Working The Trapline — Bandits & Ballads

Tom Clavin continues to roll with his popular accounts of frontier outlaw & lawman history. His take on the late-19th Century bandits of the West drops on October 22.

Robbers Roost, Brown’s Hole, and Hole-in-the-Wall were three hideouts that collectively were known to outlaws as “Bandit Heaven.” During the 1880s and ’90s these remote locations in Wyoming and Utah harbored hundreds of train and bank robbers, horse and cattle thieves, the occasional killer, and anyone else with a price on his head.

Clavin’s Bandit Heaven is the entertaining story of these tumultuous times and the colorful characters who rode the Outlaw Trail through the frigid mountain passes and throat-parching deserts that connected the three hideouts—well-guarded enclaves no sensible lawman would enter. There are the “star” residents like gregarious Butch Cassidy and his mostly silent sidekick the Sundance Kid, and an array of fascinating supporting players like the cold-blooded Kid Curry, and “Black Jack” Ketchum (who had the dubious distinction of being decapitated during a hanging), among others.

Most of the hard-riding action takes place in the mid- to late-1890s when Bandit Heaven came to be one of the few safe places left as the law closed in on the dwindling number of active outlaws. Most were dead by the beginning of the 20th century, gunned down by a galvanized law-enforcement system seeking rewards and glory. Ultimately, only Cassidy and Sundance escaped . . . to meet their fate 6,000 miles away, becoming legends when they died in a fusillade of lead.

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We’ve been experiencing strangely mild weather for mid-August in Central Oregon. There is a distinct tinge of fall in the air. Yes, I’ve busted out the pumpkin spice tea. Long-time visitors to this campfire probably have figured out that autumn is my favorite time of year, so getting a long run at it from August is just fine by me. Lady Marilyn is a sweet summer child, and she is not so pleased. We have struck a compromise and determined that we are going to experience a lengthy Indian Summer.

Yes, exactly.

Anyways… when the light starts to turn and the nights get chill, all the trails start to wend their way toward Fennario. Thus, I fired up a tale last evening: Liath Wolf’s recent re-telling of the legend of Tam Lin.

Which, of course, led to balladry. Tam Lin sailed across the ocean, and landed on the Appalachian frontier, where it was eventually “collected” as Child Ballad No. 39.