Medicine Bundle

by Patrick E. Andrews

  Markham earned his money. Hearings began to be organized, attention was called to the potential of the area, and politicians took up the cause with pecuniary support from highly-placed sources such as the Missouri Valley and Arkansas Railroad.

  The final result was that fateful day of April 22, 1889.

  ~*~

  While the recently homesteaded lands were being broken by plows, Lorenzo Markham and Lionel Densberg settled in the town of Medicine Bundle, O.T. for a period of observation of the various situations evolving in the new area.

  The pair, both confirmed bachelors totally dedicated to their joint ambitions, worked out of a couple of rooms on the top floor of the recently constructed Broadway Hotel. Markham began his commercial activities by dealing in land purchases and sales. Plenty of over-ambitious and ill-suited new landowners had begun going broke on their new claims almost immediately. The turnover produced enough money for the attorney and clerk to keep going as they sought a meaningful niche in the new political and commercial environment. The sole criterion was to accumulate operating funds. If something was a little shady, so be it as long as they were able to cover their tracks. The pair’s former employer’s fate was always in the back of their minds.

  The awaited opportunity to grab a big hunk of the territorial pie came unexpectedly one afternoon when Densberg returned from the land office after filing a quick buy and resale they had turned over in a two-day period. The clerk walked into their hotel room and hung up his hat. “Say, Mr. Markham,” he said, sitting down at his small desk. “Down at the land office, somebody said that a new federal marshal is going to be appointed for this area. It appears as if Nolan Sinclair will get the job.”

  Markham, going over a deed of sale, looked up. “Now there’s an interesting development.”

  “It doesn’t sound like much of a job to me.”

  “On the contrary, Lionel old man. It presents a great opportunity for Nolan Sinclair. He’s well qualified. The fellows that go out and get the criminals don’t have to possess great intellects. They must only be fearless with a streak of meanness in their make-up.”

  “Nolan Sinclair fills that bill all right,” Densberg said.

  “Think about it,” Markham said. “Law and order is being organized in our newly established territory. There’re going to be —” He stopped speaking, sinking into deep deliberation for a short time. Suddenly he exclaimed, “United States district attorney!”

  “Sir?”

  “If a U.S. marshal is going to be appointed here, then there must be a U.S. district attorney to supervise him.”

  “Here in Medicine Bundle?”

  “Of course,” Markham said. “It’s only a matter of time for the office to be established.”

  “I believe you’re correct in that assumption,” Densberg said.

  “Take a letter, Lionel old man.”

  Densberg fetched his pad and pencil.

  “Let’s see,” Markham said, setting his mind to work. “To His Honor Harold Ross, Judge of the Federal Court in Wichita, Kansas. Your Honor. It has been brought to my attention of the potential appointment of a Federal district attorney for the Medicine Bundle District in the Oklahoma Territory. May I humbly put myself forward as a candidate for this most important position?”

  Markham continued his dictation as Densberg’s pencil scratched across the pages of the pad.

  ~*~

  The receipt of Markham’s petition in Wichita set about a chain of events that reverberated back and forth between Kansas and the Oklahoma Territory. Markham sallied forth from his office to call in a few favors. He approached all his cohorts from the land settlement campaign, getting enthusiastic endorsement from land agents, John Pritcher of the MV&A Railroad, and — most importantly — two Kansas congressmen. The Senate Judicial Committee in Washington finalized the hullabaloo during a brief afternoon’s session.

  In less than ninety days of the letter’s posting, newly-appointed U.S. District Attorney Lorenzo Markham and Chief Clerk Lionel Densberg opened their office above the First Citizens Bank in Medicine Bundle.

  ~*~

  It was on a rainy spring evening when a very somber and grumpy Marshal Nolan Sinclair stepped off the train in Medicine Bundle. He made his way from the depot to the business district to meet his new boss in the yet unfinished office. The light rain spattered around him as he walked through the streets of the town.

