So, you wanna know about my days before I got into the movies when I was an outlaw? Well, it’s not as glamorous as it may seem. Yes, I was part of the Hole in the Wall and Black Jack Ketchum gangs. And I tell ya, those were wild times. But I was never actually part of the real gangs, ya know? I mostly took care of the horses, went into town to get supplies, things like that. I never actually went with them when they actually robbed or killed anybody.

But it was exciting for a nineteen year old kid. I came from a little town in western Utah, and could ride and dress out a deer without problem. But even then my eyesight was horrible. Dad was a real bible thumper, and believed we were as God made us so refused to get me glasses. So I could not hunt, and would be useless on an actual job. But one time when Robby came to visit we met up, and the next thing I knew I was in Wyoming.

Robby who, you say? Why, Robby Parker. Oh, but you would not know who he is, I forget sometimes. That’s the real name of Butch Cassidy. That would have been, oh, 1898. So I joined him in the Hole in the Wall, as I needed to do some running myself.

Oh no, nothing like that. I was not in any kind of legal trouble, but I was on the run. Let’s just say that in the last few months I had been getting increasingly friendly with Miss Mildred Franklin. To the point that two weeks before Robby returned she had told me she was afraid that I had put a baby in her. Now Mildred had these lovely large doe like eyes and udders that were already impressive for her only being seventeen. But I also knew her momma, and that by the time she was 35 she would weigh almost twice what my pa did. So after a final tussle in the brush where I was sure if she had not already caught she might well be now, with three heapings of my seed leaking out of her as I promised I would talk to her daddy soon about us getting hitched. Then Robby and I hit the trail the next morning.

And the first stop was four days in Salt Lake City, where I got my first pair of glasses. Then meeting up with Harry before finishing the trip to Wyoming.

I settled in with them well enough, and not being wanted they often used me to scout towns they wanted to hit, or be the man far in front when they moved from place to place. My vision was now better than it had ever been before, but was not all that great. But I also had absolutely no record, so I was perfect for that. Three times I even ran across some Pinks. They would question me a bit, then head on off in the direction I said I had seen some unsavory types. But we had a signal, and if when I set up camp for a night I built two smaller fires on opposite sides of my camp they knew it was safe to come join me.

Well, we finally made it to New Mexico, and it had been quite a trip. Now by then Harry had already taken up with Etta. Harry, oh, yeah. You would know of him as the Sundance Kid. But he hated being called either Sundance or Kid, so we just called him Harry. You know, a lot of those nicknames we all got back then we did not like. Take Butch, he would answer to it and was one of the few that did not mind as he actually had been an apprentice butcher before he left that to go into other things. But Harry? He got that name as he was only twenty years old and living in Sundance, Wyoming when he was caught stealing a horse. He was about thirty when I met him, not a kid and he had not been in Sundance in many years.

Myself? Oh, my sobriquet back then was “Peeper Black”, on account of my glasses and my hair back then was coal black.

But anyways, they only stayed there in New Mexico Territory for a little bit. They met up with Black Jack Ketchum, and as this time they were going to be riding fast and hard they elected to leave me behind. So I took up with Black Jack.

Why were they riding hard? Well, that was in their train robbing days, and the Pinks were really putting on the heat. Pinks, Pinkerton’s, private eyes. Yes, they were working hard to catch them and even had special posses out looking for them so they headed up north again. Me, I started to do the same thing for Jack and his gang. Scouting, making chow and running for supplies. Oh, and then there was Ann.

Ann, she’s Ann Bassett. Both her and her sister Josie were more or less parts of the gang. Naw, not really part of any one gang, but like those floozies now that hang out with the jazz singers and musicians they like. Except the Bassett sisters hung around with the outlaws. She was just a year or two older than I was, and boy did she teach me some things. Like the first night she crawled into my roll during the trip south. She showed me that her mouth could be used for more than yapping, if you know what I mean. So when Harry and Robby met up with Jack, her older sister Josie was already there so she decided to stay also instead of finding another home.

Well, we were a real thing there for about three months. She was really beautiful, and that girl could fuck like a rabbit. And it seems she had wanted to take up with Harry again, but he and Etta were already an item by then. Yes, Etta Place, she’s a real person. Oh, she was from somewhere back east, I want to say Connecticut. Even then Robby and Harry were talking about leaving it all behind and going straight. A few more big hauls, then find somewhere they could set up and go legit raising cattle.

