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INTO THE SALOON AND OUT INTO THE STREETS

It was on a hot mid sun setting day in early June of 1893 when Bill Doolin’s dusty spur bound boots clinked across the front porch of the small wooden framed Ransom Saloon. Bill swung the door wide. The sun rays pierced the dark room overcastting the shadows of the two other cowboys who followed him. Bitter Creek Newton, with one hand on the handle of his shoulder holster colt revolver, and Arkansas Tom, carrying a Winchester rifle slanted across his chest. From the full sun lit door behind them four cowboys could be seen in the street. The dismounted Dynamite Dick held the rains of three horses. The horse saddled Tulsa Jack who held the rains of Bill Doolin’s prize iron grey mare and the saddled Bill Dalton whose back was to the front door of the saloon. The dismounted Red Buck shadow could be seen from the corner of the building with the tip of his rifle sparkling in the mid afternoon sun. The four cowboys outside were given instructions to keep a lookout for any approaching lawmen who may have wondered into town. 

Gunfight at Ingalls

The sun was at mid morning and cast forward the shadows of thirteen deputies standing, and staring into the unknown vigilance of what breaks a man’s bravery into fear. The fear that rushes into the heart of mans adrenalin; the fear that quivers into the thought of uncertainty, reluctance and doubt. Each man holding his own rifle, each man forecasting what might lay ahead, in the town of Ingalls. 
Ingalls was a quiet western Oklahoma town in the eastern part of Payne County. The town was first established with a livery stable, saloon, and hotel. And by the winter of 1890 a post office was built.  The citizens of Ingalls were for the most part respectable and hardworking. Some of them settlers had come to Oklahoma to stake a claim along the Cimarron River just on the edge of cowboy flats. Cowboy Flats was well known to the cattle drovers, Indians, outlaws and several military camps. This land was both fertile to the soil and tainted to the soul of both civility and wildness. And at any given moment of time a change from peacefulness could erupt to reckless violence, like a thunderstorm without warning as it rolls across the plains.
Story written by Mike King
Narrated by Mike King
Music Provided by Smart Sound
digitalsandbox1@gmail.com
    
  

The Wagon from Guthrie

The second wagon, dispatched from Guthrie was well down the trail by mid afternoon of August 31st.  The overnight journey would take the travelers into the depths of the Doolin-Dalton gangs’ hideout; a place where the devil rode the wind and the sun baked in and among the thickets of cowboy flats, where lay in hiding, the desperate outlaws of Oklahoma.

The Guthrie wagon was driven by Jim Masterson, a well known lawman and buffalo hunter from Dodge City Kansas. Jim, a just appointed marshal, had seen his share of gunfights and as the wagon cleared the hilltop at 7:30 A.M on September 1st he caught his first glimpse of the quite town of Ingalls. Jim pulled back on the rains of the team of horses. The wagon came to a stop. Jim, then, looked back into the backboard as the hot mid morning sun dazzled into the sleepy eyes of John Hixon, Doc Roberts, Ike Steel, Steve Burke, and Lafe Shadley.

For more digital stories visit the digital sandbox at http://digitalsandbox.edublogs.org/digital-stories/ 

Story written by Mike King 
Narrated by Mike King 
Music Provided by Smart Sound 
Digitalsandbox1@gmail.com 
 
  

Wagon from Stillwater

On a late hot summer night of August 31, 1893, an armed wagon of deputies left Stillwater headed on their ten mile journey east for Ingalls, Oklahoma. At the head of the wagon on horseback rode US Deputy Marshal Tom Hueston.  Tom Hueston, had been pursuing the Doolin-Dalton gang since late November of 1892.
Tom looked up into the half-moon lit star glistening sky of the Oklahoma plains and reflected back ten months to an early morning in late November. He remembered that fall foggy morning when he encountered one of the Doolin-Dalton gang members near Orlando Oklahoma. The feelings of anticipation of another gun battle swirled around him like a red dust devil drying out the inside of his mouth with anxiousness.

Story written by Mike King

Narrated by Mike King 

Music Provided by Smart Sound 

mailto:Digitalsandbox1@gmail.com


For more digital stories visit the digital sandbox at http://digitalsandbox.edublogs.org/digital-stories/