The Killings of Stanley Ketchel

by James Carlos Blake

  About what? That she wasn’t the trolley girl? Hell, I knew that.

  You’re sorry she wasn’t Kate. You’re sorry the trolley girl wasn’t Kate. You’re sorry none of them is ever—

  Cut it out.

  If you say so.

  Oh, man…

  Tell her you’re sorry. Tell her and square it.

  She doesn’t rate it.

  Square it for you, man. It wasn’t jake and you know it.

  All right, all right, enough of this bullshit.

  He took the Colt out from under his pillow, where he tucked it every night, then got out of bed and laid the gun beside the washbasin on the dresser.

  He washed and got dressed. He was about to go out when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He took a fighting stance in front of it and began throwing punches, his fists moving in a blur and his head bobbing as he at once tried to hit himself and evade his own attack. He kept at it for several minutes before finally dropping his hands, his chest heaving. Then snaked one more punch at the fellow in the mirror who struck back in the same instant and neither of them flinched and both grinned bigger.

  “Call it a draw?” They traded winks.

  HE WENT OUT and across the parlor and into the dining room. There was a plate with leftover flapjacks and syrup at one of the places at the table, a mug with a little coffee still in it, a wadded napkin. Another place at the table was set with silverware and a cup and a fresh and folded napkin.

  Goldie came out from the kitchen and looked at him without meeting his eyes. “Ready for breakfast?”

  “You bet. I see hubby already had his. He tended to the horses?”

  “He’s doing it now. I’ll get your breakfast.”

  He sat down at the set place, his back to the kitchen door. She returned with a plate of flapjacks and sausage and a mug of smoky coffee. She still would not look at him directly.

  “Awful shy this morning.”

  “I’ll get you more butter.”

  “Wait a minute, listen.” He turned in his chair, and she paused at the kitchen door and looked at him without expression.

  “Ah…about last night, I just want to say I’m—”

  “Don’t! Please. Let’s don’t talk about it, not ever.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  Well hell. If that’s the way she wanted it.

  He’d eaten only a few bites when he heard the rear door of the kitchen open and close and the woman say, “Oh God, no.”

  He looked over his shoulder to see Walt Hurtz standing in the kitchen door, holding the little Remington at the hip and pointed at him.

  “Tell her you’re sorry, goddamn you,” Walt said.

  “What?”

  “Walt, please—” Goldie said. She stepped up beside him, her eyes frantic.

  “No, he’s gonna tell you he’s sorry! Go on, tell her!”

  “Sorry?” Ketchel said. “For what?”

  “You know goddamn good and well for what, you son of a bitch! Now tell her! Say you’re sorry!”

  Ketchel stood up and faced him. Walt backed up a step and raised the rifle to chest level. Ketchel gauged the distance between himself and the muzzle.

  “Tell her, I said!”

  “Quit yelling or you’re gonna get me sore.” He turned toward Goldie, shifting his weight and setting himself. “What’d you tell this moron?”

  Walt cut his eyes at her and Ketchel lunged and snatched the rifle aside, Walt’s finger slipping off the trigger. He shouldered Walt hard against the door jamb and wrested the gun from him, then slapped him, dislodging his cap.

  Walt gaped at him, his eyes wide and watering and his nose abruptly running. Ketchel’s handprint bright red on his cheek.

  “You sorry little puke,” Ketchel said. He held the rifle like a pistol and jabbed Walt in the chest with the muzzle. “Real killer, huh?”

  Walt cringed at the touch of the muzzle. His mouth twitched.

  “Take some advice, moron. You want to kill a man, use a real gun, not a toy like this.” He waggled the barrel in Walt’s face and laughed. “You’da shot me with this, I’da said ouch and then took it from you and rammed it so far up your ass it woulda come out your nose.”

  He looked at Goldie, who stood paralyzed with her fists to her mouth, her eyes huge.

  “This stupid hillbilly’s exactly what you deserve,” Ketchel told her. He tossed the rifle on the bed. “Get out of here, both of you. You’re fired.”

  He turned and sat down to resume his breakfast and was raising the fork to his mouth when Goldie cried, “No!”