Well, by that time I was a thing with Ann, and that girl had already been around the world and back again. Oh no, I don’t mean traveling. She was barely older than I was, yet she had been riding with those guys off and on since she was fifteen. She’d been with Harry by then, as well as Robby. And Elzy, Kid Curry, Tall Texan Kilpatrick, and a few other guys. I even heard tell that she had been with Laura Bullion a time or two, as well as with both Elzy and his wife Maude at the same time.

Well, by that time she had shown me a lot of things the girls back home had no idea about. Like after she got me to enjoy licking her kitty, she showed me how we could both do it at the same time. But after a few months she headed back to her pappy’s ranch and I stuck on.

Then things started to go to hell. They had robbed a few trains, then Jack’s brother Sam took most of the gang out to do it again and never came back. Jack took off and left me in charge of the camp as he was going to hit another train and see if he could find his brother. It was two weeks later when I went to town for some coffee and other supplies when I got the news. Sam had been killed in a shootout, and Jack had been captured.

Well, that was enough for me. The other camp hand was a guy named Bill Prescot, and the two of us packed up everything and hit the trail. We hit Las Cruces and sold off the extra horses and supplies, and with just the buckboard and a saddle horse for each of us we headed to El Paso.

We hung out there for about three weeks, ready to make a run into Mexico if things got hot. But we soon realized that we were not wanted at all, nobody seemed to even know we existed. So we took up a life of grifters. Mostly small time things, change the brand on two or three cows and sell them with forged papers. Deeds and shares to silver mines that had gone bust in the Arizona Territory that Jack had gotten in a train robbery, things like that. We did that all the way from El Paso to Houston, then went north to Oklahoma and started to do the same thing heading west. But we never made much, just enough to keep us in whiskey and cigars.

But then we had an idea. If we could get just one good score, we could head to California and go legit ourselves. Land out there was selling for $20 an acre, so if we could get together around $5,000 we could buy two hundred acres and still have enough to get a herd of cattle and set up for ourselves.

The only problem was how to come up with the $5,000.

By that time we were already heading back to El Paso, so we hit the Gila Trail. And when we were in New Mexico, Bill handed me a newspaper that had an interesting article. Out in Animas some rancher had the dumb luck to be digging a watering hole for his cows and hit silver. The two of us looked at each other, and for the next week as we headed west we hatched a plan.

The article talked about how he was a widower named Frank Fitzpatrick, and lived with his daughter Rosa. And once we got to Lordsburg we put our plans in motion. Bill was older and had been with the gang for years, so used some contacts to find out a bit more. Frank and his daughter lived to the south of town, and we even got the location of a cave we could hide up in. So once we got the supplies we wanted we headed down and found the cave.

And it was a right nice cave. There were broken pots and even bits of arrows and bones which showed the Indians knew about it and had used it for years. But it was dry, level, and even had a small spring a hundred feet from the entrance. We spent two days getting it ready, filling up the water barrel, cleaning it up and tossing or burning all the stuff the Indians had left behind. Even digging out a pool at the end of the run the spring made before fading into the ground. Then finally setting up a small cage in the back with some wood and scrap iron we found in the area.

Then Bill spent several days scouting out the ranch. The old man would ride the fences and herds as his daughter seemed to stick to the ranch. But finally on the fifth day we caught a break. Bill was on watch as I was smoking a deer when the girl Rosa went for a ride alone.

The first thing I knew of it was when I heard horses galloping up the trail towards the cave. I grabbed the rifle and was crouched near the entrance as all I could see was there were two horses approaching. Then Bill called out it was him and a guest.

And when they arrived, I was a bit shocked. Bill had a black eye, and the girl was tied to her horse and wearing a blindfold made from a blue bandana. She was a pretty thing, with slightly dusky skin that must have come from her momma. But the red hair and freckles were proclaiming that her father was indeed a true son of Ireland.

She was fussing quite a bit, and I saw she had a gag as well as her arms tied behind her back. Well, I helped Bill get her down off the horse, then he went to secure his and frighten her own off as I brought our guest to the cave. And once she was secure in the cage I had her sit as I untied her hands and removed the gag.