  When he entered the district attorney’s facilities he found a large open room with only two desks. Lorenzo Markham sat at one, and Lionel Densberg at the other. Sinclair ignored Densberg as he walked up to Markham. “It’s been a while since I seen you.”

  “Marshal Sinclair!” Markham exclaimed. “Congratulations on your appointment from deputy to full marshal.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I believe we last spoke at the Federal hearing in Clarkville, did we not?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course you know my clerk Densberg.”

  “Yeah,” Sinclair said. He nodded to the clerk. “Howdy.”

  “Hello, Marshal.”

  “Densberg is my good right arm,” Markham said fondly. “You’ll learn to appreciate him as much as I do, Marshal.”

  “Sure,” Sinclair said. “I hope to hell you’ve made arrangements for proper funding.”

  Densberg thrust himself into the conversation. “We have the budget, and that includes hiring a stenographer.”

  “I thought that’d be your job,” Sinclair said.

  “I am the chief clerk, Marshal!” Densberg snapped.

  “Well, I reckon you’ll be good at that too,” Sinclair remarked.

  “Speaking of jobs,” Markham said. “I see from the information sent me that we’ll also be given the authorization to bring a deputy marshal onto our staff.”

  “That’s the way it works,” Sinclair said.

  “Well, Marshal, I’ll leave the recruitment of the extra law officer completely up to you. After all, you two will be working in the field together.”

  Sinclair was pleased with that arrangement. He was afraid Markham might have a crony for the job. “Now I really appreciate that, Mr. District Attorney. I’ll pick a good man, don’t you worry none about that.”

  “I’m certain you will, Marshal.”

  “The only problem is that we ain’t gonna be able to get a man any too soon,” Sinclair said. “The Federal Marshal Service is shorthanded and ever’one is on assignment right now. We might end up with an inexperienced feller.”

  “We’ll make do one way or the other, Marshal,” Markham said. He took out his pocket watch. “It’s late and I think we should call it a day. Tomorrow we can set about organizing this office into what it should be.”

  ~*~

  By the next day Densberg had demonstrated his remarkable ability to get mundane and routine tasks taken care of quickly and efficiently. Before mid-morning he had carpenters installing walls to partition separate offices in the new space. A sign painter carefully followed the chief clerk’s instructions, by neatly lettering the oval glass window in the front door.

  Office of

  LORENZO MARKHAM

  UNITED STATES DISTRICT ATTORNEY

  And

  U.S. Marshal Nolan Sinclair

  While the construction and painting went on, Densberg interviewed several ladies as candidates for stenographer. Of the four who applied for the job, he chose Miss Sarah Mullins, a spinster who resided with her sister and brother-in-law in a large frame house at the edge of town. Miss Mullins had served as a judge’s clerk in Topeka for several years before moving to the Oklahoma Territory.

  On the third day following Sinclair’s arrival, the organization was firmly established in the new quarters. Both Markham and Sinclair had their own offices. Densberg had a partitioned area labeled with his title of chief clerk while Miss Mullins occupied a desk at the door where she could greet visitors. An extra desk for the future deputy marshal was next to Sinclair’s.

  The first or
der of business was for Sinclair to meet with Markham and bring him up to date on criminal activity in the Medicine Bundle area. The two men, with a pot of coffee between them, sat down behind closed doors.

  “We ain’t got any big problems right now,” Sinclair said. “But little things has started to pop up, and the situation is gonna get worser.”

  “Give me some examples,” Markham said, sitting back and sipping his coffee.

  “Groups of armed men has been seen traveling through Medicine Bundle,” Sinclair said. “Some of the descriptions match known outlaws. They ain’t stayed or done nothing, but they’re giving the place a good look-see.”

  “Mmm. That is a bad sign.”

  “Yeah. And then we got the town of Kensaw.”

  “Kensaw? I’m not familiar with the community,” Markham remarked.

