Outlaw
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About this ebook
In Outlaw, vacationing Mogi and Jennifer are taking scuba lessons at Lake Powell, Utah, unaware that two hundred feet below them is the route used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to escape pursuers after the biggest train robbery of their career.
Meeting a history professor trying to answer questions about Butch and Sundance suddenly draws the two youngsters into involvement in an insane terrorist's incredible plan to blow up the dam holding back Lake Powell–and devastate most of the Southwest. It's not long before Mogi finds himself in the terrible situation of having to choose between preventing the dam's destruction and saving his own life.
Donald Willerton
Don Willerton grew up in a small town in Texas, surrounded by hundreds of square miles of open country, and the desire to wander has never left him. A successful career as a computer programmer and project manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory gave him the money and vacation time to learn how to build houses, backpack in the Rocky Mountains high country, climb mountains, snowshoe and cross-country ski, raft the rivers of the Southwest, support Christian wilderness programs, and see the excitement in his sons' eyes as they enjoyed the adventures with him.
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Outlaw - Donald Willerton
Mother
Drenched by heavy sheets of blowing, near-freezing rain, the Union Pacific Overland Flyer Number One pulled next to the water tower in Rock River, Wyoming, at about 2 a.m. Guided by a lantern, the shivering, barrel-chested fireman caught the let-down rope whipping in the wind, stepped to the back of the coal tender, and pulled hard on the spout to lower it into the opening of the water tank.
Inside the cab, the train’s engineer blew small, even puffs of smoke from his pipe as he patiently watched.
When the water burped out of the opening, the fireman played out the rope as the spout’s counterweight pulled it back upright, flopped the lid over the tank’s hole, and tightened it down. Muttering curses about the rain, the wind, the cold, and the darkness, he returned to shoveling coal into the firebox.
The engineer pulled hard on the whistle and leaned into his control lever. With agonizing slowness, the engine, pulling two express cars, three passenger coaches, and a caboose, struggled forward with the harsh sound of steam pounding against pistons. Coming up to speed, the engine was back to slicing through the curtains of rain, hard on its way to Wilcox station, a tiny piece of civilization in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness.
A few minutes later, the engineer saw three swinging lanterns ahead in the darkness. On a night like this, it would not have been unusual for a stream to have risen and taken out a bridge or part of the track, so the engineer immediately slacked off the steam and applied the brakes, the heavy iron wheels jerking and sputtering as the train slowed.
But instead of delivering a warning about a washed-out track, three masked men quickly jumped onto the locomotive’s steps, forcing their way up with pistols in their hands. Holding the barrel of his gun against the engineer’s ear, one of the men directed him to pull the train ahead of a short trestle in front of them, which he did. Then he watched as the trestle was blown to smithereens.
One of the men ran back beyond the last express car, uncoupled the following car, and mounted the back platform, signaling that his job was done. The train was driven further a couple of more miles where three more men on horseback rode in beside the tracks, pulling saddled horses behind them.
The first express car was ransacked, but revealed nothing of value. The guard inside the second express car, a loyal railroad employee named Charles Woodcock, refused to open the locked express car door. A stick of dynamite later, the door and a dazed Woodcock lay in a pile of splinters. Without Woodcock to provide the combination to the huge safe inside, one of the outlaws grew impatient and placed three sticks of dynamite on the handle of the safe.
The blast not only blew the door off the safe, but also blew most of the top and sides of the express car a hundred feet into the countryside. As the smoke cleared, hundreds of currency bills mixed with the rain as they fluttered back to earth. The outlaws gathered what remained, packed it into their saddlebags, and galloped into the darkness.
Three of the outlaws headed toward Casper, and three others toward Lander. Over the next three days, sometimes together, sometimes splitting apart and then rejoining, each group of outlaws raced along various trails through the Wyoming countryside, riding hundreds of miles in a weaving pattern. As planned beforehand, they found fresh mounts and food at friendly ranches and towns.
Within a day or two, the best trackers and lawmen in the country were chasing anyone and everyone connected to the Wilcox holdup. The Union Pacific refused to officially reveal how much had been stolen. A later report, however, stated, The six outlaws had gathered unsigned bank notes, considerable cash, nineteen scarf pins, twenty-nine gold-plated cuff button pairs, and four new Elgin watches.
Eventually, Union Pacific admitted that more than $50,000 had been taken, including a significant amount in gold coin. The haul was huge—sufficient to make the six outlaws very happy.
After three harrowing days and nights on the run and giving the slip to every lawman after them, the bandits came together at Anderson’s hog ranch, close to the crossing of the Little Muddy River between Fort Washakie and Thermopolis, where they divided the loot.
