Think Like an Outlaw

The hot summer sun was just sinking behind the mesa as the young outlaw sat in the shade of the front door in the small rough built cabin

His horse had been ridden hard these last few days and was rubbed down and now munching on the green tender grass in the shade of the canyon. The horse, although tired, was saddled and ready to go. The young man too would be sleeping with his boots on tonight. He wasn’t worried about the posse that had set out after him and his partner after they had robbed the stagecoach, well not very worried, this was a nice little hidey hole that had never been found and he had taken what steps he could to throw off pursuit, but he liked to be prepared this soon after a robbery. When things quieted down, then he would relax. The posse had been hot on their heels right after the robbery but they had thrown them off using some blind trails they had set up and confusing their trail in a cow herd they had come across. He had taken the loot and his partner had split off with the extra horses a couple of days ago, he had stashed the bags in their predetermined spot, a safe cache site that no one would ever find and would join up with his partner in a week or so at a saloon in Santa Fe. Once things died down they would head back and collect the bags and go live the high life for a few months. Or maybe this time he would get a piece of land and a few cows and settle down. He had talked about doing that after every robbery but nothing ever came of it, the thrill was too great, the lure of easy money too tempting, the money gone too quickly.

His eyes kept wandering to the slightly discolored spot on the other side of the canyon. There was a small depression in the ledge there, that had filled with sand over the years. It made a great little bank, where the two outlaws could hide their loot without fear of someone stumbling upon it.

He started up a small fire and put on his dinner and a pot of coffee. As the sun set he was glad of the warmth and the comfort of the fire, this was the first time he had chanced a fire since the holdup. Somewhere his partner would be doing the same thing, they always split up after a robbery, one taking the loot and one taking the extra horses. So far it had worked out well for the pair.

As the fire burned down the young man stretched out to relax a bit, the night was quiet and the stars were coming out bright with no moon in the sky. Suddenly the outlaw sat up, the night was quiet, too quiet, usually there were night birds chirping, quail bobbing in the night, coyotes yapping, tonight there was no animal noises. He looked over at his horse, the animal was looking around with his ears perked up. Quickly he poured out the last of the coffee onto the fire and raked the last of the burning sticks around to kill the fire.

HANDS UP !! The shout rang out in the night.

The outlaw pulled his gun from his waist and dove to the left trying to get behind some rocks. A flash of a shotgun blast lit up the night. I SAID HANDS UP !! The voice shouted. The young outlaw fired from the hip at the DIRECTION of the shotgun blast and tried to crawl farther back to get better cover. If he could just get to his horse he could get out by a back trail and be out of the area before sun up. They would never catch him after that.

With the echoes of his shot still in the air the little canyon erupted in an EAR SPLITTING barrage of gunfire.

The posse was tired and nervous, one shot was all it took to set them off.

When the echoes died out and the gun smoke cleared one of the posse was wounded in the arm from a ricochet and the young outlaw was dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

The posse brought up a horse with the body of the other outlaw and laid them out together. They had cornered him in much the same way and with the same outcome.

They built up the fire and prepared to get some rest, in the morning they would look for the stolen money from the stagecoach robbery and anything else that the robbers had stashed around the cabin. But for now it was a chance to get some rest after a week of chasing down these two bandits.

In the morning the members of the posse searched and searched the area around the cabin but no trace of the outlaw’s loot was found. A search of the two outlaws and their gear turned up a couple hundred dollars but nothing more. This time the loot would not be recovered, the posse would check the back trail for any likely spots, never realizing that it was in sight of them that whole morning.

We have been chasing a lot of outlaw trails this year and every time we find an old outlaw hide out I always start thinking “what were THEY thinking as they sat here”. Were they on the run, looking over their shoulder for the dust of a posse or safe at the moment, relaxing during a moment of calm? Were they on their way to their next “job” or just tramping around? That had to have been a lonely, nervous way to live.

These outlaw camps and hideouts were usually out of the way places. A lot of them because of the necessity of water and feed for the horses are now the site of farms and ranches.

