Chapter 6

Dewey C. Howe Esq and I walked out of the offices of the Pueblo Cattle Management Company. Mr. Simms, the reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper followed along, pausing to write notes as we walked. Three dead bodies were behind us and as we calmly walked out into the public areas of the company the quiet was profound. We assumed that there would be law officers waiting for us outside, so we had our pistols in their holsters and my bloody knife was back in its sheath.

When we exited the building there were indeed several lawmen. When they approached us, Mr. Simms stepped between us and told the lawmen that everything he had witnessed was self-defense. It was apparent that Simms was known by the local law officers and they listened as he told the whole of the story as he knew it from the first meetings with the cattle company and the Secretary of State.

He told them of the murders of the O’Dell family and how Mrs. O’Dell and her lawyer came to confront the men responsible and see to it that the law took care of them. He told them about being shot at, first by a security guard, and then by Mr. Moses and Mr. Wilks. Since no one was inside the office when Moses and Wilks met their makers, Simms embellished the story to make Dewey and I look far more innocent than we were.

The lawmen began to circulate and ask questions inside the offices and heard enough bits and pieces that Simms story actually seemed to make sense. After many questions and explanations from witnesses, the law men agreed with Simms account. He took their names, telling them he needed their names for the article to be published in the paper. They were happy to be getting credit.

“Officers? I’m Opal Anne O’Dell. If you have further need of me, you can reach me through my lawyer in Fountain City. He and Sheriff Cleese know how to find me. I’ll also be in touch with Mr. Beshoar over the next several months, as my business with the Cattle Company is not yet resolved. I will cooperate with any further investigations the best I can.”

The head lawman looked at me and said, “Mrs. O’Dell, Sheriff Jack Cleese is an old friend. I’m the man he wired to tell of the bodies being returned. One of my men is recovering the one remaining rider from Fountain City as we speak. Since all the principles on one side appear to be dead, there may or may not be a trial. The City Attorney will decide that. Someone will contact you or Mr. Howe if there are more questions.”

“Thank you ... is it Sheriff?”

“No ma’am, it is Detective Fish. Detective Phillip Fish.”

“Detective Fish, if you have no further need of us, I would like to return to the newspaper office and then to my home.”

“Yes, ma’am. Not a problem. Be safe and I’m sorry for all this.”

“Don’t be sorry, unless you knew of it and did nothing to stop it. Then we may need to have words.”

I walked away from Detective Fish, leaving him with some thoughts. Simms, Dewey, and I mounted our horses and walked at a normal pace back to the newspaper offices. We were ignored returning to the newspaper as much as we’d been ignored going from it. Dismounting, the three of us tied our horses to the hitching posts and walked into the offices of the Pueblo Chieftain.

“Opal Anne! Dewey! You’re safe! Simms, what happened?” Mr. Beshoar led us into his office and ordered water and coffee be brought in.

“It’s over,” I explained. “The men responsible for the deaths of my family have paid the ultimate price. Simms was there and he can tell you what happened. We did nothing until we were either threatened or shot at. Then it was self-defense, until it wasn’t.”

“That’s all true, sir. We were stopped after the fact by the Pueblo police, but I told them what I saw, as well as a good deal of the O’Dells story as I knew it. Several other witnesses, from inside the offices, told them the same. I also took the names of all the officers to mention them in the paper.”

“Opal Anne, does this mean it’s all over?” Mr. Beshoar asked.

“I hope so. People may ask what was defensive about stuffing Wilks cock into his mouth, but he was dead when I did that. Right Simms?”

“Yes! He was indeed dead by then all right!” Simms said looking me in the eyes.

I smiled at Simms and nodded before looking back towards Mr. Beshoar, “Wilks said, before he died, that he was after our gold. I told him that it was all gone. He died a very unhappy man.”

“Well then, since your lawyer is here, would you like to make a deal to tell the whole story?”

“I think so.”

Dewey and I returned to Fountain City and over the course of the next few weeks, I returned to the plain and buried Paul. That might have been worse than finding him dead. Dewey, Cody, and Sheriff Jack came with me and actually argued with me when I told them I was going to dig the grave myself. After that task was complete, I worked with Dewey and Cody Banks to set up the O’Dell Clan Foundation as the entity owning the majority of stock in the Pueblo Cattle Management Company. After taking care of Mr. Wilks, it was easy to find the last few remaining people that had anything to do with the deaths of my family. I fired them, turned them over to the law, and did all I could to leave them destitute.

I invited Sheriff John Cleese, Doc Pierce, and the now Daisy Pierce-O’Rourke, to sit on the Board of the O’Dell Clan Foundation. They accepted. Then we set about finding a mining company to come in and take over the mining of the plain. I wanted only two requirements. First was that they could not disturb the O’Dell cemetery plot, and second was that they keep certain of the stone buildings and hogans intact as I wanted to preserve as much of the site as possible. I knew the gold was centered along the rift in the river bed, so it was an easy accommodation.

Once that was done, and I had Dewey’s assurance that the law in Pueblo was not coming after me, there was no need for me to remain either on the plain or in Fountain City. I decided that I didn’t want to live in Denver and began looking into other options. I don’t know why, maybe it was the size of the city or the people or the climate, but I finally chose Boise, Idaho.