  “It’s a small place that’s been out there since the Grassland days,” Sinclair explained. “It was no more than a bunch of tumble-down buildings where cowboys and drifters could get drunk and dally with saloon gals. Since the opening of the territory it’s got a mite fancier. In fact, it’s a legal town now.”

  “Perhaps it’s much tamer.”

  “Nope. The looks of the place is better, but the folks that live there is the same,” Sinclair said. “They’re harboring criminals and they’s a rough element that’s moved in. I know for a fact that wanted men has used the town for a hideout. I went over to Kensaw a couple of times looking for certain fellers, having good information that’s where they was. But nobody would tell me nothing.”

  “It sounds like it’s going to be a trouble spot.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Sinclair said. “Another thing is some former cowboys that hang out in the town. All of ’em used to work on Dewey Harknell’s ranch. I got a real strong hunch they’re involved in something crooked. They’s four of ’em who ride off for days at a time, then come back with plenty of money to spend.”

  “Could it be that they go off and rob banks?”

  “Or trains or whatever,” Sinclair said. “I’ll figger it out before long. They’re doing whatever it is they’re doing reg’lar as clockwork. They act like they own the Territory.”

  “Mmm,” Markham mused. “Arrogant rascals, hey?”

  “Yeah. I take it as a personal slap in my face. Personal. Real personal. It’ll sure help to get a deputy marshal to help me out.”

  “You can hire him anytime, Marshal Sinclair.”

  “I’ll make it as soon as I can.”

  The two men continued their meeting, discussing other areas of potential trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The harmonica player, being the leader of the band, stood to the front of his ensemble of a fiddler, guitarist, and snare drummer. This collection of bumpkin musicians was loud and almost in tune, thus meeting all the requirements to perform at a Kensaw barn dance.

  Silsby McCracken, one foot on top of a watering trough, watched the dancers whoop and whirl in the lantern light thrown over the farmyard. Charlie Ainsley, holding onto a stout farm girl, took her prancing around in quick circles. Dennis Nettles also had a partner, but Tommy Chatsworth was more interested in the tapped whiskey barrel set up on a rough-hewn table at the edge of the festivities. The young cowboy, so glib with saloon women, was shy and awkward around the girls attending the dance. These were farmers’ daughters who had to be addressed with at least a semblance of decorum.

  This barn dance was one of many that had become customary in the Kensaw area on Saturday nights. A donation of two bits was collected from each male attendee to compensate the host for the use of his property as well as pay for the beer and whiskey. A little of the kitty went to the musicians.

  Similar affairs were held around Medicine Bundle for people who lived in that area. Those bucolic galas in that part of the old Grasslands, however, were much more sedate. The people attending were expected to conduct themselves with some restraint. A few older men, accompanied by one or two husky young farmers, acted as chaperones to make sure no troublemakers marred the festivities. Anybody desiring noisier and wilder Saturday nights had to go all the way down to Kensaw for a good time.

  However, the Medicine Bundle affairs did have their share of drinkers. Most of the hardworking farmers were there for one reason and one reason only: to get as drunk as possible. The homesteaders, after a long week of laboring in the fields, intended to drown their weariness in hard liquor.

  At the end of the evening, the heavy drinkers would be led, staggering and lurching, to their wagons by angry wives for the ride back home. Most slept in the beds of the vehicles in the company of their snickering kids as they bounced down country lanes to their farms. An extremely vexed wife might let the drunken spouse sleep it off through the night in the wagon if she wasn’t in the mood to wrestle her man into the house.

  Over in Kensaw, where the drinking went hand-in-hand with wild behavior, Silsby McCracken and his pards had begun to be regular attendees at the boisterous celebrations. Silsby wasn’t a graceful dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but he had learned a few steps in the saloon in Little Boite, Montana where the gals would trip the light fantastic with a cowboy for five cents. Silsby had enjoyed those opportunities to hold a woman without having to pay for a trip upstairs. The round softness of their bodies was sensual, yet had a calming effect that gave him a feeling of humanness that overrode the rough world of cattle punching.

