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Emmaline Parens was fretting that her words prevented Keefe from telling her more and that in so doing she had somehow contributed to not preventing his murder.
Nothing I said to her would help with that. Finding out the murderer might. Maybe. Or it might confirm her fears.
Either way, it would be the truth and we both valued that.
But she was leaving something out. Brenda and Wendy weren’t interested. Ivy and Clara helped him. Who else...?
“Sam McCracken,” I said.
She didn’t blink.
Like she was working hard to not blink.
“He told Sam McCracken about the land, the death certificate, and the sale.”
“Keefer did not mention a name, however, he did convey that someone was going to help him with further inquiries because the proceeds from Oscar Virtanen’s last robbery might be on the property he once owned.”
Had to be Sam McCracken.
Time for a reset.
With all she’d said and hadn’t said swirling in a question soup in my head, I pulled out one thing to say. “So, an outlaw ranched in Cottonwood County.”
“Those who pursued outlaw ways were quite fluid in their other employments,” she said with a return to her usual manner. “Many, if not most, worked as cowboys or ranch hands at times. It is often reported that Butch Cassidy’s first name came from a period occupied as a butcher southwest of here. He adopted Cassidy as his last name from a wrangler and rustler who served as what some term as a mentor in his early career as an outlaw. In addition, some historians hold that Butch Cassidy owned a ranch in the Wind River area.”
“Did he?”
Delicately she hoisted a shoulder. “If so, it was not a financial success. I have heard the opinion expressed that the endeavor was to mask other occupations.”
“The Wild West’s version of money laundering?”
Her opposite shoulder rose this time. “Further, the Virtanens’ endeavors on their land did not qualify as ranching, even by the standards of that period, which had dwindled drastically compared to the open range era.”
She didn’t insult me by asking if I knew what the open range era was. I knew it was when ranchers ran huge herds on public land. And I knew it ended, but when and how that intersected with the period of outlaws...?
I needn’t have tiptoed around my ignorance.
She could sniff out ignorance like a truffle being hunted down by a — I know, you’re thinking pig, but, no — dog.
Several breeds of dogs have been trained to hunt truffles. They have advantages over pigs, starting with easier transport than a 400-pound pig and a better record with the Drop It command.
“The open range was the heyday of the cowboy as he is popularly envisioned now, including the cattle drives that brought herds into this region,” she said. “Beginning with the devastating winter of 1886-1887, with blizzard after blizzard and temperatures believed to have reached negative 60 degrees, killing hundreds of thousands of cattle, the large-scale ranchers experienced pressures squeezing from multiple directions. More population, especially homesteaders, as well as the burgeoning mining industry in Wyoming, brought competition for the range lands, as well as a swing in political power. As the open range shrank, more and more cowboys no longer had jobs.”
“They turned to crime because they were unemployed?”
“That is a recognizable correlation, whether it is causation is not proven. A majority of those involved with the well-known gangs had worked as cowboys and continued to off and on during their outlaw period.” She tipped her head. “You might also recognize that the outlaw gangs were not largely populated by store clerks.”
“Okay, but getting back to Oscar Virtanen. He wasn’t an out of work cowboy. He owned land here. Who was this guy? I haven’t heard about him, much less her.” But I hadn’t grown up around here. Now, Lincoln was another matter. I could trace his footsteps from Kentucky to Indiana to all over Illinois and into history. Oscar Virtanen was no Lincoln. “Are they well-known around here? The Butch and Sundance of Cottonwood County.”
She pursed her lips. “Those two individuals were not as well-known here as they are now until that film came out some time ago. It did not adhere to even what facts are known, starting with the fact that Elzy Lay could be more accurately portrayed as Cassidy’s most frequent partner in committing crimes and the group of outlaws known as the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang was a very loosely tied association of individuals, rather than a gang.”
That matched what Sam McCracken said.
But I couldn’t resist defending the movie, “It was written for entertainment value, rather than education.”
She sniffed. “It could have achieved more of the latter without sacrificing the former.”
“If you were writing the Oscar and Pearl Virtanen story, being historically accurate, of course, what would it say?”
