THE DEATH OF WILLIE BLOOD
By the time Dan Garrick stepped into the street to meet Willem Blüdscher, he had already made the reputation that would follow him to his death.
It was September of 1889 and Garrick was now the deputy for Pierce, Wyoming, a small town with ambition. He had no family, only a few friends and none of those were in Pierce. He did not even own the horse he rode, its rent and livery being paid by the county. People stayed clear of him, except in times of trouble. He ate alone, drank alone, and by all accounts slept alone.
He come in tonite an sat hisself down away in the back. I brung him the bottle as always an he pours hisself a careful half glass. He dont look at the girls, dont look at the men. He jus stares out at somethin that makes his eyes go red an hateful. Nobody gose near him, not even Ruby. Not after last time.
– Frank Mindel,
1888
Letter to Louvinia Mindel, San Francisco
Pierce was an open town in 1889 and needed its own lawman. The sheriff was located in Carson, about 40 miles northeast. He and his three deputies had their hands full. Carson was a railroad town built around cattle and Saturday night. At its peak, the Carson, Littleton & Meeksville Railroad could ship 30,000 head of cattle a year to major towns east and northwest. That meant a lot of cattlemen passed through town, and a lot of trouble.
Garrick was hired to patrol Pierce for the sheriff. Pierce had also developed around the cattle trade, supporting the numerous area ranchers with foodstuffs, household supplies, whiskey, and the usual variety of entertainment. Despite a shaky early reputation – at one time the town boasted a saloon for every 28 citizens, man, woman, and child – Pierce grew to a measure of respectability by the turn of the century. The Depression hit the town hard, though, and by 1951 it had all but vanished.
We’ve come to the end of our road here, Mother. Great grandfather’s grave will be left alone and untended, as will yours. All memories of the sorrow and joy our family has known here in this small valley will be gone. I am so glad you did not live to see this day, and so sad that I did.
– Martha Emerson, 1950, Diary entry
*
Willie Blood waited on Branch Street that uncharacteristically cool September day, his left hand twitching with anticipation. He was a stone killer, some said; a bloodthirsty animal with a love of death. A man who could not wait to kill.
Born Willem Blüdscher, Willie had always been an excitable young man. Now in 1889 – at only 19 years old – he was deadly and excitable, and well deserving of his gory nickname.
A fear-inspiring sight is this rail skinny youth. He is one bunched muscle preparing to strike at a given moment. His eyes, black as his soul, offer no hope of humanity within.
– Jacob Aloysius Thurgood,
1889
Editor, The Carson Telegraph
The truth is Willem Blüdscher killed only one man in his life, and had very few adult fights. Most people simply stayed clear of Willie. He developed a combative reputation early in life. Youthful fights established a wiry tenacity and cruelty that people did not forget. By the time he was 16, Willie did not have to fight anyone – save for the occasional wayward stranger. He won his arguments with cold-hot stares and the long memories of the people of Pierce.
Of course, it did not hurt to have three older brothers and a father who had a tough reputation of his own. Almont Blüdscher had come to the Pierce valley in 1860 with his new bride Margaret to raise cattle. A veteran of Indian fighting, Almont did not shy away from skirmishes with other ranchers over land and water.
He is a terrible fighter, Cic. Cruel and tireless. I have watched him defend our home, our children for seven years and see no end to the killing. How proud I have been and how fearful I have become.
– Margaret Blüdscher, 1867
Letter
to her sister, Cicely Burnnett, Kansas City
An immigrant, Blüdscher avoided taking sides in the Civil war. He fought his own battles to retain his small ranch, the Lazy B, asking no help from others. By 1866, Blüdscher owned nearly 1,000 acres and was grazing his stock on three times as much unclaimed land, which he held by force of gun. His oldest son, Michael, was two. Arden would be born the next year, followed by Karl and then Willem.
