The Saga of Henry Starr

by Robert J Conley

  33

  Governor R. L. Williams roared up out of the giant plush office chair in which he sat behind the vast, uncluttered desk in his office in the new state capitol at Oklahoma City. The man standing before the desk quivered back out of the way.

  “Miss Crump,” called the governor, “fetch me the damned letter from the file.”

  Miss Crump, who had been standing dutifully beside the door just inside the governor’s office, came to attention.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and scurried out the door.

  “George,” said the governor, “get out and find Nix and get him back here to my office damned quick.”

  “Yes, sir,” said George, turning briskly and following Miss Crump out the door.

  All this while, a second man had been standing quietly aside against one wall. With everyone else out of the way, the governor turned on him.

  “Andy,” he said, “we’ve got to straighten this mess out damned fast, or I may be made to look like a damned fool.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Andy. “If I could just get a look at the …”

  Just then Miss Crump came briskly back into the room. Her words cut Andy off in the middle of his sentence.

  “Here’s the letter, Governor,” she said.

  “… the letter, yes,” said Andy, valiantly concluding his rudely interrupted statement.

  The governor, red-faced and sweating, snatched the letter from Miss Crump’s hand.

  “Give it to me,” he said. “Here. Listen to this, Andy. Just listen, and then tell me what the hell we’re going to do. Listen.”

  Williams adjusted a pair of glasses on the end of his nose and carefully positioned the letter before him. Then he started reading aloud.

  “ ‘Governor,’ it says, ‘what does the legislature and also you mean by having a reward of a thousand dollars for me, dead or alive, for robbing banks? Now, Governor, I did not know this reward was out for me, for I have not been in Oklahoma for three years or more, and I can prove it by fifty men here in Reno.

  “ ‘Now, Governor, you surely cannot have a reward for me for a thing I did not do, and you have been misled as to me having been in any of these bank robberies. Sam Cook says …’ ”

  Here the governor stopped reading and looked up over the letter and his glasses.

  “Who the hell is Sam Cook, Andy?” he said.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “ ‘Sam Cook,’ ” the governor continued, “ ‘says you are a fair and square man. You will do square with anyone, and after you have found that you have been misled, I hope you will be fair with me. I suppose I will be accused all my life, no matter if I am in Australia. Yours respectfully, Henry Starr.’ ”

  Williams lowered the letter and removed his glasses. He glared at Andy for a moment.

  “Did you listen, Andy?” he asked. “Did you hear all that?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Andy. “May I please see the letter?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes,” said the governor, a bit absentmindedly. “Here it is.”

  He handed the letter to Andy, who began reading it for himself. The governor seemed momentarily lost in his own thoughts.

  “It’s a respectful letter, Andy,” he said. “It’s respectful of my position.”

  Andy still perused the letter. He made no response to the governor.

  “The man has been wrongfully accused in the past,” said the governor. “That’s what made him a criminal in the first place. It says so right here.”

  He rushed around his desk and picked up a copy of Thrilling Events, waving it out before him at Andy to emphasize his point.

  “Now, what if he is innocent of these robberies, and we’re guilty of repeating the same old pattern? Andy, that would make me look just awful.”

  Andy was still lost in the letter and did not answer, but before the governor could say anything more, George came back into the office, followed by a large man of about fifty, wearing tall black boots, dusty trail clothes, and a badge, and carrying a wide-brimmed hat.

  “Nix,” the governor shouted, rushing toward the big man, “come in. Come in. We’ve got to straighten this mess out. We’ve done gone and accused Henry Starr of robbing all these banks and damned if he ain’t way out there in Reno, Nevada, and been there for three years. And we’ve put a price on his head. A thousand dollars, Nix, a thousand dollars.”

  Nix was calm. His demeanor bespoke confidence, and when he spoke, his voice was low and smooth.

  “How do we know he’s in Reno?” he asked.

  Andy stepped toward Nix, holding out the letter.

  “Well,” he said, “here’s the letter the governor received from the Hotel Reno signed by Henry Starr.”

  “Let me see,” said Nix, taking the letter from Andy.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” shouted the governor. “We’ve got to do something right away. Nix?”

  Miss Crump had stepped back inside the office and was edging her way timidly toward the men, who stood in a cluster in the center of the office. She wanted to interrupt them, but she was obviously a lady who knew her place. Nix scratched his chin.

  “Hmm,” he muttered. “If this is true, we’ve made a serious error.”

  “We can’t let my political opponents get ahold of this,” said the governor. “And the press. George, the press. You’ve got to handle the press on this matter, George.”

  “We just have to check this out,” said Andy. “What if we write a letter to the Hotel Reno?”

  “Write, hell,” shouted the governor. “I’m sending Nix up there.”

  “Governor,” said Miss Crump tentatively.

  “Not now, Miss Crump.”

  “We need to know just exactly who, in each case,” said Nix, “accused Starr of the recent robberies—and on what basis.”

  The governor began pacing furiously back and forth across his office floor.

  “We need to know if there’s really fifty men in Reno,” he said, “who’ll swear he’s been there for three years.”