Harvey Logan, the man who held the pistol to the engineer’s ear, had been in charge of the robbery and was voted to get first pick. He had no use for scarf pins or cuff buttons, but selected one of the fancy pocket watches, the face circled with diamonds and outfitted with the newest innovation in watch design: a stem-winding mechanism. It was a watch far more beautiful than any of the men had seen. Of course, he also took a pile of money.
Another man, called Butch Cassidy, the leader of the Wild Bunch gang and the planner of the train robbery, took a different pile of money and then selected a diamond-studded watch just like Harvey’s. The rest of the men quickly took care of the remaining money and jewelry.
Someone sent for a wagon full of fun-loving women from a nearby town, and they all soon devoted themselves to having a good time. After a long night of drinking, dancing, playing cards, and roasting an elk, most of the gang rode south for New Mexico, while others split in different directions.
Harvey Logan rode directly to Brown’s Hole, a hideout in a wide valley on the border of Utah and Colorado, straddling the Green River. Two days later, well-rested and trailing a string of fresh horses, he went south into the vast rock mazes of southern Utah. Hidden in the middle of twisted canyons, massive mesas, and confusing valleys was Robber’s Roost, the last hideout along the Outlaw Trail. It was known to the lawmen of that area, but the country was so rough, so bewildering, so effective at hiding men and horses, and especially so easy to defend against anyone not welcome, that the law knew to avoid it.
Finally reaching the ranch in a maze of canyons and mesas, Harvey met up with Butch and Harry Longabaugh, known as the Sundance Kid. The next day, Butch and Sundance left the Roost, descending westward from the mesa tops into the vast array of canyons making up the drainage basin of the Colorado River. Following the different valleys, they eventually headed up a secret trail out of the bare rock country to a ranch in eastern Utah.
Two days after they had left, Harvey set out on the same trail as Butch and Sundance. He had not been through the country before and closely followed Butch’s instructions. He walked his horses down the steep and difficult trail into the valley of the Dirty Devil River and then, at a place with a solid bottom, crossed and continued south for several miles until he reached Cass Hite’s ferry on the west side of the Colorado River.
Crossing to the east side of the river, Harvey searched for White Canyon. An unremarkable canyon from the river’s edge, White Canyon was the only canyon in the hundreds of square miles of twisting rock that had a trail where a man and horse could ride out of the canyonlands into the relatively flat country of eastern Utah. From a high point back at the Roost, Butch had pointed in the distance at the different canyon openings along the route that Harvey should go. At the time, the way seemed obvious. But when Harvey found himself on the riverbank, he was soon bewildered, now utterly dependent on the sign that Butch had placed at the White Canyon entrance.
Take a sacred oath.
That was the secret phrase Butch had given him. It matched a drawing that Butch had carved into the sandstone wall at the entrance of White Canyon, the only mark that distinguished it from the dozens of other canyons. Those who knew how to match the phrase to the drawing could identify the correct canyon opening; all others would ride right by.
When you get across the Colorado at Hite’s ferry, ride south on the east bank until you see the sign to take a sacred oath.
Harvey Logan muttered a long curse about Butch Cassidy and his secret phrases as he searched the sandstone walls.
Except for putting on his weight belt, Mogi Franklin was ready. The other students were still milling around the deck, sorting out tanks, buckles, straps, respirators, depth gauges, chalkboards, knives, masks, and other equipment. Proud of being so quick to get his gear together, Mogi leaned against the houseboat’s railing and looked across the lake as heat waves radiated off the rock cliffs surrounding Farley Canyon Bay.
Let’s go, people! he was thinking. We’ve been at this three days—you should be faster by now!
Called slickrock country,
southern Utah was an immense land of twisted canyons and tilted mesas. It was as if thick, cream-colored cake frosting had been smeared in thousand-foot layers over hundreds of square miles of earth, and then sculpted with a heavenly butter knife to make swirls, dips, and slices. But it was solid rock instead of cake frosting, and the swirls, dips, and slices made up a vast empire of mountains, winding valleys, gullies, canyons, and tall, isolated buttes. Void of vegetation except in the dirt-filled bottoms of the deepest canyons, the country was famous for its smooth, bald surfaces of sandstone.
To the south, 135 miles from where Mogi stood, Glen Canyon Dam spanned a steep-walled canyon to block the mighty Colorado River. Built in 1961, it took almost five years to reach its full capacity as the tall, thick, concrete dam backed the river water into that vast empire of stone to form Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world.
With more shoreline by some accounts than the state of California and more than ninety individual canyons flooded with water, Lake Powell was an oasis for boating, fishing, water skiing, hiking, and camping that drew people from all over the world. The deep, calm, expansive waters were a haven for thousands of people who vacationed in rented houseboats—mini-houses sitting on top of monstrous aluminum pontoons, with bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and second floors of openair