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“Unless someone found it in the past century.”
He winced, but I thought that was from habit. “Guess I’ll have to wait until the museum lets people look at the original article.”
“It could be a while.”
He looked toward his office, jam-packed with all that treasure research, all those clues, then over toward the barn, where the voices of his family could be heard as they tended to the horses.
“That’s okay.”
****
We had all that material on Pearl and Oscar, on Butch Cassidy and friends.
In coverage of Keefer Dobey’s murder, we ended up mentioning it only in connection with what sparked the gift of a DNA test.
Much of the rest would never make it on-air. The vast majority of our listeners already knew a lot of it — it was news to me, not them.
But Nala and I did put together an in-house piece on the history of Wild West outlaws as it connected to Cottonwood County, which really narrowed the scope. It was for the newcomers who’d be coming to KWMT-TV from all over, starting with Octavia Zabel of Pittsburgh.
Hard to tell who was more excited about that impending arrival — Mike or Leona.
Nala was also doing a three-part piece for on-air about Oscar and Pearl Virtanen to run on the anniversaries of their major robberies, with their connections to this area highlighted in between.
As for Keefe’s murder, we did not do a special on the investigation. Instead, we went back to our purported project and ran a shorter piece on Keefer Dobey, a character formed by and representative of Cottonwood County.
Nala got some great memories of him from former seasonal workers and long-time dude ranch guests. Longer versions aired on the station’s website.
Robin taped one of those and held off her tears until the very end, which made it even stronger.
****
Clara found the original of the article from Keefe’s nutmeg tin in one of the boxes still at Teague’s property. A box not yet scheduled to be assessed by her or Mrs. Parens.
Clearly, Keefe had searched well beyond the boxes he moved.
I told her to give Shelton a copy, as an “i” for him to dot. Better it came from her than me or my cohorts. More eruptions couldn’t be good for him.
I also took another run at Mrs. Parens.
With the two of us in Clara’s museum office before they had a work session, I asked bluntly, “Do you think Esther Ramalarga was Etta Place—”
Her lips parted and I quickly amended my question.
“Do you think she was the woman the Pinkerton wanted posters called Etta Place?”
She paused. Long enough for me to accept she wasn’t going to answer and consider what to ask next.
“I do not know.”
My surprise must have shown, because she said more strongly, “I do not know,” though my surprise was for her answering at all.
“Even had I asked her, how could I or anyone know for a certainty the full truth? As it was, I did not ask her. I knew her as an excellent teacher who was wise and kind to me at the time I most needed wisdom and kindness. When she died, a letter instructed me and her legal representative—”
“One of the Longbaughs?”
She declined her head in a slow nod. “—to send her remains to a family in Pennsylvania. She wrote that they knew her wishes.”
We looked at each other a long moment before I said, slowly, “The Sundance Kid’s family — Harry Longabaugh’s family — came from Pennsylvania.”
