Lawman - The Beginning

Lawman, The Beginning
Chapter 3
In The Settlers Series
By HLGordon


At 22 years of age, Hans Muller left the family milling business in Germany and immigrated to London in search of work. It was late 1835 when he hired on with a labor firm building a railroad from London to Edenborough. Once settled in London, he worked as a laborer and saved his money. Being a business minded person and not wanting to spend his own life as a laborer, he sought opportunity within the labor camps that were building roads and coal mines along the border between Scotland and England.

Supplying food and equipment to the labor camps was a full time career in its self. Hans, knowing the family business of milling wheat into flour, soon met up with a young Irish born man named Phillip Mooney who’s father grew wheat. The two bonded quickly and with Mooney’s connections with local farmers and government supply buyers and Muller’s savvy in the milling trade and his uncanny talent at building just about anything, the two soon built one of many flour mills that supplied flour to the labor camps. From there the two branched out into bakeries and their business flourished.

Toward the end of 1841 it all came to an end when a stray bullet struck and killed Muller’s wife, the niece of Mooney, as she boarded her carriage. Muller became despondent and in a drunken rage he and Mooney fought. Muller killed his partner and was arrested for murder.

A friend of the Local Constable, Muller was able to gather up some of his finances and hide it. He was tried and imprisoned for 9 years for the killing. He was released from custody in 1850 and booked passage on the first ship to America under the name of Homer Miller. Into the new world he took his business sense and enough money to see him out west where he once again became a laborer for a short time. He later took a job in security and gave up laboring and went into being a lawman.

By 1854 Homer Miller married Kelly Kroeger, a homesteaders daughter and lay roots in America. He turned to one of two trades that were available to most immigrants. He could become a bandit, robbing travelers on the trails of the new world or join the other side and hunt down outlaws and bring them to justice. Thus, Hans Muller became Homer Miller and a long line of lawmen were born.

Homer and Kelly Miller bore 13 children.

1855 – Twin girls – Addie & Abigail.
Abigail died of the flu at 9 months of age.
1856 – Homer
1857 - Asbury
1858 – Henry – died at birth
1859 - Buford
1861 – Twins girls- Connie and Rachel
1862 - Cordell
1863 - Otto
1865 - Lily
1866 – Raymond - killed by a horse at age 9
1867 – Johnny


Central California, 1858

The years between 1845 and 1855 brought a flood of prospectors into California. Lured by land and gold, hordes of newcomers poured into California, penetrating the most remote valleys and mountains searching for gold, timber, &land. The hoard overwhelmed the native peoples. Gold had been discovered in the Sierra Nevada as far south as Coarse Gold Gulch (Texas Flat) in the foothills and in the San Joaquin River by 1849. By January of 1851, the miners had begun to arrive. First a few and then more men came that were determined to wash the gold from the streams and rivers of this region. Territorial rights of the Indians meant nothing to the white men. The resulting confrontation between the Anglos and Indians was ugly and brutal. Throughout the state the native peoples were the victims of an almost every conceivable tragedy brought on by disease, starvation, and outright genocidal campaigns. In a less than ten years, the Indian population of the central valley and adjacent foothills and mountains plummeted from 150,000 to about 50,000.

What had been a desolate and an untouched wilderness suddenly began to change as the stream of prospectors, flooded into San Francisco. From there they walked, drove wagons or rode mules and horses to every square inch of the entire foothill range from the northern slopes of the eastern San Joaquin Valley to the Tehachapi Mountains. Every river, stream and gully was investigated as the new breed of Americans came from every corner of the globe, seeking their fame and fortune. Gold fever was epidemic. There were one hundred seventy (170) gold claims within 40 miles of Bakersfield and fifty (50) claims within 40 miles of Fresno.

Along with the Gold diggers came the US Army, stationed at the newly built Fort Miller, near Table Mountain. The Central California foothills turned not so friendly when it came to hoards of white men tramping through the hunting grounds of the Indians, and even worse, through the Native American’s sacred burial grounds. The miners and gold seekers had no respect for the Indian customs and religion and often desecrated burial sites looting trinkets that could be sold or bartered. An industry for “savage artifacts” sprang up in the influential societies in Chicago and New York as Wild West shows turned the Wild West into a carnival atmosphere.

Cattlemen and ranchers moved into the Valley and grazed the cattle that fed the rapidly growing population of San Francisco. Wheat became a growing concern for the much needed bread that the growing population demanded. Cattle, to the indigenous Indians, became that much more game to be hunted. Peace was fragile and skirmishes became frequent. Remote cabins began to spring up along the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills from prospectors who became stranded or could go no further. Many gave up the search for gold and turned to survival. The trees that were so plentiful along the valley floor and foothills supplied lumber to build cabins where miners could hold up for the winter. Many of these refuges found themselves as havens in the wilderness for other miners traveling up and down the foothills. These men became traders in furs, horses, mules, mining equipment and food for those that worked their way higher into the mountains and streams.

