The setting is in the S/E corner of the 'ol Indian Territory,
probably not too far really, from the actual Cajun country,
and the time was in the early 1900's. Frank James was most
likely still alive and riding at the time, and the Doolin-Dalton gang was
sure to be still riding, before their Coffeyville, KS. fiasco that stopped them.
The character that experienced the event and later related it, was an industrious
boy at the time, and was very busy selling whatever he could, off of the family farm.
In the Choctaw Nation country, not far from where the Cat Creek Cave was located,
which Cole Younger had made reference to, in his "Crime Doesn't Pay Tour". That
he, as a famous original member of the James Gang, went on after his release
from prison, after the gang's Northfield bank robbery failure. Belle Starr had
reportedly been laid up in the same cave, after being shot by a guy trying
to rob her, while her husband rode all night up to Younger's Bend, to get
the confidential good neighbor doctor to save her life, which he did...
She used her pistols cross draw, and surprised the guy with the gun
he did not see on her other side, and killed him instead, but he also
got a shot into her, and she had been wounded very badly...
The story is that some people moved into the area from Mexico, the
boy we'll call Ed, was selling them vegetables, milk, eggs, butter, &
whatever else he helped raise on the farm, and they always paid US
cash for it, as did everyone else around the country area, that Ed
had the pleasure to deal with. The large extended family, with kids
and multiple men, supposed to possibly be brothers to the main man
that appeared to more or less be in charge. Ed liked one of the man's
sons, and would hang out and play or visit with him when he got time
away from his farm work, school, and peddling business. Ed noticed
they spent much of their time digging, like they were really looking for
something, and being young and friendly with them, he asked them
about what they were up to, and his friend's father just said they were
looking for something small, but the boy told him that it was something
much bigger than what his father had let on. They worked on and on.
This went on for some extended length of time, and there were times
that some of the supposed uncles disappeared, and when Ed asked, the
boy indicated they went back to Mexico, to get more money for them all
to live on. Sure enough after sometime they would return, & then would
have more money, to proceed with what they were working hard doing...
In the 1980's, the close relatives, ancestors of Ed, wrote about what
their kin had experienced. In their story, they talked about Maximillian's
knowledge, that he would likely be deposed, after the U.S. was clear of
the Civil War. They wrote of a supposed caravan, of multiple wagons,
with the spoils that the dictator had gotten from Mexico, that he sent
on a journey into the Indian Territory, bound for the railroad at Kansas
City MO., to be shipped to somewhere east, then supposedly on to France.
They speculated that either chicken pocks or the wild Comanche Indians
had gotten to them, and stopped them there in the wild country still full
of notorious deadly wild west outlaws...
Ed observed that they never bought anything that wasn't a definite
necessity, but only what they had to have, to meagerly live & get by.
One day they all just up and disappeared, & left no trace. Ed could
not find a sign of them anywhere, except for their burro and old
Mexican cart, which was tied up alone at the railroad depot...
Never to be seen again...