Blüdscher had a daughter as well. Katrina was born two years after Willem in 1872. This last child, though, was not an easy birth for Margaret. She survived but never fully regained her strength. She died in 1876.
This must be a blessing, or so I tell myself. She was unhappy and ever fearful. The anger in her house was so strong she could not help but be weakened by it. Despite your wishes, I have written Almont and offered to raise Katrina in comfort and style, to save her from the ill-feelings in that home. You will be quite pleased to know my gracious and loving offer has been refused, and not kindly. The child is so much like my Margaret that I fear for her soul.
– Cicely Burnnett, 1876
Letter
to her husband Franklin, New York
*
The irony of having become a lawman was not lost on Garrick. His early days as a hell raising “puncher,” his turn to stagecoach driving and later to robbing stagecoaches, did not, in his words, “predispose a man toward becoming his brother’s keeper.” Avoiding prison for having robbed at least three stages was oddly both a great relief and a disappointment to Garrick.
I always felt prison might have changed me for the better. The time alone to think, unwelcome by so many of my fraternity, could have brought me some Peace. Perhaps a direction Life and God so scrupulously kept hidden from me.
– Dan Garrick, 1902
The
Trail to Bedlam
In 1889, however, Garrick was reasonably pleased not to be in prison. He made $60 a month and kept, by arrangement with the county, ten percent of the fines levied on drunks and other small time miscreants. By contrast, a cow-puncher, or drover, made $40-a-month-and- found. And the work of a cowman was a lot harder than policing a town that knew its deputy was tough and could back it up.
Garrick’s reputation had been made on three major events: the Kensington Stampede in the Texas Panhandle in 1881, the two hour fist fight with teamster giant Little Tom MacVey, and the West Union Bank robbery during the first month he was deputy of Pierce. Historians have noted that the West Union Bank robbery was an ill-conceived endeavor and poorly executed. While this may be true, alone Garrick still had to face six desperate gunmen and only suffered a splinter wound to his left shoulder.
When the dust cleared, five of the six bank robbers were dead, and the sixth would be dead by hanging within the month. Reporters and editors from 200 miles around rushed into Pierce to cover the event and to elevate the local deputy to an albeit brief stardom. Photographs of the robbers laid out in pine boxes accompanied lurid, semi-accurate retellings of the incident in newspapers across the country. By the time the reporters had finished their “authentic retelling,” Garrick’s reputation, which had been solid before, became granite-like and indestructible.
It was a lightning swift hand that delivered death; bolts wrought by a vengeful god, felling the wicked without mercy. Dozens claim witness to these events, but none can say with conviction how many shots were fired or in which order the six died in their futile, criminal effort.
– Ned Leeds, reporter, 1886
The
Nebraska Union
Since that day, work as a deputy had been fairly easy for Garrick. He had his share of drunks, gamblers, and rowdy pistoleers, but managed them without excessive violence. Almost every day was easy – except the day he met Willie Blood on Branch Street.
*
Willie came into town early morning the previous Saturday. Normally, the town would tense at his presence. But by all accounts, Willie kept his temper in check and conscientiously went about attending his family’s business.
Throughout the morning he bought supplies at Wager’s Dry Goods and then loaded them into a buckboard. He spent time at the butcher shop selling beef and hogs to be delivered the following week. He later visited the West Union Bank to discuss his family’s accounts. He was – in these last hours before becoming a killer – the very picture of a model citizen.
Willem took his noon meal in town then retired to the front porch of the Hotel Pierce, where he sat watching the sun go down. His quiet calm and easy manner helped him fade into the fabric of the town, making him invisible.
Some time after four o’clock, three of the Lazy B line riders came into town and the anonymous mist that had surrounded Willem vanished. He was now quite noticeable.
Witnesses say he came alive in an instant. He walked over to the Lazy B riders. A brief argument began and then ended when Willem violently pushed the largest of the riders.
