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Going Straight
After leaving the WS
Ranch in Alma, New Mexico, Butch Cassidy returned to Utah to make one last
ditch attempt to go straight. The reason for his decision is unknown.
Perhaps he realized that the end was near for the Wild Bunch and outlaws
of their nature. Already
Cassidy’s friends Elzy Lay, Bub Meeks and
Matt Warner were wasting away
in prison, while Tom McCarty had all but given up the outlaw life
following the deaths of his brother and nephew in Delta, Colorado. Time
was catching up to Butch.
Once in Salt Lake City,
Cassidy’s first stop was the law offices of Orlando W. Powers. Cassidy
had become familiar with Powers when his own lawyer, Douglas A.
Preston,
retained Powers services during the Coleman Affair. Cassidy and the lawyer
discussed the possibility of going straight. Powers didn’t feel this was
an option, believing that by hook or by crook, the railroads would find
some way to prosecute Cassidy for his past crimes. Unfortunately for
Cassidy, the best advice Powers could give him was to stay on the run.
Disappointed, but
undaunted, Cassidy looked up Juab County Sheriff Parley P. Christiansen,
an old friend of the Parker family. Cassidy requested Christiansen arrange
a meeting between Cassidy and Utah governor Heber Manning Wells to plea
his case. As an act of good faith, Cassidy reportedly turned his firearms
over to the sheriff.
Christiansen got in touch
with Governor Wells and, while hesitant, the governor agreed to a meeting
with the notorious outlaw. At the meeting Wells agreed to see what he
could do to grant Cassidy amnesty under the provision that Cassidy was not
wanted anywhere for murder. If Cassidy was a killer, Wells could not and
would not do anything to help him. Cassidy assured the governor that he
had never killed anyone and therefore could not be wanted for murder.
At their second meeting
the governor delivered some bad news. A search through Cassidy’s past
discovered the outlaw was wanted for murder in Wyoming. The deal could not
go any further. Cassidy left Utah shortly after the meeting.
Meanwhile, Powers was
furiously working on plan “B.” Powers took the bold step of appealing
directly to the railroads seeking amnesty for Cassidy. The railroad
companies were the chief force behind the pursuit of Cassidy and stood the
most to gain if Cassidy renounced his outlaw career. It was a long shot
but the railroad companies were open to the idea. Terms of a deal were
hashed out between railroad officials and Powers.
A meeting was set up in
Wyoming between Cassidy and representatives of the Union Pacific railroad
led by Douglas A. Preston. Unfortunately due to weather conditions, the
Preston party was late. Waiting alone in the middle of nowhere, the
meeting time having come and went, Cassidy believed he was the victim of a
setup and left the area. When Preston and the UPRR officials arrived at
the scheduled meeting place, all they found was a note.
“Damn you Preston, you
have double-crossed me. I waited all day but you didn’t show up. Tell
the U.P to go to hell. And you can go with them.”
Despite the failure in
Wyoming, Powers and Wells pushed forward to set up another meeting, this
time recruiting Cassidy’s old friend and partner Matt
Warner. Warner had
just been released from the Utah State Penitentiary and owed the governor
a favor for getting him out of his second arrest over the Coleman
Affair.
Wells asked the former outlaw to act as a courier, to which Warner was
more than happy to oblige.
Warner set out to find
his old friend, making it as far as Evanston, Wyoming when a telegram was
handed to him….
“All agreements off.
Cassidy just held up a train at Tipton.”
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