My Mother gave me a great gift — five, three-inch binders full of the history of my family. Apparently I come from a group with a colorful past and have used some of their activities in my stories. She often spoke of the ranch at La Honda and I treasure some items that belonged to my grandfather while he lived there. When I first started blogging, I found this great story and love to share it with others.

The following accounting was obtained from Roscoe Wyatt, Oscar John and Walter Ray.  Oscar and Walter both remember the Younger brothers in person.  Wyatt was a conscientious historian.  Personal interviews included two of my family members:  Emma John Weeks and Percy Weeks.  Oscar John (87 at the time of the interview) worked on the Bandit Built Store.  He knew the Younger brothers from when they hid out on his La Honda ranch.  

Among the men hired to build John Sears’ store, referred to as the ‘Bandit-Built Store’ in 1877 were the Younger brothers from Forsyth, Kansas.   At that time no one in La Honda, CA, knew them as the Younger brothers, because they were posing as cousins to Oscar John and Walter Ray.  Jim Younger actually lived behind the Redwood City Court House for one year using the name of Joe Hardin.

Three Younger brothers and their sister

Cole, Jim, Bob and John Younger lived in Forsyth, Kansas on their father’s ranch in May, 1861, when the Civil War broke out.  Cole, the youngest son, joined the Confederate Army and became a colonel.  In November of that year, a short leave gave him a chance to visit his parents.  As he approached the ranch, he found the place engulfed in flames.  A band of Union troops and local Northern sympathizers reached the ranch before him and stole all of the stock before burning the grain, corn, and feed.  They also threw his youngest sister, who suffered from tuberculosis, out on the cold ground, causing her death.  When their father discovered what had happened and put up a fight, they hung him from a tree on the ranch.  This left their mother, oldest sister, Molly, and three younger brothers homeless.

Within hours Cole, along with a friend, organized local Southern sympathizers and within a few hours they started wiping out their enemies.  It’s reported that Cole alone killed one hundred men that he knew had something to do with his father’s and sister’s death.  By the end of the war, Cole had a price on his head for desertion, killing for revenge, and a long list of other charges.  He left his family in the care of his cousin, John Jarret’s parents.  He, John Jarret and a few friends left for California where they hoped to find sanctuary at his uncle’s ranch in San Jose, but ended up using a ranch in La Honda as their hideout.

Oscar John and his stepfather met the gang as they rode onto the ranch.  Oscar was ten years old at the time.  He recalls unsaddling ten horses.  Everyone but Cole Younger and John Jarret left the ranch.  They helped build the lakeside Ray ranch into a large two-story building.  Cole and John traveled back to Kansas in order to bring the rest of their family west.  They learned their mother had died and that Jim and Bob Younger had been accomplices to the James gang robberies.  Cole was convinced the Ray ranch was the best place for the remainder of his family until everything blew over.

They arrived back in La Honda August, 1876, when big changes were happening.   A new sawmill belonging to R.J. Weeks (my ancestor) opened and John Sears just started clearing an old bear pit site for his store and hotel.  At last luck was with the Younger family.  Oscar John talked John Sears into hiring his cousins from the east, no questions asked.  The three brothers and John Jarret went to work on the store.  Oscar John recalls seeing Cole shingling the roof of the store.  When the store was finished, the men returned to the Ray ranch to work the harvest.

John Jarret spent that season at the Ray ranch, one season in Redwood City and then went back east.  He returned the next year and started work on my family’s ranch.  While he was there, he married Molly Younger, thereby becoming Cole’s brother-in-law as well as cousin.

The James Brothers were planning to rob the Northfield Bank in Minnesota.  They couldn’t pull the job by themselves and no longer trusted their gang.  They sent a message to Cole by a man named Giles.  Since the Youngers knew Northfield, they expected them to participate in the robbery.  Frank and Jesse James sent a message stating that if the Youngers refused to come, they would have them exposed to the law.  Cole decided to participate to save his sister and brother-in-law.  He left a rare set of pearl handled pistols with Jarret at the Weeks Ranch.  He realized if he got caught with them, they’d be a dead giveaway as to his identity.

Cole Younger Gang

Cole had an agreement with Jesse James that this bank robbery would be their last appearance in the mid-west.  Jesse assured Cole that after this job, they would never have to worry about money again.   Unfortunately, the robbery went wrong.  During their escape Jim Younger was shot in the jaw.  Jesse wanted to kill Jim because it would hinder to their escape.  Cole absolutely refused.  So, while Jim lay bleeding in a wet creek bottom, the James brothers made a clean getaway.  The Younger brothers gave themselves up to the law to save Jim from bleeding to death.  Cole, Jim and Bob Younger were sentenced to serve terms in the Minnesota Penitentiary.