  He was halfway out of his chair when the rifleshot shook the room and he was punched hard on the back and lurched forward and jarred the table and then fell to his knees and folded to the floor. He couldn’t catch his breath. He saw the fine grain of the floor planks under his face and felt sick to his stomach and thought he might throw up and then closed his eyes and felt slightly better. He heard the woman saying Oh God oh God and Hurtz saying He had it coming goddamnit he did and then their voices incomprehensibly fast and urgent and then she was saying No listen listen here’s what happened and then again he couldn’t understand their words and then heard heavy fast steps going out of the room and he felt something on his cheek and he knew it was the woman’s hand and he wanted to open his eyes but couldn’t and he sensed her face near his and heard her ask in a whisper if he was alive and heard himself groan and her hand left him and again heavy running steps and Hurtz saying I got it I got it and he felt hands at his pockets and heard steps hurrying into the kitchen and the screech of the rear door and voices outside and a shout of I shot the son of a bitch!

  HE KNEW HE’D been unconscious but sensed that it hadn’t been long. He was not breathing well, as if something sharply rigid were wedged high under his ribs near the base of his throat. He could not overcome his astonishment at being floored by a .22 round. He made it to hands and knees but when he tried to stand up the floor swayed and he fell over. He was able to get back to all fours, then moved ahead ponderously, each forward placement of hand and knee a grunting effort, the floor seeming to give to right and left with each shifting of his weight as if it were a thin raft afloat. His improbable notion was to get to his gun and go after Hurtz. He traversed the dining room and made the parlor, blood dripping from his chin, smearing on the planks under his knees. He several times collapsed and then was crawling again. Now he was in his room and paused to rest. Now at the dresser and pausing again, thinking It was only a goddamn .22 for Christ’s sake, you only had the wind knocked out of you, that’s all, you’re all right, you’re all right. Now get up. Onnnne…. Twoooo…. Groaning, gasping, using the dresser knobs to help pull himself up to his knees. Threeee…. Foooour…. Up on one knee now. Fiiiive…. Siiiix…. Grabbing the top of the dresser and bringing down the wash basin on its doily with a clanging splash. Sevvvven…. Eiiight…. Get up, man, get up!…Niiinne…. He was up. And saw the Colt was gone. The room undulated. He reeled to his bed and fell.

  WHEN NEXT HE opened his eyes, he was lying on his side, his breath coming harder.

  A stranger sat in a chair close beside the bed. He said, “I’m Noland, the carpenter. Bailey phoned the doctor in Conway. The constable, too. And the colonel over in Springfield. The colonel’s coming on a special train. Help’s coming, mister.”

  “Thirsty,” Ketchel said. He started to roll onto his back but Noland grabbed him and said, “Don’t do that. You been shot in the back. Stay on your side.”

  Noland fetched a glass of water and sat on the edge of the bed and held Ketchel’s head as he put the glass to his lips.

  Ketchel took a few sips. “There’s blood in the water. I taste it.”

  “Hang on, mister. They’ll be here soon.”

  “I guess they got me, huh?”

  Noland nodded sadly, wondering who this man was and who it was that had got him.

  THE CONWAY CONSTABLE arrived, accompanied by a doctor. Ketchel was only partly conscious as they got his shirt
off and the doctor examined the wound. He heard the doctor speaking low like a priest in the confessional, felt the constable gently searching his pockets, heard him curse and say he’d likely been robbed. And then he was out again….

  And then again awake, though he could not muster the strength to open his eyes. He heard talk…. Walt Hurtz on the lam…. The woman under arrest….

  And then again awake to feel a hand stroking his hair, and opened his eyes. Saw it was the colonel, his gaze tearful.

  “You’re going to be all right, son, you are. You are. Tell me, was it Walter Hurtz? Was it him, son?”

  “Yes.” He tasted blood.

