Butch and Sundance: Harry Plunges Full Bore Into Crime

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
I'm in a series about two of America's most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These boys need some serious slapping around or at least a good butt kicking to get them to wake up!

They've both proven that they can live a successful life without resorting to crime. They are both friendly, good-natured, talented, charming, thoughtful..both demonstrating character and a degree of honor....they are both gifted in their abilities with horses.

But apparently they are also both addicted to the idea of fast, easy, big money even at the risk of their freedom and very lives. Butch has already been sent to prison and even though Sundance/Harry vowed to live a lawful life he went and changed his mind and decided he didn't want to work for a living after all!

Belle Fourche

The town of Belle Fourche, South Dakota was a thriving cattle town located on railroad line so it was a main shipping point for the region. By the way, Belle Fourche is fancy French words meaning "beautiful fork" because the Redwater River and the Belle Fourche River come together there. It's a fine sounding name, I must admit. It rolls off the tongue very nicely.

I looked it up to see if it still existed:

They still have cattle roundups! Looky here:

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The town had an annual celebration and reunion for Civil War veterans, the year was 1897. The gang knew the bank would be full of cash from all the visitors and spending going on. Harry and some criminals he'd gotten to know decided to hit the bank after this had been going on for a few days.

Ok, that was logical but unless they waited until it was over it also meant that the town would be chock full of people, many of them soldiers or ex soldiers.

The plan

Harry's gang had six men. They rode up and tied their horses at the side entrance of the bank. Two of them sauntered over across the street and tried to act like they weren't bank robbers. lol. Inconspicuous is the word. Not exactly an everyday Redneck word but that DID come to mind so I think it fits here. So yes they hung out looking inconspicuous and nonchalant like.

One of them stayed with the horses. Three of them pulled their six shooters and burst into the bank which had two tellers and five customers. They told everyone to hold their hands up and put their money in a sack which one of the men collected.

A teller pulled a pistol from under the counter and aimed at one of the robbers. He even pulled the trigger but when the hammer came down it didn't fire so he dropped it and put his hands back up in the air. When the robber whirled around he didn't fire because the clerk had dropped the gun.

Might as well had The Three Stooges do this job

Across the street a shop owner happened to look up and saw the bank customers with their hands in the air so he ran outside and started shouting "They're robbing the bank!" When the three men inside the bank heard the yelling they fired a shot in the air and the two men across the street who'd been trying to look like non-bank robbers pulled their guns and started hollerin and shootin in the air.

Obviously the plan was to fake everyone out. At this point they were trying to act like drunk cowboys celebrating. The only problem with that is it scared the trash out of their horses who started bucking and having a fit.

The three men in the bank panicked and took off running and mounted the horses, but it took them a little while because the horses were so spooked. Five of them rode off. A sixth one could never get his horse under control and the horse finally bolted away and ran like hell after the other five horses!

(it probably didn't help that man number 6 there was drunk and wasn't very coordinated at the moment)

A rough escape

So the five rode out of town. When they realized that they were only five instead of six they stopped on a hill on the edge of town to look and see if number six was coming. This gave the townspeople a chance to start shooting at them with rifles. The town's blacksmith grabbed his rifle and was riding up toward that hill when one of the townspeople shot his horse out from under him.

The five never saw man number six so the figured they better get the hell out of Dodge and rode off. The posse was in hot pursuit. At one point the Sheriff got close enough to get a good rifle shot off and shot Harry's horse out from under him. The gang didn't come back for him and he was on foot.

Not exactly a Butch Cassidy planned heist

All things said and done, this was a pathetically planned robbery. The only cash they got was from one of the bank customers who was depositing $97! lol. So far Harry has shown zero talent for this line of work.

Butch always trained his horses to be fine with gunfire for one thing. And I don't think he would have planned the robbery that way in such a crowded situation.

I think it's interesting that ten years before in 1887 was when Harry made his first dumb robbery(that horse with the J brand) at the VVV Ranch which was just 12 miles from Belle Fourche.

After ten years he hadn't improved his craft much. He's on foot and headed to the outlaw country of Hole in the Wall, Robber's Roost or Brown's Park where Butch has spent much of his time.

I found a photo of Harry. I think this was a few years later than this point in his life after he had some successful robberies, but it's close. He was about 30 years old when he participated in the bank job at Belle Fourche.

Does he look like a criminal? He looks more like a banker. Or is that the same thing?

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In the next post we'll see how Butch is doing in prison.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

Your old car in the front yard is now considered the main storage unit!