Pauli, Michelle, me and my swelling belly moved there, taking the train and buying all we needed after we arrived. Folks came to know that the O’Dells had money, but had no idea of the source or the extent of it. I didn’t do the rich society things. I stayed home and raised my daughter and niece, and later that year, my son, Paul Michael Rory O’Dell.

As the years progressed many men made a run at Widow O’Dell, but none stood up to the bar set by my husband. I told one very pompous suitor that he had to impress Thumper, like Paul had. When he understood what that meant, I never saw him again.

Once or twice a year the children and I would take the train from Boise to Denver and then to Colorado Springs, the new name of Fountain City. I would meet with the Board of Directors of the O’Dell Clan Foundation and we would sketch out modifications of our business plan.

The gold was pretty much played out by the time Pauline and Michelle were ten and my son, nine, but the Cattle Company and the investments in Standard Oil and Shoals & Glidden, now known as the Remington Typewriter Company, kept our fortune increasing to vast proportions. Just before Pauli’s tenth birthday, I made several crucial decisions concerning the O’Dell family fortune.

First, I decided I wasn’t going to tell the children about the extent of our family wealth until they were twenty-one years old, and second, they could not tell their future or current spouse about it until they had been married for ten years. Violation of the second part meant being placed on a monthly stipend for the rest of their lives. And while the stipend would be a goodly amount, it would pale in comparison to what their share of the fortune would be.

The three children all knew that we lived a comfortable life, but they also learned that they had to earn everything they got. We could afford servants, but with three healthy children to cook and do chores and share in the maintenance of their home, why bother? Except that Shaw had taught me the need for a good honest man to care for our horses, buggy, and stable, so I hired an old soldier to that end.

All three of the kids learned to take care of themselves and to depend on each other or me when things got tough. I taught all of them how to fight, clean and dirty, and how to debate and make their positions known with logic, common sense and non-violence. The three of them grew up learning how to handle themselves and learning the basic story of the O’Dells.

When they got old enough to ask about their fathers, I told them stories of Paul and Mick in the war and then of the brothers and the battle of the plain and how a man tried to take our home from us and how Mick, Betty Mae, Rory, Raylene, and Roddy had been killed and finally how Paul had died saving me and them from agents of the Cattle Company.

When they were old enough, they all expressed a great amount of appreciation to Mr. Dewey C. Howe Esq, for his aid to our family. After one of our trips to Colorado Springs around Pauli’s twelfth birthday, Michelle asked me why I didn’t see if Dewey or Cody were interested in marrying me. I explained that Cody had other interests and that Dewey had a family of his own. I then explained that cheating on a wife, or husband, and their children, was about the lowest thing that a person could do. My three children understood the concepts of honor and loyalty.

After we’d come home from our most recent trip to the Springs, and school had started again, our sedate life got a little more interesting. Pauli immediately went to her school and pointed out to a few kids that their parents were disloyal, betraying, cheaters, having seen them out and about acting immodestly with people other than their spouses. Of course, that started a major kerfuffle. I hadn’t yet made it a strong point to the children that it was important to mind their own business. I also informed the children that some people chose to live their lives differently than the way we lived ours, and that was their business.

“Children, the way we should live our lives, is to leave others alone, and expect that they will do the same for us. Tomorrow, I want you to go to school and apologize to each child you spoke to. Let them know that you are sorry for commenting on their families’ lives. Tell them that it was none of your business and you’ll say no more about it.”

“Yes, mother,” Pauli said. “But what if they don’t accept our apology?”

“Unless they become dangerous to you or your brother, you do nothing. You will walk away from them, and you will stay away from them. As a rule, we O’Dells don’t start fights, but with your words, you may have. We will always walk away, unless attacked, then we fight back, and we fight back hard.”

I sat in disbelief the next day as Michelle and Paul told me about what happened at school that day.

Pauli did as I asked, accompanied by her brother and cousin. All of the children she spoke with grudgingly accepted her apology, all but one. He was a bit of a bully and he cursed at Pauli. She contritely repeated that she was sorry and turned to walk away. The young man kicked her in the bottom, hard, and when she turned around to confront the boy, he slapped her.

Apparently, Pauli immediately shifted her weight to her back foot, planted it, and then swung a right hook, rotated her hips into it, as I’d taught her to do, and made contact with the boys jaw, knocking him out. She then stomped the boy several times in the ribs and the jewels, in a manner that would have made my old mule, Thumper, proud. She bent over the boy, while he was writhing on the ground and spoke firmly.

“I meant what I said. I’m sorry for what I said about your parents, I consider this episode closed. I would hope that you would as well.”

She, with Michelle and Paul, who had been holding back any overly interested bystanders, walked away through a stunned crowd of onlookers. Then the school administrator got involved. Pauli was sent home from that days classes, and the next day she was to be brought before the school principal for discipline. I came with her.

“Mrs. O’Dell, we simply cannot have this sort of behavior in our school,” the distinguished looking gentleman said.

“I agree wholeheartedly, Principal Bates,” I said, and I did agree.