Each stream or river that flowed from the Sierras cut deep ravines that washed its’ sediment out onto the fertile valley floor. These locations became pristine sites for weigh stations as men worked the mouths of the streambeds up the mountainside toward the headwaters. One such place was Cactus Corner. A rocky outcrop on the valley floor, near what would later be the town of Orange Cove.

“Flatter than a tabletop
Makes you wonder why they even stopped here
Wagon must have lost a wheel or they lacked ambition one.

On the great migration west
Separated from the rest
Though they might have tried their best
They never caught the sun…

So they sunk some roots down in the dirt
To keep from blowin' off the earth
And built a town around here…”

Levelland
Robert Earl Keen

Mill Creek drained into the valley lakebed and flowed down toward the Kings River. Ions of erosion had cut the deep gorge through the mountains and foothills as the waters receded. Outcrops of rocks and boulders scattered over the alluvial plain were left exposed as a haven for squirrels, coyotes and rattlesnakes. The miners, working the watershed put up lean-tos for shelter at the base of the foothills as a resting point before they began working up from the mouth of the gorge toward the headwaters. These locations became remote beacons in the wilderness for rendezvous and supplies for the prospectors who worked the Central Sierra’s. Soon a route was established that ran from Bakersfield, north along the foothills to Lemon Cove, Woodlake, Visalia, Stone Corral, Yettem, Orosi, Orange Cove, Cactus Corner, Navelencia, Minkler, Clovis, Fort Miller and Fresno Crossing.

Homer and Kelly Miller settled in Visalia where Homer found a job as Deputy for Sheriff David Hudson. The Sheriff’s Office had grown since the Gold Rush as conflicts between the Indians and prospectors skyrocketed. Until Fort Miller was built, the jurisdictional Sheriff was the only law in the southern portion of the valley. Homer spent most of his nights camped out on the grassy slopes between Visalia and Cactus Corner. Pete Thompson, the Deputy from Fresno Crossing was his counterpart to the north and covered Fresno, south to Cactus Corner. The Army had hired the half-breed Tommy Nine Toes to Marshal the Indians. The three often met at the Post at Cactus Corner and spent many nights at the campfire talking about their work and families that none of the men saw very often.

Tommy Nine Toes was the son of Rancher Dorset McGowan and his wife the Yokut Princess, Darcy Yono, granddaughter of a Chow-chil-lies Chieftain named KAY-O-YA. Dorset had insisted the boy be educated in the white man’s schools and his wife, who usually got her way with the rancher, saw to it that he was also schooled in the Chow-chil-lies fashion. The boy was gifted in the Indian tradition and grew up in both worlds and was respected by both the whites and the Indians. He was christened Tommy Dorset McGowan but his name was changed to Tommy Nine Toes after a slip with an axe as a young boy left him with only nine toes.

The local Cattlemen and a small village of Yokut Indians had been fighting over a stand of sacred Sycamore’s near Woodlake. The sight was an ancient burial ground and the Cattlemen had been grazing their cattle under the trees that sheltered the burial sight. To the Indians a deer that grazed in a burial site was blessed and the hunter that brought down such an animal outside of the burial grounds would also be blessed. But cattle were different. To the Yokuts the cattle had no souls and were destroying the grasslands and driving the deer away. This was disturbing to their ancestors and would bring bad luck upon the village. The Yokuts drove the cattle out of the area and scattered them. In the process a few of the cattle came up missing and the Cattlemen blamed the Indians. A report had come into Sheriff Miller that the Cattlemen were putting together a band of hired prospectors and former soldiers and were preparing to ride against the small Indian village. Homer was sent to meet up with Tommy and Pete to investigate the trouble and try to avoid an incident and keep peace between the Cattlemen, the local Indians and the Army.

Tommy had tracked the missing cattle south of Woodlake to Crawford’s Valley, south of Fresno. There he found that three cowboys that had worked a variety of ranches in the area had cut the cattle out of the herd after they had scattered and drove them back into the small valley to hide them. Tommy rode back to meet with Homer and Pete. Together the three cornered the three rustlers in the valley and rode in to make the arrest and return the cattle before a war broke out.