  The colonel stroked Ketchel’s face and said they were taking him to the hospital, where surgeons would be waiting to fix him up good as new. “I’ll be right back, son. And I’ll be with you all the way.” He left the room and then Ketchel heard him say, “No-good lowdown bitch!” and the sound of what could only be a slap, and a woman yelped and someone said, “Enough! Enough now!” Then the colonel shouting, “Five thousand dollars to the man who brings me that son of a bitch dead. Dead, you hear! Not a nickel for him alive! Put the word out! Five thousand for the bastard’s head! Bring me his head!”

  Daddy….

  THEY CARRIED HIM lying sidewise on the mattress and laid it in a wagon and drove him to the train, the colonel and two doctors at his side. He heard one say something about a kind of cavity filling up, about drowning, and he wondered who it was that had drowned and where. At the depot they carried him into a coach and laid him on a waiting cot. He heard somebody say all scheduled runs had been shunted onto sidings so the colonel’s train could speed straight through to Springfield. And it seemed as though the train rumbled under him for bare minutes before they were carrying him off and under a bright cold sun to a motor truck and placing him on the mattress in its bed and the truck was moving and the colonel was saying, “Almost there, son, almost there,” and he could hear his father sobbing and cursing the driver, ordering him to go faster, goddamnit, and then they had him on a gurney and were wheeling him down various corridors and into a room with overhead lights so bright he could see them through his closed eyelids and all the while his breathing became more labored and the taste of blood was stronger and he felt himself quivering as if he were still on the rumbling train and….

  …he’s riding the rails on a boxcar roof under a starry night sky and laughing at some joke by the hobo called Steamer and seeing the one called Eight Ball dangling from the rods and ripping to pieces and remembering Butte’s bonecracking winter cold and its summer stinks and its lack of color and no birds and Kate Morgan’s eloquent eyes and marvelous ass and happy laughter and expert instruction in shooting a revolver and he loves her more than he’ll ever love anyone else on earth and the blue fog of San Francisco like a dream and pretty Molly on that New Year’s Eve so happy and then so scared and fighting Joe Thomas in a nighttime thunderstorm and laughing with the wonderful Arapaho Sisters and the three of them dancing together and them talking him into the tattoo and all the fine days in all the good training camps and playing poker with Joe O’Connor and the Goat and getting caught cheating in the bunkhouse and the train trips across the amazing beauty of the country and Billy Papke’s heartbreak on his bloody face after their last fight and the redhead with Jack Johnson and her peachy tits and wondering evermore if they were freckled and seeing big black Jack on the canvas looking up in disbelief and laughing with those gold teeth as he hit Jeffries again and waving so long as he gunned away in the yellow Packard and Jack London’s grand inscription and swaying on the tabletop in Raul’s yelling of ashes and dust and all the grand times in New York with Willie Britt and the smothering flowers of his grave and Jewel reading his behind and Evelyn showing him the front-row seat and sobbing into her pillow and his mother playing the piano and he and John singing and Killer Kid Tracy saying where you want the body sent and…

  …he laughed through the blood and….

  From the New York Times edition of October 16, 1910:

  SPRINGFIELD, Mo., Oct. 15—Stanley Ketchel, champion middleweight pugilist of the world, died here tonight at 7:03 o’clock as a result of being shot through the right lung early to-day….

  From the Springfield Leader edition of October 16, 1910:

  GRIM REAPER CONQUERS KETCHEL IN LAST

  GREAT FIGHT OF HIS CAREER

  Pugilist Dies Shortly After His Arrival

  At Springfield Hospital

  Though fighting with the same dogged grit and vitality that have marked his career in the ring, Stanley Ketchel, the pugilist, went down to defeat in his last battle, fought against the one foe before whom all must fall….

  VERY LATE THAT night Wilson Mizner was in a Manhattan saloon rolling dice with the bartender for the round when a sportswriter came in and announced that Stanley Ketchel had been shot dead in Missouri by the jealous husband of a tootsie who was making Ketchel’s breakfast.

  There was excited murmuring along the bar. Mizner stared at the hack a moment, then rolled the dice. Boxcars.

  He swore softly and paid off the bartender, then headed for the door. He was almost to it when he stopped and turned and shouted at the room: “Bullshit! They couldn’t kill that kid with a cannon. Tell them to start counting to ten over him and he’ll get up. They’ll see! They’ll see!”