When John Jarret learned what had happened to his brothers-in-law, he happened to be working away from the Weeks ranch and only coming home on the weekends.   Giles showed up at the ranch with a forged note from Cole.  Molly wasn’t home so he gave the note to their housekeeper.  It was written to Molly and asked that she give Giles the two rare guns.  The note stated that Cole’s prison term was just about up and that he wanted to sell the guns so he could get a new start in life.  The housekeeper, remembering Giles from his first trip, thought he was on the level and handed over the guns.  Jarret, for some unknown reason, came home that night and found Giles there with the guns in his possession.  After he read the letter, he knew it was forged because Cole always wrote in of care of him, not Molly.  Giles confessed that he had a chance to sell the guns to an Illinois museum.

Jim Bartley, La Honda rancher and teamster, visited the Younger brothers at the Northfield, Minnesota Penitentiary.  He learned that an old sweetheart of Jim Younger visited him regularly.  She promised to marry him when he got out of prison.  Jim looked forward to that day, planning once more to start life anew.  However, the woman turned him down when he got out.  His heart was broken.  Having nothing to live for, he rented a room at a cheap boarding house and shot himself through the head.

Cole and Bob dropped into obscurity after serving their terms.

There was a lot of unjustified killing and bad deeds that happened during the Civil War. I know what the brothers did was not right, but maybe they thought it was the only way to get justice. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I’d come upon the slaughter of my family members. It was a rough time in our history. Do you think they overreacted or that maybe hunting down the killers was justified?

In my “Lawmen and Outlaws” Christmas Anthology novella, Christmas for Ransom, available both in print and e-book, schoolmarm Eliza Willows  falls in love with an outlaw when the handsome stranger hires her to teach him to read. Of course she’s unaware he’s the bad guy who thieved her granny’s prized Morgan horses smack dab during Thanksgiving dinner. Even when Eliza finds out his true identity, her heart has already been stolen…and Canyon Jack Ransom’s grown a conscience. He vows to become respectable and does all the right things to stay in her heart.

Today I’ll be giving away a signed copy (U.S.A.) or an e-copy (international) after drawing a name from today’s commenters.

Well, today let’s look at a real life good girl who fell for a bad guy. Schoolteacher Anna Ralston, daughter of a wealthy Independence MO businessman, held a Bachelor of Arts degree in Science and Literature from Missouri State College. Truth is, she was one of its first female graduates.

“Annie” is the woman who snared Alexander Franklin James, aka Frank James, and eloped with him in July 1875.  When she pretended to visit her brother-in-law in Kansas City, Frank waited for her on the train, the elopement already arranged.

No one ever knew how or when the couple met. But it is known Frank wasn’t only a rough and tumble baddie. As a youth, he’d devoured the books in his father’s library and even as an outlaw, quoted Shakespeare at will. His father, a farmer and Baptist minister, co-founded the William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. So maybe it’s not all that surprising that Frank chose an educator who loved literature. And with him described by the Kansas City Times as a “notable knight of the road” and “dashing and daring,” perhaps it’s not surprising Annie fell for him.

Two days after her departure for Kansas City, her parents received a brief note from her that said, “Dear Mother: I am married and going West. Annie Reynolds”

Not recognizing the name Reynolds, they figured she’d run off with a gambler they’d heard about. Putting their sons on her trail, her parents eventually learned of Annie’s marriage to the outlaw. Her father advised the family to treat the matter philosophically. Nothing could be done now, he said, and the less said about it the better.

Annie and Frank had one son, Robert Franklin James, born February 6, 1878. Four years later, after brother Jesse’s murder, Frank gave himself up, wanting peace after being hunted for twenty-one years.

Found not guilty for two robberies/murders (the juries cited lack of evidence), Frank became respectable for the last thirty years of his life. He gave lecture tours with his old crony Cole Younger and worked for the telegraph before returning to the James Farm in Kearney, Missouri to give tours. He died an honorable man on February 18, 1915. Fearing his grave would be desecrated for souvenirs, he decreed his ashes would be kept hidden until he and Annie could be buried together.

Annie remained with her mother in law at the James farm for many years, After her death at age 91, she and Frank were buried next to each other at Hill Park Cemetery in Independence.