The mouth of the valley was about a quarter mile wide. Once through the mouth the landscape opened up into a pristine valley that went back against the foothills nearly a mile wide and as long. At dusk, the three lawmen spread apart about three hundred feet and rode through the opening into the alluvial valley gorged out of the granite by ice over forty million years ago. As the ice receded and melted, the gorge filled with water to form a shallow lake. The lake eventually filled in with sediment and had grown deep and fertile through the years as the lake dried up and the valley formed. Tommy rode to the North, Pete rode down the center and Homer took the south side. If the cowboys tried to run they would be seen.

The three slowed as the smell of smoke reached them. On further through the opening they saw the twinkle of fire in the distance. They closed ranks and rode in on the camp of rustlers.

As the rustlers sat around the fire, Pete, Homer and Tommy edged up in the darkness to surround the small camp. From the darkness Homer yelled out, “Why Jesse Tyler Moore? Is that you nestled up against that campfire with those stolen cattle,” to the cowboys who sat around the small fire.

The three rustlers dove for their weapons but Pete and Tommy were on them before they had run ten feet.

“Hmmmm. White man no smart,” Tommy threw in humorously. “On run, steal cattle, build fire for all to see. Hmmm. Not good.”

Seeing their predicament, the smaller cowboy dove for his rifle that leaned up against the stump of an old Sycamore that had fallen in the winter of
’47. Homer drew his weapon and fired from twenty-five feet out. The slug ripped through the rustler’s neck severing his juggler and breaking his neck. The cowboy was dead before he hit the dirt.

“Ok you boys. Throw down or wind up like your friend there.” Pete chimed in. Four hands reached for the sky and the skirmish was over.

With one strapped across his saddle, two in cuffs and eight head of cattle tied front to back, the group headed out at first light back to Woodlake to return the cattle to the Ranchers and then on to Visalia to deal with the rustlers.

Profiled (Operandi del Modo)

Profiled
(Operandi del Modo)
Chapter 2
In the Series
“The Settlers”



The door to the Chiefs smoky old office flew open as the burly man stepped out and froze the hands of time as his voice filled the room and hearts of those working there with dread and fear.

“Rumson. Get your ass in here,” he boomed out for all to hear. “I got another letter from the Sate Attorney Generals office. That wimp they call a Sheriff up there in Fresno is crying again about me running these misfits out of my jurisdiction and into his. If he had any balls he’d be waiting for them and shoot ‘em as they slither into town.”

“God almighty,” the Sheriff said out load to one in particular. “You’d think these scum bags have more damn rights than decent folks, who are just trying to get by.”

To not hear Sheriff Ray Miller’s voice was a scientific impossibility. Even if one were stone deaf, the very vibration of the old mans voice shook the air. Even the dark cubicle in the dank old bathroom was not a safe haven from his assault on the senses. There was no need for the twisted pair of speaker wires that the County had spent what the Chief considered an unreasonable amount of money on to put speakers in each corner of the police station for a paging system.

“What the hell ya need those things for,” he yelled up to the maintenance man, installing the wires. “Anyone around here complain about not being able to hear me?”

In spite of his booming voice and his ability to say what most wouldn’t say, Ray Miller was an exemplary human being who truly cared about his job and the people of his jurisdiction. He wasn’t a politician, he was a man of honor and dedication.

Chief Miller had his own idea of law enforcement as it was handed down to him from his Dad and his Uncle who had run the County Sheriffs Department and Posse since the beginning of time. It was said, in the backrooms of the old Courthouse, that God had made the world in six days. On the seventh day, God rested. On the eighth day he made Buford Miller and his brother Otto. They were the law that settled the Central Valley from Fresno to the Tule Lake Basin. If you were an unfortunate bandit that had the misfortune to commit an act that violated the principles of decency in either of the two brothers domain, you were a hunted man and it was best that the sun didn’t set on you in their neck of the woods. Many a bad boy had come to their end by decorating the massive oak tree that still shaded the front lawn of the Tulare County Courthouse in Visalia, California. Buford and Otto had even had a gunfight over the old oak tree in the summer of 1901. Buck being a progressive liberal, in his brother’s opinion, wanted to stop using the oak tree as a hanging tree. He thought they should build a scaffold on wheels that they could take on the road for special occasions. Otto wouldn’t hear it. The tree was free to the County and had served its purpose well. The issue escalated until Otto lost his temper and shot Buford in the leg. This of course ticked off Buford who in turn shot Otto in his leg as well, in order to make a point that he was the older brother and therefore in charge. All in all, twelve shots rang out, six from each of the brothers. The first two shots found their mark and the rest sent innocent bystanders scurrying for cover as the Courthouse lawn transformed into a mini battlefield. When each brother had emptied his six-shooter, Buford called out to Otto to be reasonable and settle this over a cut of the cards down at the Whitewater Saloon.

