitions. The clerk recognized his own shortcomings, such as the inabilities to get people to follow his lead, his chronic indecisiveness, and an appalling lack of foresight. The humble little man happily hitched his star to Markham’s wagon knowing the self-driven young attorney was heading straight to the top of the heap. He also realized his value to his new boss. Densberg was not only an efficient clerk with a phenomenal memory, but he would never turn from a faithful follower into a snarling rival. He was the perfect lackey who would work himself to weeping exhaustion for a better man.

  When Markham and Densberg arrived in Kansas, they began a deep probing of the situation. It became quickly apparent that the railroads would profit the most from the opening of new lands. Further investigation revealed the line with the best potential was the Missouri Valley and Arkansas Railroad. Markham confidently made an appointment to meet with the MV&A’s president in the railroad’s
main office in Saint Louis. This was an ruthless man named John Pritcher.

  Markham’s preliminary interview with Pritcher did not start off well for the attorney. Pritcher coolly informed him that his company already had a staff of lawyers working for them in cahoots with no less than a half dozen lobbyists who did nothing but maintain contact with congressmen in Washington. They also stalked the offices and halls of the state legislatures of Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas.

  Markham was not deterred in the slightest.

  “I am not suggesting that I play the political game, sir,” Markham said. “I have taken note of several groups of people who are even now making illegal excursions into the desired land. They are a disorganized mob of naive individuals accomplishing nothing except to get themselves run out of the Indian Territory predictably and regularly. I have formed plans to pull them together and direct them in such a way that will attract positive attention. This will prove impressive enough to influence legislators more effectively than a legion of lobbyists.” Then he slyly added, “Of course a great knowledge of law will hurry the project along in a sure, safe manner.”

  Pritcher was intrigued enough to listen to more. Lorenzo Markham was as articulate and intelligent as would be expected of any young amoral attorney. Additionally, he had sparkling glints of subterfuge and guile dancing through his eyes. He seemed oilier than the oiliest attorney on the railroad’s legal staff at that time.

  Markham outlined his plans for working in two areas, i.e. the Cherokee Strip and a lesser known connected region called the Medicine Bundle Grasslands. The lawyer planned to use two-pronged attacks, launching dual groups of squatters into the regions in coordinated efforts that would force the authorities to exert extra effort to expel them. He also wanted to publish a newspaper that would be distributed mainly in southern Kansas with additional copies going to the politicians that had the interest and influence to bring about desired changes.

  Markham was hired, and he and Densberg returned to Kansas to begin organizing the Boomers there. They hired a reporter named Ed Byron off the Wichita Eagle to begin work on a newspaper to be known as the Boomer Gazette. When that part of the operation was in order, Markham and Densberg began to coordinate activities in the Cherokee Strip proper.