(Excerpt from Chapter Two,  Christmas for Ransom:

Pinching herself, Eliza lost interest in everything except seeing what the stranger looked like in the lantern light. Brawny stalwart men were nothing new in a railroad town or on the ranch, but she never minded a good view.

Her breath caught so hard her sore rib tweaked. He was magnificent. The big-brimmed hat and flowing duster reckoned him a wrangler of some sort coming in from the range. Although he needed a bath and truly looked the worse for wear, she didn’t mind one single bit. The scruffy cheeks, the long rag-taggle coat, even the scent of masculine sweat were far more her style than the slick-haired dandies and overdressed fops she’d met at Boston cotillions.

“This here’s Ransom,” the blacksmith said helpfully.

As the stranger moved closer, he removed his hat and tucked it under his arm with a polite half-nod. For a long luscious moment, eyes the color of manly liquor covered her with a mouth-watering gaze. Golden-brown hair touched the mountains of his shoulders like sunlight at dawn across the Guadalupe Mountains.

Air left her lungs. A slow burn started at the top of her spine, her flesh desperate for the days’ worth of roughness adorning cheekbones carved like crags and valleys. She had to hold her hand still to keep her fingers from caressing the deep etches of his face.

Eliza couldn’t move as she stared up at him, aching and eager.

Now, for a Christmas story about a real GOOD man, my latest release, Right to Bragg, is a short, sweet holiday read.

With the release of our July anthology called GIVE ME A TEXAS OUTLAW my thoughts have been firmly anchored on history’s bad boys. And Kansas had its share of them. Last month on a publicity tour to kick off the release Phyliss Miranda and I traveled up to Liberal, Kansas. From there, a dear man by the name of Tom St. Aubyn showed us the sights. We can never thank you enough, Tom!

One place that tickled our fancy was the small town of Meade. It’s home to the Dalton Gang Hideout.

Seems Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton’s sister, Eva married J.N. Whipple and settled down on Pearlette Street. The house perched on sort of a bluff and had a barn down below.

The Dalton Boys, being quick to spy an opportunity, constructed a 95 foot tunnel from the barn up to the basement of Eva’s residence. They placed wooden beams across an old rain wash and piled dirt over the top of it. It suited their needs to a tee. They could come and go undetected while also protecting their sister’s identity. No one in Meade knew the Daltons were related to Eva Whipple and they wanted to keep it that way.

Like so many other outlaws at the time, the Daltons, who were related to the Younger brothers, started out in law enforcement before they began robbing banks and trains. They must’ve loved the outlaw life because they kept at it until 1892 when the gang faced a hail of bullets while robbing a bank in Coffeyville, Kansas. Grat and Bob along with two other gang members were killed. Emmett Dalton received 23 bullet wounds but survived. He was given a life sentence in a Kansas penitentiary. He served 14 years before being pardoned.

Phyliss at the tunnel

In the meanwhile, the bank in Meade foreclosed on Eva and J.N.’s house and they were forced to vacate. Several new owners occupied the Whipple house and eventually the escape tunnel was found.

In the early 1940′s the WPA reinforced the tunnel with stone quarried from the Clark Ranch east of Meade and the hideout was turned into a tourist attraction.

Today the hideout is owned and operated by the Meade County Historical Society. A wonderful man by the name of Marc Ferguson is the curator in addition to being one of their historical reenactors.

Eva’s home is now a museum and is furnished much as it was in her day.

If you’re ever in Meade, stop by and say hello. Walk the tunnel and browse in the really nice gift shop. And if you’re lucky and get a chance to catch Marc playing the role of Doc Holliday you’re in for a real treat.

You can find out more about the hideout HERE .

Phyliss and I enjoyed our trip and can’t wait to go back. We’ll not soon forget all the warm friendly people we met.

Have you ever visited a historical site that stayed with you long after you left?

If you haven’t already gotten your copy of our new anthology, it’s available  online and in bookstores everywhere.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the possible pardon of notorious outlaw, Billy the Kid. It ain’t gonna happen.  Billy the Kid is still an outlaw.

In his last day in office, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced on New Year’s Eve he would not grant a posthumous pardon to the infamous Old West bad guy, after drawing international attention by entertaining a petition on Billy the Kid’s behalf.  

The pardon request had centered on whether Billy the Kid, who was shot to death in 1881 after escaping jail where he awaited hanging in the killing of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady in 1878, had been promised a pardon from New Mexico’s territorial governor, Lew Wallace, in return for testimony in killings he had witnessed. 

