Chapter Twenty-Two

"Wait a minute,let me get this straight. The outlaw Oscar Virtanen owned land in Cottonwood County. He robbed a bank in southern Wyoming — not his first stickup — and was shot in the process. He started north, presumably to meet up with his wife, Pearl, who was somewhere — we don't know quite where — but possibly in the vicinity of Cottonwood County, which would make sense since they owned land here."

I took a breath, she waited patiently. Possibly trying to model ideal behavior to me.

"The posse caught up with him, finding none of the proceeds of the robbery but — at least according to one secondary source — with evidence that he'd been digging. He then died of his wounds. His wife — who might or might not have been pregnant at the time — obtained a death certificate for him and then sold the property. Do I have that all right?"

"I believe so, with the caveat that the official record confirms only parts of it."

Big surprise.

"And that property eventually became the Elk Rock Ranch, where Keefer Dobey lived most of his life, recently becoming fascinated with whether he might be descended from Oscar and Pearl Virtanen."

No response.

That was not going to fly. "He must have asked you, Mrs. Parens."

"He did ask me questions, however, as I've said, the official record—"

"Did that satisfy him?"

"No." Her sadness softened me.

"What did he tell you, Mrs. Parens? If it helps to find his killer..."

Were rules on gossip more important?

I didn't speak those words. We both understood them.

"As I stated, he largely asked me questions, while I could not supply the answers. He told me he had first explored the possibility of Harry Longabaugh and Etta Place or Ben Kilpatrick and Laura Bullion being his ancestors, however, he transferred his attention to Oscar and Pearl Virtanen. He expressed frustration with the dearth of information."

"Did he say who else he'd talked to about this?"

"He told me what he'd learned from Ivy Short at the library and Clara Atwood at the museum. He also expressed frustration with the lack of interest in his endeavors shown by Brenda and Wendy, particularly when he learned of Pearl obtaining the death certificate and selling the property."

"How did he learn that? Did you tell him?"

"I did not."

But there'd be the faintest flicker of her eyes toward her office. "Russell Teague's vacuum cleaner approach to historical information picked it up," I concluded.

"Anything in those papers is the property of the Sherman Western Frontier Life Museum and use or dissemination of the information in them as well as the papers themselves is entirely the purview of the museum."

If she'd found the material, she'd never have shared it with him, not without getting Clara's okay. And if Clara okayed it, why not tell me? "He found the information himself."

She looked unhappy.

"He wasn't just delivering and returning boxes, he was dipping into them."

Even more unhappy.

"I expressed myself quite firmly on the topic to Keefer. I told him if he did not cease that practice, I would inform Clara Atwood and his services would no longer be used. He appeared genuinely confused over why anyone would be upset about his looking at the materials. He said it would become accessible to the public in the due course of time, so why shouldn't he see it now, especially if it assisted him in determining his lineage."

"Did he mention Robin Kenyon or her father, Randall Kenyon?"

"That is the young woman who was injured at the end of last season?"

"Yes."

"He did mention them, briefly. Primarily in expressing gratitude for their obtaining a DNA test for him to take to explore his lineage. That conversation occurred on his previous stop to return to the museum those boxes I had processed and to bring me ones not yet assessed. The last time we spoke, the day before he was found dead, I am sorry to say that we did not talk beyond the necessities. I thought at the time that he needed more time to absorb and adjust to what I had said previously." Her eyebrows dropped in a microfrown. "In light of his death, of someone murdering him, I do now consider the possibility that he was being what one might term cagey."

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?"

A glint came into her eyes. She rose, went directly to a section of her extensive bookcases, chose a book without hesitation and handed it to me on her return.

Picking that book out was more of an accomplishment than it had first seemed, since it did not have the title on the spine. I saw why when I looked at the cover. "Myth and Reality concerning those designated as outlaws in the Wild West, 1889-1912."

The spine wasn't nearly thick enough to hold that title. The cover barely had room for that and the name of the author, Esther Ramalarga.

"This looks quite old," I commented.

"It is the dissertation written by a colleague of mine, a mentor, really. A remarkable woman, who acquired her PhD well beyond an age when most people do, much less women of that period. It is, to my knowledge, the only work on Oscar Virtanen and Pearl Virtanen. You may borrow it."

Less may and more shall.

I thanked her suitably. "Can you give me a preview?"

"They were a newly married couple when they arrived in the southwestern corner of the state. They are believed to have gone to work on the Bassett ranch there. The Bassetts were an interesting family from the contemporary accounts. It was a changing time in Wyoming, including the cattle industry. There occurred a great deal of conflict between smaller, newer operations such as the Bassetts' and the large operations trying mightily to hold onto their position and privilege from the open range era by all means at their disposal, including violence. The Johnson County War is well-known as a major range war—"

If not the range war.

"—with large cattle companies bringing in hired guns against small ranchers and farmers, accusing them, with little to no evidence, of rustling. There might well have been rustling and other depredations, however some of these cattlemen did not wait for the justice system to sort out matters, but lynched those they had accused."

