Butch and Sundance: The Long Ride From The Law

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! We've been talking about one of America's most famous outlaw duo, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

We started by learning about how they both grew up and started their careers. In yesterday's post Harry(Sundance) had decided to give up on being an outlaw after his narrow escape from being caught for robbing a train.

Today we're going to catch up with Butch, who at this point in his life was still going by his given name Bob. When we last saw Bob he and his two accomplices had just robbed a bank in Telluride, Colorado and were riding hell-bent-for-leather toward the North with a posse on their trail.

Good planning

Butch was smart and a good planner. He'd established several "relay" stations with fresh horses along the trail North. This enabled them to stay ahead of the posse fairly easily but the posse was determined and they weren't out of the woods yet.

On the second night they spotted the posse, still on their tail but luck was on their side. It just so happened that the boys saw a stray pony and was able to snag it and tie branches to drag behind it and sent it toward the posse.

The pony veered off in another direction but when the posse saw it's trail they thought the boys were trying to cover their tracks so they followed the pony.

By the time they caught up with it and realized they'd been faked out they gave up and went back to town.

Constant vigil

That was a relief but the boys couldn't afford to let their guard down because these days the telegraph had been invented and they knew it was likely that Coloarado authorities statewide would have been alerted to send out more posses.

After a few days they spotted another posse three miles away with their field glasses. This was a new one that had joined the hunt.

Matt later wrote.."From then on, it was hell proper. It wasn't the case of just one outfit of deputies trailing us, but posses was out scouring the whole country.

We was running into fresh outfits every little while and had to suddenly change our direction, or dodge into a rock or timber hide-out, or back track, or follow long strips of bare sandstone where we wouldn't leave our tracks or wade up or down streams long distances so they would lose our tracks."

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Their closest call came up by Thompson Springs, Utah when they were being closed in on by a posse. They came up on a canyon so they rode in, not knowing if it was a box canyon or not.

Do or die

Turned out it was. They dismounted, pulled out their Winchester rifles and resolved to end it right then and there. They were tired of running.

They hid behind rocks and aimed their rifles toward the opening of the canyon and waited, sweat trickling down their faces.

Silence... Nothing... After a minute or two they knew something went wrong so they mounted back up and rode back out.

The posse had seen them go into the canyon but they rode into the next one, thinking they would cut them off. But the canyon they took was also a box canyon but they didn't realize it until a good distance, being a much longer one. The boys dodged another bullet, literally.

Carrying that much cash is such a pain!

They camped a fair distance from the main trails and never started a campfire at night. They'd all been wearing the cash from the robbery in money belts strapped around their wastes.

They were NOT parting with that cash for a second in any way. They didn't want to tie the belts to the saddlebags or the saddles in case their horses got shot out from under them so they continued to wear them.

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One of the trio, Matt Warner, said later .."The sweat would roll down our bellies and backs and the hard, heavy money belts would gall a ring clear around our bodies, and the money got heavier and heavier and the sore rawer and rawer every mile we rode, till we thought we couldn't stand it any longer."

More than once one or the other of us let loose and acted like a crazy man, swore like a trooper, pawed at his belt, and threatened to tear the damed thing off and throw it away!"

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Lol...poor babies. The life of a bank robber is brutal ain't it? I don't know why they couldn't just take the belts from around their mid-section and drape it around their shoulder like women do with their purse straps.

Ok, so they're making their way through Colorado heading North to Utah and hopefully Robbers Roost which is a famous outlaw hideout area. They ran into a group of friendly Ute Indians, thank God, who traded with them for fresh horses.

Listen to me...these guys are thieves and I'm rootin for em!

Anyway, it's a good thing they got fresh horses because they spy another posse in the distance so they cross the Green River and leave them in the dust, heading for Brown's Park.

Brown's Park is a 45 mile long valley which straddles the borders of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

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The place ain't exactly an eye sore. But what made it so attractive to Bob and the boys is that it was kind of a "no-man's land" with tall bluffs on many of the trails leading into it which would be perfect for ambushes.

A safe haven with friends

And besides that, because it bordered three states there was confusion about jurisdiction and so for these reasons lawmen were hesitant about going in there. Hence, it was a refuge for outlaws and rustlers.

And of course this was part of their plan, Matt Warner knew a rancher there who was a rough, hard drinking rancher who didn't much care what side of the law you were on. So they stayed there to rest up.

After a few days of recovering they got word that a posse had been spotted heading toward the valley so they mounted up and rode North.

Home free

They made it into Northern Utah with no major problems and decided to split up, which was wise. Bob changed his name and started going by George Cassidy.

If you remember a few years earlier he had been taught thieving and outlaw ways by the drifter Mike Cassidy, so in honor of Mike he decided to call himself Cassidy.

I don't know where the other two outlaws went when the team split up but Bob/George made his way back to Brown's Park. I don't blame him.

We'll continue with Bob/George's story tomorrow and see what he gets into next.

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

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

Your spouse texts you to remind you to bring home a case of beer and a
box of shotgun shells!