But the descendants of Wallace and Sheriff Pat Garrett, who fatally shot the fugitive, were outraged over the proposal.  Pauline Garrett Tillinghast expressed her concern that a pardon would tarnish her grandfather’s legacy. Though the pardon might have been narrowly tailored, she said, “It’s ridiculous to pardon a murderer.  Hollywood has turned him into some sort of a folk hero.”  Pat Garrett‘s grandson J.P. Garrett and Wallace‘s great-grandson William Wallace also publicly opposed the possibility of pardon.  

According to legend, Billy the Kid killed 21 people, one for each year of his life. The New Mexico Tourism Department puts the total closer to nine. The Kid was a ranch hand and gunslinger in the bloody Lincoln County War, a feud between factions vying to dominate the dry goods business and cattle trading in southern New Mexico. Billy the Kid killed two deputies while escaping jail. 

The person filing the request for pardon argued that Lew Wallace promised to pardon the Kid, also known as William Bonney or Henry McCarty. She said the Kid kept his end of the bargain, but the territorial governor did not. But, J.P. Garrett of Albuquerque said there’s no proof Gov. Wallace offered a pardon — and may have tricked the Kid into testifying. 

“The big picture is that Wallace obviously had no intent to pardon Billy — even telling a reporter that fact in an interview on April 28, 1881,” he wrote. “So there was no ‘pardon promise’ that Wallace broke. But I do think there was a pardon ‘trick,’ in that Wallace led Billy on to get his testimony.” 

Garrett also said that when the Kid was awaiting trial in Brady’s killing, “he wrote four letters for aid, but never used the word ‘pardon.”‘ 

William Wallace of Westport, Conn., said his ancestor never promised a pardon and that pardoning the Kid “would declare Lew Wallace to have been a dishonorable liar.” 

According to historians, The Kid in fact wrote Wallace in 1879, volunteering to testify if Wallace would annul pending charges against him, including a murder indictment in Brady‘s death. 

A tantalizing part of the question is a clandestine meeting Wallace had with the Kid in Lincoln in March 1879. The Kid’s letters leave no doubt he wanted Wallace to at least grant him immunity from prosecution.  Wallace, in arranging the meeting, responded: “I have authority to exempt you from prosecution if you will testify to what you say you know.” 

But when the Las Vegas, N.M., Gazette asked Wallace shortly before he left office about prospects he would spare the Kid’s life, Wallace replied: “I can’t see how a fellow like him should expect any clemency from me.” 

The historical record on the pardon is ambiguous, and there are no written documents “pertaining in any way” to a pardon in the papers of the territorial governor, who served in office from 1878 to 1881. 

Of interest, Governor Richardson’s office set up a web-site so citizens could weight in on the subject of the pardon. His office received 809 e-mails and letters, with 430 favoring a pardon and 379 opposed. Comments came from all over the world.  I’d say the issue was fairly split down the middle probably along moral and political line, I suspect.

Governor Richardson said that he decided against a pardon “because of a lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity as to why Gov. Wallace reneged on his promise.”  Richardson states said the Kid is part of New Mexico history and he’s been interested in the case for years.  . 

I’m not writing this post from a political point of view, strictly from an historical one.  The interesting part is some 133 years after killing numerous people, including lawmen, and being shot to death, the life and legend of Billy the Kid still can’t be put to rest.

So tell me who is your favorite controversial historical figure?

         For those who have been looking for our first anthology,

        it went into a 4th printing is now available.

        http://amazon.com

I will give away a signed copy of “Give Me a Texan” to someone who comments today!

Our newest anthology “Give Me a Texas Ranger” came out last month, but along with promoting and celebrating a new release, I was knee deep in writing the next of the “Give Me …” series “Give Me a Texas Outlaw”.  Of course I’ve had Texas Rangers and outlaws on my mind for months, so what better to write about than a Ranger named Bass Outlaw?

One of my favorite ways to create a character is to tailor them after a real person (preferably none of your family). While visiting East Texas, I found a book about Bass Outlaw, an ex-Texas Ranger short on stature and long on attitude. Bass Outlaw a/k/a Ranger Little Wolf was a moody, strange, and little known Ranger. I mirrored one of my characters in “Texas Ranger”, Muley Mullinex, after him. It was a simple plan for him to be the town’s darlin’ during the day but when he went on a binge he would be my antagonist. However, from the get go Muley proved to be as obstinate on paper as Bass Outlaw was in real life.