"But the Johnson County War happened on the other side of the Big Horn Mountains, while Oscar and Pearl Virtanen were here, right?"

"Similar, if not quite so spectacular conflicts occurred in many areas. However, I know you most desire to know about the Virtanens." She mildly disapproved of my narrowing my knowledge-gathering in such a way, but she would humor me. "When they first came to this region, they were not in the vicinity of what is our county now. They were in the southwestern part of the state, where Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah come together. There are conflicting reports of whether they worked for or were neighbors of the Bassetts, who were quite well known in the area, not the least because they had two lovely daughters.

"The Bassetts, whether by design or accident, established connections and friendships with those now known as outlaws, including, notably, Butch Cassidy. Those associations, the frequent visits of such persons, and the making known of the consequences that would occur if human-wrought misfortune befell the Bassetts accorded them a large measure of protection from the large cattle companies in the area who might otherwise have tried to eradicate the Bassetts' ranch.

"There are accounts that the two Bassett daughters, Ann and Josie, had strong connections with a number of the outlaws," she said delicately of what sounded like more partner switching among outlaws and a limited group of women — presumably ones trusted to keep outlaw secrets. "How many of those accounts stem from their own later tales is not known. There have even been assertions that Ann, specifically, and Etta Place were one and the same, despite confirmable historic dates contradicting that."

She drew in a breath.

Fearing a recitation of all historic dates and how they conflicted, I shifted in my chair.

Giving no sign that she'd been thwarted other than a blink of her eyes, she continued, "From a few letters Pearl Virtanen wrote home to her family that have survived and are quoted in full in the dissertation—" She tipped her head toward the book I held. "—we know that her husband and she were given shooting lessons by the Bassetts and unnamed visitors, and that each member of the couple showed an aptitude that drew favorable comment from their instructors. Though neither, apparently, proved as expert at riding horses.

"The next event in their lives, though speculative rather than confirmed, was the robbery of a bank in a town a day's ride west of the Bassetts' ranch. Newspaper accounts disagreed on whether the robbers were two men or a man and a boy. It was later associated with the Virtanens, based on witnesses who came forward. Each identified Oscar, while one claimed that Pearl Virtanen was the other perpetrator. By that time the Virtanens had left that area.

"A second robbery attributed to them, well to the east, involved holding up a bank in a railroad town just before it closed, tying up the two employees remaining in the bank, then boarding the train about to depart town. They paid for their tickets to a distant stop, but at some point left their seats, heading toward the baggage compartment. When the robbery was recognized later that night and news telegraphed ahead, they were no longer on the train. Nor did a couple matching their descriptions arrive at any of the stops the train had made. The speculation is that they had changed their appearances, stepped off the train at one of the stops, and disappeared into the town, where they had a prearranged means of departure."

"Echoing Butch Cassidy's planning."

She nodded. "Very shortly after that, the deed for the land here was issued. From the dates, it is possible that proceeds from that bank robbery could have been applied to that purchase, while not providing firm proof.

"The following year, however, Oscar Virtanen was wounded when he and two other men robbed a bank in the southern part of the state. The others escaped south, bolstering the belief that Pearl was not involved, for if she had been, she would have gone north with Oscar, when all reports agreed he was alone. In addition, there were reports that she was in Red Lodge. The posse that headed south lost those robbers, but the one that went north had greater success tracking Oscar. When he was found, he was quite near here."

"And was muddy, as if he'd been digging," I said.

"That was the report," she confirmed. "He died of his injuries by the next night. It is unclear if Pearl saw him before his death. Not long after, she appeared and demanded a death certificate, stating her identity. Perhaps startled by her audacity or perhaps knowing they had insufficient evidence to hold her, they issued the certificate and let her go. The following week, she transferred the deed to the land that became Elk Rock Ranch."

"She packed up and left? Returned to the Bassetts? Went to work for someone else? Joined another gang? Went back east?"

She raised her palms up in a familiar, but unusual for her, gesture of not knowing.

"There is no further record of her that has been found." She pointed to the book in my lap. "The diligent efforts to find further evidence of her are detailed in the dissertation. I cannot imagine efforts to trace the woman known as Etta Place have been any less diligent, while having the advantage of certainly being more numerous."

"But nothing?" Her nod confirmed my words. "So those two — Pearl Virtanen and the woman known as Etta Place — disappeared permanently, but you said some other women disappeared for an extended period. That means they were found later?"

"I was referring to Laura Bullion, whose whereabouts and activities were not known for a span of approximately six years before she arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, where she spent decades until her death. However, it is time to go next door to assist Gisella."

"Gee's house? I still have questions—"

"As you will continue to have," she said serenely, in contrast to how I felt about unanswered questions. "Gisella has been cooking for several needy families, and I promised I would help her pack the meals. You can assist."

"Mrs. Parens—"

"Are you aware that Gisella was a protégé of Ulla Dobey, the long-time cook at the Elk Rock Ranch and Keefer's mother?"