Many of the cabin sites were set up by the local ranchers for the use of the cowboys while out herding the cows and horses. If a cabin was not available or too far away a sheltered spot near a water source would work.

Usually the outlaws tried to avoid people and towns, especially right after a holdup, but they were by necessity curious about what was going on in regards to the lawmen and who might be looking for them and were known to slip into town or stop by a remote ranch to hear the latest gossip. These stories usually didn’t come to light until much later as people didn’t want to draw attention to themselves for “helping” the outlaws. These stories are usually found in family histories or personal recollections. There are many stories of outlaws coming into town quietly and poking about for a few hours then slipping back out. Sometimes they were seen by someone with more “civic duty” than others and ended up leaving town in chains or in a box.

For the Outlaws, “hiding” their loot was usually a quick temporary thing. They would stash it over night while they were making their getaway from the heist, so that if caught they would not have the evidence on them, or stash a bit away at some of the more frequented hideouts in case they needed some for emergencies later on. Sometimes they would stash the loot until the heat died down from the law and they could once again move around freely. Usually the plan was for no more than a couple weeks.

There are stories of bandits like Jesse James, hiding a lot of their loot for future use, but these seem to be the exception rather than the norm.

For the most part they spent it just as fast as they stole it. A few weeks or months living high and then it was time for another job.

So we have a robber that just stole $10,000. A week later he is caught and killed 200 miles away and no money is found. Where did he hide the money???

If you have ever thought about hiding something the possibilities can quickly become overwhelming.

The places to hide something greatly depends on the circumstances at the time it is being hid.

Is this a spur of the moment thing, or a planned “bank”? Is it long term or just overnight? Is this hiding place to keep others from finding something or just a “safe place” to put your stuff?

If it is long term you have to think about floods, fire, animals, rockslides and many other natural occurrences that might impact your cache.

Also the type of thing to be hidden may influence the hiding spot, coins and jewelry could be hidden in or around water, paper money or anything that might be harmed by water might require a different option.

Another thing to consider is who would be coming back for the “stash”. Is it a lone operator or a gang?

Does it need to be somewhere everyone in the gang knows about and can find?

SO, what do you do to increase your chance of a satisfactory outcome? RESEARCH !!!

The more you know about an incident, the people involved, the country and terrain, the better your chances of finding what you are looking for.

Let’s look at these things separately.

INCIDENT:

What

Where

When

How

Why

Who

What was taken

WHAT: This is the basic story. Everything we find out next fills in the hole of the story. The west bound stagecoach was robbed by 2 men. Newspaper reports say they got away with $21,000 in cash

WHERE: aprox 10 miles west of Cheyenne Wyo. Try to get the “where” down as specifically as possible if it is a stagecoach hold up or train robbery. The location might dictate the escape route and knowing the route taken away from the scene can be very important.

WHEN: June 23 1888 at 7:45 AM. Weather conditions can be a factor, get all the info you can.

HOW: Driver encountered a log across the road, when the conductor got down to move the log, two men stepped out of the bushes brandishing shotguns told the driver and conductor to drop their weapons and commenced to hold up the coach and demanded the mail and cash boxes. One man held a gun the other man got the two boxes and drawing a revolver commenced to demand money and jewelry from the drivers and passengers. The men then backed off into the bushes and could be heard mounting horses and riding off to the south. The stagecoach continued on 8 miles to the next stage stop and wired the authorities in Cheyenne where a posse was dispatched.

The “how” of a robbery has been important to me because of what it shows about the robbers. Was it well planned, were the robbers nervous or calm? Were they prepared for changes in the situation?

How did they treat the people they were robbing?

Why: The why, is usually just a variation of “ I wanted easy money” but sometimes there is an underlying motivation that can lend some insight to the outlaws actions and maybe add a clue as to what happened to the loot. Many of the outlaws had personal grudges against individual ranchers, banks, big cattle companies in general, mining companies or individuals that worked at the mines. This would sometimes lead them to single out or at least pay more attention to these entities. Banks, railroads and big eastern owned cattle companies were a favorite target as it was seen as getting back at the big companies that made life hard for the small farmer/rancher. Did the outlaws rob the train to get money to send back east to their old sick, grandmother? Sometimes the “why” can tell you a lot.