  Miss Crump gathered all her strength of will and stepped in front of Williams, bringing his pacing to an abrupt halt. She thrust an envelope in front of his face.

  “Governor, excuse me,” she said, “but will this help?”

  “No, Miss Crump,” said the governor impatiently. “Not now.”

  “Wait,” said Nix. “Wait a minute. What is that?”

  “It’s the envelope the letter came in,” said Miss Crump.

  Nix snatched it from Miss Crump and looked it over hurriedly.

  “Let me see it,” he said. “It’s Hotel Reno, all right.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Nix,” said Miss Crump, “but—the postmark.”

  “What?”

  “The postmark.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Nix, “the postmark.”

  “It’s postmarked right up in Tulsa,” said Miss Crump. “Well? Does that help?”

  34

  Henry Starr sat at the head of the dining table in his Tulsa home. Around the table sat Lewis Estes, Bud Maxfield, Claud Sawyer, Al Spencer, and Grover Durrell—all white men. They were men Henry Starr had carefully searched for. All were known and wanted criminals. The hardcases listened intently as Henry talked.

  “The reason I’ve gotten all of you together,” he said, “is to make bank robbing history. I’ve already robbed more banks than any man in history, at least, that’s what they’re saying about me, so robbing just one more won’t make a whole lot of difference to me. But no one has yet succeeded at robbing two banks at one time.”

  Estes’ eyes opened wide.

  “Two banks at one time?” he said.

  There were murmurs around the table. Henry paused to allow the rumbling to subside on its own. When the men around the table were quiet again, he went on.

  “The Dalton boys tried it in Coffeyville back in ’92 and got wiped out in the attempt. Here it is 1915. That was twenty-three years ago, and no one’s done it yet. But we’re going to do it, and do it righ
t.”

  “Where at?” said Spencer.

  Henry looked over the faces around the table. The men were all quiet, all watching him and waiting for his answer. If there had been initial objections, they had seemingly vanished.

  “Stroud, Oklahoma,” he said.

  On March 27, 1915, on the main street of Stroud, Bud Maxfield stood with six horses at a hitch rail in front of a store. A few doors down from where Maxfield waited, Henry Starr, Estes, and Sawyer opened the front door of a bank and walked in. Out in the middle of the street, just as the third man disappeared into the bank, Spencer and Durrell pulled out their pistols and fired a few shots into the air. The shots had the desired effect. People on the street ran inside of doors—whatever doors were handy. The street was cleared. One of those who ran for cover was sixteen-year-old Paul Curry. He ducked inside a butcher shop that stood between the bank and the storefront where Maxfield waited with the horses. Spencer and Durrell, holding their guns ready for action, kept turning to look from one end of the street to the other, watching nervously for any sign of interference with their plans. A door opened next door to the bank, and Spencer whirled to level his six-shooter at whoever might come out. Whoever it was saw Spencer and immediately reconsidered. The door shut again quickly. Then Henry, Estes, and Sawyer came back out of the bank, each with money sacks stuffed. They calmly walked into the street, heading for the second bank, just across from the first one. In the middle of the street Spencer and Durrell turned and fell in step with the other three, and all five walked into the second bank.

  Across the street in the butcher shop, young Paul Curry watched, fascinated, through a dirty window in the front door. His heart pounded, and he felt his breath heavy in his chest. He saw the five men come back out of the bank across the street from him. Each man carried a sack stuffed, apparently, with cash. The five men were walking across the street at an angle that would take them directly to the six horses and the sixth man who waited for them. Young Curry realized that the bank robbers would have to walk right past the butcher shop—right past him.

  “No one’s doing anything,” he said to himself.

  The robbers were almost in front of him.

  “They’re just walking away from the bank. No one’s making a move.”

  Paul looked around frantically inside the shop. There in a corner was an old rifle the butcher used for killing hogs. Paul ran to it and grabbed it up. He checked nervously to see if it was loaded. It was. He stepped back to the door. The outlaws had passed the butcher shop and were almost to their horses.

  Out in the street Henry took up the rear in the move back to the horses. He felt, as always, something like a military commander with the responsibility for the safety of his command on his shoulders. He would be the last one to mount up and ride away. Moving at an easy pace, he spoke to his gang.

  “Well, boys,” he said, “we’ve accomplished a bank robber’s dream and outdone the Daltons all at once. Now let’s mount up and see if we can get out of here in one piece.”

  Estes snorted over his shoulder.

  “Hell,” he said, “ain’t no one trying to stop us.”

  As Spencer and Durrell, the first to reach the horses, were climbing into their saddles, Paul Curry opened the front door of the butcher shop. Rifle in hand, he stepped out into the street. He put the hog-killing rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. Henry Starr felt the slap against his hip an instant before he heard the report of the rifle. His legs quit working, and he crumpled into the dirt. The other five hesitated, confused. Henry called out to them from where he lay in the street.

  “Go on, boys,” he said. “Get out of here.”

  The five outlaws put their spurs to their mounts and rode quickly out of Stroud, and Henry Starr lay looking into the tough faces of a crowd of armed and irate citizens that had suddenly materialized around him. They had found their bravery, he thought, after he had fallen wounded and the others had ridden off. He glanced back toward the butcher shop where he knew the shot had come from, and he saw the young Paul Curry with the hog rifle. Not only that, his thought continued, they had let a kid do the only shooting of the day for them. He lay back in the dirt street and relaxed to await his fate.