  Going to a barn dance and associating with the farmers’ daughters was even more pleasant. They danced for free just to have a good time. It was a shared experience he appreciated. The episodes soothed the young cowboy into a mood of sociableness.

  At first Silsby was happy to grab any available partner for a whirl around the yard. But a certain young lady caught his eye one evening. Her name was Mildred Duncan, and she lived on a farm five miles south of Kensaw. Her father was a white man and her mother Cherokee. The couple had lived on their place for almost fifteen years. During the troubles on the old Grasslands, no one in authority had given their property much notice, since they were well-known in the area. When the order came for the cattlemen to vacate the Medicine Bundle Grasslands and the Cherokee Strip, the fact that a Cherokee woman lived there with her husband, put them in a category that didn’t meet either Marshal Nolan Sinclair’s nor Lieutenant Grant Hollings’ criteria for removal. They ignored the family’s holdings as they chased Boomers and, later, Sooners out of the area.

  When the Run began, Mildred’s father put down stakes where they already lived, and rushed to the new land office in Medicine Bundle to register his property. The ploy worked, and the Duncan family went on with their lives as usual. They slipped undetected through the rules and regulations during the confused first days following the Run.

  Sixteen-year-old Mildred was dark and short with a slight tendency to plumpness. Her raven-black hair, smooth and shiny, was worn in a bun, and her facial features were Indian with the exception of a light sprinkling of freckles across her small nose. Silsby McCracken thought her the prettiest girl he had ever seen. At first he admired her from afar until the night he concluded he either had to make his affection known or some other fellow surely would. She seemed to go out on just about every dance, and he had to time himself for the right moment when she would be alone and available for a turn around the farmyard. He was too slow the first couple of opportunities. Each time he tried to get her attention, he was foiled when some farm boy made a prompt appearance at her side. Silsby, controlling both his temper and impatience, would walk on past as if he had something else on his mind. Then he returned to the water trough to bide his time for another chance.

  By the fourth dance, his timing was right. Silsby managed to walk up to her before anybody else. “Would you care to dance?” he asked.

  Mildred looked up at him with a pleased smile. “I’d be happy to.”

  They walked onto the dance area and stood in silence for a moment until the music started. He was glad it was a slo
w tune. It would be easier to converse with the girl. Silsby thought fast, trying to come up with something to say, but she was the first to speak. “You’re Silsby McCracken, ain’t you?”

  Surprised, he replied, “Yeah.”

  “I’m Mildred Duncan.”

  “It’s nice to know you. How’s come you know my name?”

  “Oh, all the girls know about you!”

  “They do?”

  “You run with Charlie Ainsley and them others, don’t you?” Mildred said. “You’re a pretty wild bunch.”

  Silsby felt cocky. “We have our fun, I reckon.”

  “I just reckon you do!” she said. “I heard a lot about you fellers.”

  “What’ve you heard?”

  “That y’all don’t take no guff off nobody,” Mildred said. “Somebody said you four just about run Kensaw. Is ‘at right?”

  “I reckon it is” Silsby said, feeling confident. His dancing loosened up as he moved with the rhythm of the music while they whirled around with the crowd. When the band stopped, they stood together for a moment or two. “How about if we go over and have some sarsaparilla punch?” he asked. “Or they got some homemade root beer too.”

  “I bet you’d rather drink whiskey, wouldn’t you?” Mildred asked. “I saw you with them others over there drinking it down.”

  Silsby stuck his thumbs in his belt in what he hoped would be a manly pose. “A man likes to take a drink now and then.”

  “Say! I bet you do!” Mildred said. “But I’d be pleased to drink some of that root beer.”

  “Well, let’s go on over there then.” It became apparent to Silsby that he also had a reputation as a desperado of sorts among the young men. He noticed none came over to interrupt his conversation with Mildred to ask her for a dance. He got them a couple of cups of root beer. “They’s a bench over by the barn door,” Silsby said, handing her the drink. “Want to sit for a spell?”