Who: More than just the names of the people involved, try to get a history of each person, what they were like, their personality and temperament. Was this person hot headed and rash, were they calm and methodical? Did they plan out their robberies or was it spur of the moment, fly by the seat of your pants operation?

The more organized and planed out the robbery was, the better hidden the loot might be. If the posse was hot on their heels and they had to ditch the loot quick it is probably not hidden all that well.

 What happened after the robbery? Did they get away? Were they killed or captured? You could be looking for a cache that was picked up by the outlaws after getting out of jail. How close was the posse to the outlaws? Were they a couple days back or “hot on their heels”?

Another thing to look at is the Lawmen and posse that were involved. Did they report that they didn’t find the loot but several weeks later one of the posse members magically came up with enough money to buy a prize bull and several new horses? Or the lawman who decided to suddenly retire and see more of the world? People were people no better or worse than people today, be curious about everyone involved in the story.

Also something to consider is “over inflation”. The bank manager reports that 10,000 dollars in cash and coin was stolen but the robbers only really got away with $5,000 and most of that was checks and papers. That old bank manager takes a nice little profit home and quietly retires when the robbers are reported killed and only some of the loot recovered.

WHAT WAS TAKEN: Stories grow with age. Even a short walk across the street from the bank to the newspaper office can change the small robbery to the heist of the century. Have you ever seen a report of a robbery and it says the outlaws got away with a large amount of gold? Chances are they didn’t get nearly what was reported and if they did, they probably didn’t get far with it. GOLD IS HEAVY!

The type of things that were taken can also have an influence on where things get cached. Things that are heavy or bulky might get thrown to the side of the trail if the posse is hot in pursuit.

Question everything and be skeptical. Try to prove and disprove every assumption. Don’t take anything at face value.

County side and terrain: I always like to get a look at the area in question while doing research but before the actual search. I find that it helps to have a general idea of the terrain and the land while researching. If the story talks about a certain hill but there are not any hills in the area, or that they rode through a river to lose pursuit but the only river in the area only runs in the spring and the robbery was late fall, you can save yourself a lot of needless searching if you have a bit more information. Those kinds of questions can shed a lot of light on a project.

Keep an eye out for landmarks and anything that might “stick out’ or be unusual. You could draw a map to show where something is, but it is easier to say ‘its buried under that big overhang across from the cabin” or “Its under the cottonwood by the spring”. Those kinds of inside references are all that’s needed for members of the gang and leave outsiders scratching their heads.

Another thing to look out for is water, I live in a desert state and in most places water is scarce. A lot of the time you can plot the outlaw’s route just by lining up the springs along the way. They may not have camped right at the spring but if it was possible they usually hit as many as they could along the way. Try to look at the oldest maps you can. Springs are and were tapped and diverted into pipes for the cities and towns to use. Springs that were in use and open back in the day are probably covered and pipped today. Also look at place names. Names like “Sweetwater Canyon” or “Willey’s Well” can point to water sources that may not be open today but were in use a long time ago. You can go to the city or county and look up where the water sources that they maintain are.

It doesn’t do any good to jump out of your vehicle and start searching an area before you have done your research but having a good knowledge of the area first, can really help with your research.

So now we have a good handle on the facts of the story, a good idea of who the outlaws were and how they acted, how they dealt with situations that came up and maybe how they pulled some of their other “jobs”. We know their route and where they camped each night. We know how much they stole and what it consisted of. We know what happened after the posse went after them and who was in the posse. We know a general “lay of the land” and some of the features and landmarks in the area.

Now we know enough to start searching for that buried cache. Now it is time to get out in the field and look around, Take your time, be curious. Run the different scenarios through and check them out.

Take notes on everything, you might see something you want to check out later or have an idea that comes to you, don’t make the mistake of thinking you will remember later.

Draw your own maps, sometimes putting things down on paper will trigger something and can be the break you are looking for.

Try to think like the outlaw, put yourself in their shoes…or boots.