I sware he was agonna drill him right thar. His hand atwitch like a demon had hold of it. We all desided to stay indoors for the evenin and keep ourselfes low in case of the bullets thet mite go aflyin.
– Peter Mayhew, hotel clerk,
1889
Letter to the editor, the Nebraska Union
The line riders decided not to argue with the boss’s son. One of them climbed atop the buckboard and turned it back toward the Lazy B, leaving his horse for Willem. The other two hands rode out with the buckboard.
With night fallen, Willem turned to less sedentary pursuits. He visited no fewer than eight saloons that night, and three brothels – two of which were operated in the back rooms of bars.
If everyone had had the good sense Hotel Pierce clerk Peter Mayhew showed and stayed at home, Owen Patterick would not have been killed. Patterick was a hand on the 8-Bar-M ranch. Like most ranch hands he took his monthly wages and came to town on Saturday night.
It is unclear just why Willem and Patterick became violent. Patterick had been seen in several of the town saloons that night, the same ones to which Willem had gone. At one point they both sat in on the same card game, but Patterick abruptly left. Then, at about 10:30, Willem entered the Jug Saloon and saw Patterick at the bar with a prostitute. The bar tender reported that Willem roughly interrupted the couple and apparently made a disparaging remark. Whether the remark was aimed at the woman, Patterick, or something else entirely is not known.
Patterick shoved Willem then turned his back on the youth. Willem punched Patterick, who responded by tossing his drink in Willem’s face. The encounter barely took ten seconds. Few had actually seen the exchange or heard it. The Jug was filled with rowdy cowhands and loud music from an automatic piano.
Whiskey stinging his eyes, Willem looked up to see Patterick turning toward him, his arm extended. Willem drew and fired his pistol. The prostitute screamed. Patterick dropped to the floor along with almost everyone else in the saloon looking to get out of the way of flying lead. In a panic, Willem ran from the Jug, found the Lazy B horse, and rode out into the night. It took several minutes for anyone to discover that Patterick had been shot – fatally wounded.
There was nothing for him. I watched him bleed on that dirty table, heard the sticky slap of his blood as it dripped to the floor, and could do nothing to save his life. My surgeries have been as small as my skills. I had no means to help him.
Gut shot as he was, he took a long time dying, or at least it seemed so. I now imagine dying is a long and lonely thing. That is what I saw in his eyes.
– Robert Hodgeson, town doctor,
1892
Suicide letter
*
Garrick had been out of town that day. An area farmer had been kicked in the head by a mule the week before and his neighbors had brought him unconscious to Dr. Hodgeson. The man lingered for days, never fully regaining consciousness. He died the Friday morning before Willem came to town. Garrick, rarely one to show emotion, seemed to feel some sympathy for the family. He escorted the body back to the widow and stayed for the funeral.
There were some, though, who suggested Garrick’s interest was not necessarily sympathetic. The widow was young and attractive. She held deed to a comfortably-sized farm on good land. She and Garrick occasionally had been seen in town talking. Tongues did not exactly wag over these meetings, but they did not go unobserved. And they seemed to provide a rare instance of pleasure for Garrick.
I did not enter the establishments of men, nor frequent the local jail, or have occasion, thank the Lord, to need our esteemed constabulary. But to see this man patrol our town is to watch a dark and grim visage that lays claim to not simply a long and deep face. It is his character and encompasses his entire being. Such astonishment it is, then, to see that he does indeed have teeth and that his immovable features can crack open into something not quite a mockery of a smile.
– Lisette Henley, 1905
A
Woman of the West, A Loving Remembrance of My Life on the Plains
When Garrick returned Sunday morning – not coincidentally after church services had concluded – he was told of the shooting the night before. While not a trained lawman, Garrick conducted what, for the time, was a fairly thorough investigation. The few witnesses present were questioned. The doctor offered his report. Garrick examined the crime scene and found a bloodstain under the bar where Patterick had been standing. It seemed to match up with a gash on Patterick’s left elbow. Patterick, a left-handed draw, had apparently cracked his elbow while trying to pull his gun.