And oh could she swear! And in two languages as well! Well, I let her rant on as she called Bill every name she could think of, then she started in on me. And I let her go for a couple of minutes, then she said one thing that made me see red. I immediately held up my hand and yelled at her to be quiet. And then told her that she could say all that she wanted about me or Bill. But that my momma was a good Christian woman, and that she had died after giving birth to my little sister. That she was welcome to call me any name in the book she liked, but my mother was not a “puta”. And I was not a bastard as my folks were legally married.

And it surprised me a bit when she looked somber a moment, then nodded. Then in a soft voice apologized, saying that indeed was not fair. I brought over a canteen and handed it to her, and she took a drink before pulling a handkerchief from inside her blouse and wiping her eyes.

I told her we were not going to hurt her, and she would be free to leave in a few days. “Sure, after you rape me half a hundred times, I’m sure” she said. And that actually shook me, as that thought had never occurred to either of us. We were kidnapping her for money, but we were not rapists.

Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’ve never raped a woman in my life unless she asked for it! Oh no, not even like that. Well, let’s just say that was a game that Ann taught me that we did a few times. Oh, she liked being raped by me, but we both knew it was just a game. Some nights on the trail she really liked being the innocent farm girl that was raped by a savage Indian in the brush. Or the milk maid being forced to do things she should not be doing by the cow hand. But that’s all it ever was, a game.

Well, I did my best to reassure Miss Rosa that neither one of us would rape her, or harm her in any way. “Honest, we are just trying to raise a stake, and you are the way we are getting it. Once your pappy gives us enough we’re heading to Oklahoma.”

At that time Bill returned, and she sat in silence as I got the stew ready. She even thanked me softly when I gave her a bowl, and looked embarrassed and asked how she should take care of her needs.

I went and got an old Indian pot I had found when clearing out the cage, and after having her move to the other side unlocked the door and put it inside before locking it again. I then went to the front to give her some privacy, then after cleaning up I returned and went to dump it in the hole we had made outside for such stuff.

Bill pulled out the bottle of whiskey he had gotten in town and was soon three sheets to the wind as I talked with Rose. And she felt bad for what she had said to me, as her mom had died when she was six but they had lost her brother as well. “I felt ashamed when you told me, and you are right. You are a horrible man that I’m sure is going to rape me, but your mother did nothing wrong but give birth to you.”

“Miss Rosa, believe me when I say I am not going to rape you. Neither is Bill. We have both done some bad things in the past, but neither of us is a killer or a rapist. You will be leaving here as untouched as when you arrived.”

She looked at me closely, and softly said “Not even a little bit?”

“Miss Rosa, not even a little bit. So long as you give us no trouble, neither one of us will lay a hand upon you. I swear.”

That did seem to put her at ease a bit, and a bit later she softly asked if I could give her some privacy once again. I did so, and when I returned to empty the pot again I noticed she had removed her dungarees and had folded them neatly and placed them in the corner. And I had to admit, she had nice legs. We talked a bit more, and I found out she was fifteen years old.

And as we talked, she admitted that her friends often called her Cherry, Red, or Rose, because of her hair. I asked her if they were crew, and she actually shook her head and smiled. “Oh no, I go to school with them. And I think most are jealous. Some are Mexicans like my momma, others Anglo like poppa. But all seem to like my red hair. Me, I’m both so neither side gives me too much trouble.”

I grinned as she told me that, and I said that I would call her “Cherry Red” or “Rose”, if that was alright. And when I finally said goodnight she did seem more relaxed, and I hoped she was reassured that we were not going to rape her.

And it’s true, Bill and I were part of an outlaw gang. I was fairly new to it, but he had been doing it for years. But neither of us had actually taken part in a robbery, nor had either of us shot at or killed anybody. Our jobs in the gang were scouting, cooking, taking care of the horses, and going into town to get information or supplies. After all, there was never any way to be sure that if they were robbing somebody they would have coffee. Or whiskey. Or a slab of bacon. So people like us were a part of most gangs, who had no records and were not actually criminals but were paid well by them for doing such things and keeping our mouths shut.