  35

  Henry Starr was sentenced to twenty-five years in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester. He was forty-three years old. It was the year that Henry James died, and the United States Supreme Court decided that an Indian could still be treated as a ward of the United States Government and Congress could still regulate his affairs for him. During Henry’s second year at McAlester, William C. Rogers, the current nominal Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, died, and the Bolshevik Revolution occurred in Russia. In Henry’s third year at McAlester, Redbird Smith, the Chief of the Nighthawk Keetoowahs, died, and World War I came to an end. During his fourth year, he was granted a parole, having been, as before, a model prisoner and well liked by all.

  Henry was in his cell waiting. He had already received word that his parole had been granted and in a few days he would be released. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be on the outside again. He had discovered that during these long prison stays, prison life came to seem to be normal life. Life on the outside seemed unreal.

  Footsteps interrupted Henry’s thoughts. A guard came walking down the hall with a man Henry had not seen before. They stopped at Henry’s cell. Henry stood up from where he had been lying on the cot.

  “Hello, Henry,” said the guard.

  “Hello, Marvin.”

  “Henry, this is Cooper Neal. He’s a reporter from Oklahoma City. He’d like to talk to you. The warden okayed it, if it’s all right with you.”

  “Hello, Mr. Starr,” said Neal.

  “Mr. Neal,” said Henry. “Sure, Marvin. It’s okay.”

  Marvin unlocked the cell door to let Neal inside with Henry. He locked it again behind Neal.

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said, then walked off down the hallway.

  Henry gestured toward the cot.

  “It’s all I’ve got to offer,” he said. “Sit down.”

  “Thank you,” said Neal, removing a pad and pencil from his coat pocket and sitting on the edge of the cot. “Do you mind if I take notes?”

  “Not at all.”

  Henry sat down at the other end of the cot.

  “To what do I owe this visit?” he said.

  “Mr. Starr,” said Neal, “you’re a famous man. You successfully engineered the robbing of two banks at Stroud. Even the Dalton Gang failed to pull off that kind of a job.”

  “But I didn’t walk away from it,” said Henry.

  “Even before that job, you had robbed more banks than any man in history.”

  “That’s what they tell me, although I’ve been given credit for some that I didn’t do.”

  “Mr. Starr, you wrote your life story while you were in prison in Colorado. That’s been a few years ago now. Will you work some more on that to bring it up to date?”

  “No,” said Henry, “I doubt that I’ll return to that task. I’ll leave it to someone else to put the finish to it—if anyone’s interested.”

  Neal scribbled hasty notes.

  “Well,” he said, “uh, you’ve had the experience of several prisons now. How do you feel about this one here at McAlester?”

  Henry chuckled and leaned back against the cell wall. He crossed his hands behind his head.

  “At least I won’t have far to travel to get back home when I finally get out of here,” he said, but having said it, he asked himself where his home might be. Oklahoma was home. Beyond that, he couldn’t say. He couldn’t get any closer to it than that.

  “Yes,” said Neal, still scribbling. “You were in Ohio and in Colorado, weren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do they compare?”

  “I believe that they’d all do a better job,” said Henry, suddenly serious, “if they adopted Warden Tynan’s honor system.”

 
“Warden Tynan?”

  “He’s the warden at Canyon City.”

  “That’s Colorado?”

  “He was first ridiculed and sneered at,” said Henry, “but his honor system is a success, and even those who knocked it now have to admit that the warden knew what he was doing. Now seven other states that I know of have adopted it, but not, unfortunately, Oklahoma. I don’t think that they’ll keep me in here any longer for having said that.”

  “Um, I see,” said Neal. “Well, now, Mr. Starr, I have just a few more quick questions to ask, if you don’t mind.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What are your politics?” asked Neal.

  “Haven’t any.”

  “Your religion?”

  “Same.”

  “Do you think that you have led a correct life?”

  “No, but it’s as good as some others that are holding office.”

  “Don’t you think that it’s a great crime to take people’s money?”

  “Yes. I know it’s wrong, but I am only a small thief. The lawyers take it all away from me, and still I go to the penitentiary. The big thieves never go to the pen, and they keep what they steal. For that reason, I feel much abused.”

  Neal paused and cleared his throat.

  “You, of course,” he said, “are an Indian.”

  “I have never,” said Henry, “been mistaken for a Swede.”

  “Uh, yes. Uh, what do you think about the treatment your people have received?”

  Henry looked Neal in the eyes, and Neal, try as he might, couldn’t break loose from that gaze to return to his notes.

  “If we believe in the law of compensation,” said Henry, “then the white folks of these United States are sure in for some bad luck. If not, why, then, the meanest and strongest get the biggest loaf, with no fixed or immutable laws, but a haphazard conglomeration that is liable to skid into oblivion.”

  Neal went back to Oklahoma City and wrote his story. His editor was pleased. Neal also reread his copy of Thrilling Events, and he never got over the effects of his interview with Henry Starr.