This kind of gunplay was fairly common in the west and while not exactly legal, it did not always lead to punishment. If the draw and the fight were fair, the survivor might not have to face the law.
Still, with Willie’s history of violence, it seemed reasonable to at least question the young gunman. Garrick realized that riding out to the Lazy B might be dangerous. The Blüdscher clan was excitable and protective of one another. So he wrote a note and had it delivered in an effort to diffuse a violent reaction.
Mr. Blüdscher: Your son Willem was involved in an incident here in town Saturday night last. As I was out of town and unable to question Willem before he returned home, the sheriff’s office would appreciate his return to clear up a few matters of concern.
– Dan Garrick, 1889
Note
to Almont Blüdscher
Garrick’s summons had the opposite of the desired effect. Katrina, who rarely spoke about her family after this incident, remarked to a friend that Willem had become enraged and began “shooting at the moon.” Apparently, during his tirade, he killed several horses, a pig, and a calf with bullets he had fired blindly. Had his father been at home, Willem might never have ridden off in a fury, nor would his brothers have followed.
At some point before reaching town, the brothers caught up with Willem. Instead of turning him around and calming him down, they devised a different sort of plan.
SCENE 83
MUSIC UP
EXT. LONG SHOT BRANCH STREET DAY
There are several townspeople about on foot. A couple of riders move lazily through the street.
WILLIE BLOOD steps into the street. One of the riders sees him, reins up, pauses, then turns and rides quickly away.
MED. SHOT WILLIE BLOOD
CAMERA DOLLIES back as WILLIE walks down the street.
CLOSE UP
He is grim, angry. He hates.
ANGLE
All the townspeople see him now, and they run for cover.
ANGLE
WILLIE stops with suddenness and glares down the street.
ANGLE WILLIE’S POV ON JAIL
We see the JAIL, the WOODEN SIGN SWINGING lightly in the breeze.
ANGLE WILLIE
WILLIE stands, arms at his sides, his LEFT HAND beginning to TWITCH. Behind him we see MICHAEL on the roof of a building carrying a RIFLE. He quickly gets into a position for an ambush.
ANGLE
KARL sneaks up around the corner of a building holding a PISTOL. He glances up at MICHAEL.
ANGLE
ARDEN slips up behind a wagon. He carries a RIFLE and aims it toward the jail.
ANGLE WILLIE
WILLIE takes a beat, his HAND TWITCHING more now.
MUSIC STOPS with a CRACK.
WILLIE
(hotly)
Garrick!
ANGLE WILLIE’S POV ON JAIL
The JAIL SIGN still SWINGS in the breeze.
ANGLE
We see all three brothers waiting nervously in ambush.
ANGLE WILLIE
WILLIE
(hotly)
Garrick! Get out here!
ANGLE ON THE JAIL DOOR
The door OPENS slowly. GARRICK steps out slowly. He pauses briefly in the door, looks back into the office and REACHES FOR SOMETHING. We see his HAND WITHDRAW WITH A GUNBELT. GARRICK puts on the gunbelt – slowly, deliberately. He buckles it, ties it down, and unfastens the trigger loop, all without taking his eyes from Willie. Then he steps down into the street.
WILLIE
You wanted me, deputy. Well, here I am!
GARRICK
You’re a murderer, Willie. I want you. For hangin’.
GARRICK does not make a move. WILLIE’s HAND TWITCHES more.
WILLIE
(impatient,
growing
frightened)
Well? Ya waitin’ for Judgement Day?!
CLOSE-UP GARRICK
Something catches GARRICK’s eye. He looks up, then down, then right. He sees the ambush.