Not to be confused with a much better known Ranger, Sam Bass, Bass Outlaw, whose name was thought to be Sebastian Lamar Outlaw was the black sheep of a genteel Georgia family. He had an inferiority complex we might call the “little man syndrome” today, since he was around 5’4” and weighed maybe 150 lbs. His eyes, cold and unfriendly, were pale blue. He sported a mustache best described as bushy, not the heavy, flowing types worn by the likes of Doc Holliday or Wyatt Earp which were the fashion of that era. If it wasn’t for his prowess with a rifle and a pistol he would not like have commanded any attention at all.

Beginning in E Company, Outlaw soon earned a solid reputation for himself as a quick draw with a deadly accurate shot. He could ride with the best, learned readily how to track even the faintest signs and was earmarked as a Ranger with a future. He climbed the ranks and historians have noted that he could have easily become a legendary Ranger such as William J. McDonald and James Gillette, but Bass Outlaw’s hair-trigger temper changed the course of his life … and history.

The personification of a prairie wolf, earned him his nickname, Lone Wolf. He was a loner, never volunteering anything about his past, never asking anyone about theirs. A moody, sullen, often cantankerous individual, he still possessed the qualities the Rangers required in those days on a wild and unsettled frontier. He was brave, wily and determined in battle. Outlaw was unpredictable in that he was either withdrawn or dangerously aggressive depending on his mood … and the amount of alcohol he’d consumed.

His head was on the chopping board more times than not, but generally after a good dressing down, his Captain would decide not to fire the arrogant lawman because of some heroic deed he’d done.

Bass Outlaw, Top Row, Second from Left

Like all lone wolves, his luck ran out. In 1893, after his Company had moved to a remote part of Texas southeast of El Paso, Bass was placed in charge of the unit while Captain Jones was away on business. 

 One day, after chugging rotgut once too often, Bass left the compound with no one in command and joined a poker game with a former Ranger which lead to his undoing. Bass lost the game and his temper, but had enough sense to know not to shoot up the place. Another former Ranger, Sheriff Jim Gillett, grabbed Bass and pulled him outside, managing to settle the dispute before there was any gunfire.

Needless to say when Captain Jones returned and got wind of the going ons he was furious and fired Bass Outlaw on the spot, ordering him out of camp pronto. 

Although it was a mess of his own makings, until Bass Outlaw drew his last breath, he held a grudge against the Rangers. His bone of contention was at first with Gillett, because he thought the sheriff had ratted him out. Later, Bass learned that the lawman had not reported his behavior.

Gillett was spared, as he was not the Ranger that Bass was destined to kill.

Bass Outlaw stayed out of trouble for a while and took on other jobs, including prospecting for gold and hidden treasures. Failing at all, he eventually caught the attention of the El Paso U.S. Marshall, another ex-Ranger, who hired him as a deputy.

Famed Ranger John Hughes predicted, rightfully so, that Little Wolf would someday kill another Ranger. This proved true when Outlaw entered into a squabble with a constable in El Paso by the name of John Selman, after going into a rant over a soiled dove. Outlaw shot him three times. Leaving the saloon, still sullen and dangerous, Outlaw was confronted by a young Ranger, Joe McKidrict, where Outlaw shot him dead. It is reported that was the only incident where a Texas Ranger has ever been killed by an active or former member of the fabled organization.

Ironically, John Selman recovered. Although the gunpowder damaged his vision and he walked with a cane, he killed the infamous John Wesley Hardin in a saloon in El Paso. Two years later, Selman was killed by Deputy U.S. Marshal George Scarborough in another El Paso saloon.

A witness to Bass Outlaw’s demise stated his last sound was a whimper, the kind a wolf tends to make when he knows his time is finished. For Bass Outlaw there were no flowers, no eulogy and no mourners … not even the soiled dove who proclaimed to love him. He was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in El Paso, and his tombstone reads: “B.L. Outlaw, 1854-1894, 1^st Sgt. Co. D. F. B., State Forces, Deputy U.S. Marshall.”

Now you can see why writing Muley Mullinex fought me tooth and toenail all along the way.  In “Give Me a Texas Ranger,” I referred to Captain Arrington, Hayden McGraw’s superior. Other than Mullinex, Arrington, and McGraw, do any of you remember the name of a fourth Texas Ranger I used in my story? 

I’m givin’ away an autographed copy of “Give Me a Texas Ranger” to the first person posting the correct answer.

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