  Finales

  The day after the shooting, Walter Hurtz, soon revealed to be Walter Dipley, was captured at a nearby farm, identified by the tattoos on his arms, and charged with the murder of Stanley Ketchel. Goldie Hurtz, soon revealed to be Goldie Smith, was charged as his accomplice.

  Goldie cried rape. And Dipley claimed he killed Ketchel in self-defense when he confronted him about the attack on his wife and Ketchel threatened to shoot him.

  At first, the couple received a measure of public sympathy due to the “unwritten law” that justified a husband’s killing of his wife’s violator, but when it became known that Walt and Goldie were in fact not married but living in sin, the sympathy largely waned. And as still other unsavory details about the defendants were brought to light in the newspapers, public opinion almost entirely turned against them.

  Stanley Ketchel’s body was buried in the Polish cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 20, 1910. Three months later Walter Dipley and Goldie Smith stood trial in the hamlet of Marshfield, seat of Webster County, Missouri.

  ACCORDING TO THE defendants, Ketchel raped Goldie on the night of October 14, and later that evening she told Dipley about it. The following morning, Ketchel was seated at breakfast and had his revolver in his waistband when Dipley accused him of the assault. He looked at Dipley over his shoulder and threatened to kill him, saying: “God damn you, if you start anything I will shoot you in two.” Dipley grabbed up a .22 rifle leaning against the foot of the dining room bed and told Ketchel to put up his hands. Ketchel said he would not, then started to stand and reach for his gun. Fearing for his life, Dipley shot him. He took the revolver from the fallen Ketchel in case he yet had the strength to use it. He and Goldie then left the house and ran into Bailey and Brazeale and told them what happened. Bailey advised that he turn himself in to the Conway constable. But Dipley knew that R. P. Dickerson had many friends in the region, including the constable, and he feared what they might do to him in the Conway jail. He intended to give himself up to the sheriff in Marshfield, in whose jail he believed he would be safer. But he was captured before he got there.

  Assisted by a talented attorney hired by R. P. Dickerson, the prosecution derided Dipley’s claim of self-defense and emphasized the defendants’ criminal pasts and low reputations. As a navy deserter, Dipley had been a fugitive from justice even before taking flight after murdering Mr. Ketchel, and the Smith woman was on judicial record as an unfit mother and was widely known to have led a sordid personal life. The sheriff of Coffeyville himself testified to her immoral livelihood in Kansas. In contrast, the state presented Stanley Ketchel as a person of exemplary characte
r and called forth a series of respectable witnesses to so testify, though it seemed odd to some observers that R. P. Dickerson was not put on the stand, he who had been Ketchel’s closest friend.

  The state offered at least two possible motives for the murder. The most likely was robbery. Mr. Ketchel was known to carry as much as a thousand dollars on his person at all times, but when he was found mortally wounded in the house his pockets were empty. Although no cash had been found on Dipley when he was arrested, neither had he been in possession of Mr. Ketchel’s pistol, having hidden it in a corn crib, as he later confessed, and where it was recovered. Who could say where he might have hidden the money in hope of recovering it later? Perhaps the defendants had intended simply to rob Mr. Ketchel and make their escape before he could notify police, but of course Mr. Ketchel would have resisted, and he was shot from behind when some distraction, most likely the Smith woman, caused him to turn his back to Dipley. The couple had then hastily fabricated their account of rape and mortal threat. Another possibility, considering her nature and personal history, was that the Smith woman attempted to seduce Mr. Ketchel and, given his upright character, was certainly rebuffed. Her pride injured and her relation with Dipley at risk should Mr. Ketchel inform him of her overture, she lied to Dipley about being raped, enraging him to homicide.

  Whatever the killers’ true motive, the prosecution concluded, all that mattered were the facts. And the plainest and most irrefutable fact of the case was that Stanley Ketchel, the middleweight champion of the world and a man revered by millions, a man who in the short time he’d lived in the region had become a highly respected member of the Springfield community, had been shot in the back. In the back, gentlemen of the jury. What could be more deliberate than a back shooting? What could be more cowardly? What could be more manifestly murderous?