– scene from “Trail to Bedlam”
Warner
Bros., 1949
Following the trend being established in mystery films, westerns produced in post-war Hollywood attempted to inject a measure of realism in their plots and characters. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, three films in particular embodied this attempt to shift from clean, well-lighted studio pictures to the grittier texture that would become common in the 1960s and beyond: Luke Short’s sexually charged “Ramrod” (1947, Universal) starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake, “Shane” (1953, Paramount) starring Alan Ladd and Elijah Cook, Jr., and, to a lesser degree, “Trail to Bedlam” (1949, Warner Bros.) starring Ward Bond, Noah Beery, and a very young James Best playing Willie as he was, an unpredictable sociopath filled with violent energy.
In the film, Willie confronts Garrick boldly. The scene with Ward Bond alternately hunting down and being hunted by the ambushers takes nearly three minutes on film. Willie is the last of Garrick’s screen victims and dies nobly in his sister’s arms, recanting at the end his terrible ways. These are moments of pure Hollywood fiction.
*
Garrick had not been expecting the Blüdscher clan to show up in force. But he had seen them ride into town and dismount at the end of the street. Two of the brothers carried rifles, a third held a pistol. Willie wore his gun at his side.
Unseen, Garrick exited the jail through a back door, circled around to the dry goods store, and waited. Instead of setting up an ambush, the Blüdscher brothers made their way toward the jail shoulder to shoulder, with Willie second from the left. When they stopped a few yards short of the jail, Willie did not call Garrick out. They stood silently until Michael nervously called for the deputy to come outside.
Behind the brothers, and to their right, Garrick stepped out from the shadow of the dry goods store and called for each man to drop his weapon. At the sound of Garrick’s voice, Michael turned sharply and fired his rifle. He had not aimed and the bullet smacked into the side of the building.
Garrick returned fire, but instead shot Arden who had turned and was preparing to fire his pistol. Shocked, Michael watched his brother fall to the ground dead. Garrick fired again, hitting Karl in the knee. Now incensed, Michael fired another errant shot at Garrick who placed two quick shots of his own into Michael’s chest. Meanwhile, screaming and cursing and calling for Willie, Karl crawled toward his rifle. Garrick advanced and put a bullet through Karl’s brain.
Within 20 seconds, three of the four Blüdscher brothers were dead.
Willie had never moved, had never drawn his gun. Terror had frozen him in place at the first sound of gunshots. Even his characteristic twitching had muted into a soft tremble.
*
Garrick arrested Willie and put the near-catatonic boy in a jail cell. Half an hour after the shooting, Katrina came to town. She did not appear surprised by the death of her brothers. She took charge of their bodies, had them loaded onto her buckboard, and drove them home. She did not visit Willie, nor did she ask about him.
Almont Blüdscher had been away on a cattle-buying trip. When he returned two days later he immediately came to town. He avoided the jail at first, visiting instead several saloons and other businesses. He was asking questions about the shooting the previous Saturday night and about the deaths of his sons. Later in the day, he went to see Garrick.
He came through the door like a tornado, blotting out the sun, seething. I had kept my pistol at my side and a loaded Greener within arms reach in anticipation of his ire. But he told me he wanted to see Willem and handed over his long-barreled .44. I let him in the back, not knowing.
– Dan Garrick, 1902
The
Trail to Bedlam
Garrick left father and son alone. Several minutes later he heard what he called a series of “snapping sounds.” When he went back to the cells he found Willem dead, his father standing over him with a four shot Derringer still smoking.
The following day, Garrick rode out to the Lazy B with a note from Almont to his daughter and the body of Willem Blüdscher. He helped Katrina bury her brothers next to their mother. The next day, by arrangement, Katrina came to town and moved in with the middle-aged owner of the West Union Bank and his wife. The bank took control of the Lazy B, holding it in trust for Katrina. Almont Blüdscher did not offer a defense of his actions and pleaded guilty to murder. He was hung. The banker’s wife died a year later and the following year Katrina married the widower, a man 29 years her senior.
THE END
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