Losing copious amounts of blood, Otto agreed and the brothers holstered their weapons and helped each other to the saloon where old Doc Dolby patched them up and quickly left the brothers to make their own prescription for the pain.

Chief Ray Miller had been Sheriff of Tulare County for 22 years now. The last couple of elections, nobody even bothered to run against him. The folks around the County liked him. He was hard and mean and some times even a bit cantankerous. But he kept the peace in a way that worked and people felt safe with him standing on the wall keeping guard over their homes and businesses. He had a backwoods idea of justice and wasn’t afraid to fight any of the State people who came around looking for changes. Oh, Ray made changes, but he made them in his own time and in his own way. When the State boys came around telling him he had to start hiring women he balked at the idea of getting one of his deputy’s killed by having what he called, a weak kneed backup deputy. To get the State off his back, Chief Miller hired Betty Oswell to handle the radios and telephones and Gracie Hemp to be a deputy.

Now both Betty and Gracie were notorious around these parts for getting into a little mischief of their own. Betty had spent the night in Ray’s cell on a couple of occasions for fighting and breaking furniture down at the saw mill where Forrest Industries made the unfortunate mistake of hiring her to do their books. But in the morning when Betty sobered up, Ray always fed her breakfast and let her walk. Far as he was concerned it wasn’t a real crime to kick the crap out of someone who needed it.

Ray knew Bob Parker, who ran things down at the sawmill. He knew Parker had been shorting his people for as long as he ran things on their pay. If one of the sawmill employees wanted to even the score once in a while, it was OK by Ray. Parker even fired Betty once, he learned better after she took her pistol out of her purse and clubbed him with it until they came to a knew understanding of employee relations. She got a healthy raise to boot and Parker got to live as well as keep on running things down at the mill.

Gracie on the other hand, Ray looked upon as being a little on the cute side and most folk’s thought that there was a bit more to the relationship than met the eye. But it wasn’t true. They were strictly professional. Just because he refused to arrest her once for beating a County Health inspector senseless when he cited Gracie’s Diner for health violations, didn’t mean he was sweet on her. There was even talk that they had spent the night together in the cell at the back of the Sheriffs office on a couple of occasions. Ray personally worked out a compromise between Gracie and the inspector with the understanding that if the inspector were some how to be unlucky enough to be sent back into town to do an inspection, it wouldn’t be at Gracie’s place.

But that was justice back then. Things were different. Folks understood the simplicity of law and order and trusted it. It was not always fair and not always blind but people accepted it for their good and protection, and most folks just simply agreed with the Sheriffs decisions. And it showed at election time.

The County and Sheriff Miller were sued once by Steve and Ardy Bryant. It seemed the Bryant boy, Arnie was courting the Sanchez girl, Maria, and used to take her out to the drive in for a little Friday night at the movies. Arnie had finally got Doc from the liquor store to sell him a pint of that Cherry Sloe Gin. Arnie and Maria drank up the gin and Arnie got a little frisky. Rumor had it that Maria didn’t normally object to Arnie’s man handling but this night Arnie went a little to far and gave her a shiner that she couldn’t hide from her mother. Maria’s Mom, who went to school with Ray and on a few occasions had been seen at the drive in herself with Ray, in their younger years, called Ray and demanded Ray defend Maria’s honor. Well, Ray, being from the old school of chivalry went over and picked up Arnie and took him out to the drive-in during the day and whipped him. Arnie went home bruised and battered and told his folks. Arnie’s Dad went over to Ray’s and called him out. Said it wasn’t no crime to have your way with them Mexican girls. So, Ray whipped him too. Put him in the hospital for a couple of days. So, to make a long story shorter, Arnie’s Mom’s brother was some shyster lawyer up in Fresno County and she had him draw up papers and sued Ray and the County for police brutality. But it all got dropped when Arnie’s Mom’s brother tripped on the back stairs of his office and sustained some serious contusions. After he healed up a bit he decided he didn’t have time to pursue the suet and he dropped it. Arnie went his own way, his Mom and Dad eventually divorced and moved off to San Francisco some where and Maria married the Smith boy who was a pre-med student at Davis. Maria’s Mom was happy and Maria’s dad never knew a thing about anything. With everyone happy and peace and tranquillity prevailing, Ray was happy as well.

Ray had thought about retiring for years. Things were getting to complicated for him. He knew he was a simple man and all this reading and meetings and regulations coming down from the Department of Justice was a burden he dreaded each and every day. He was better at handling disputes and negotiating solutions. He wasn’t good at politics and featherbedding law enforcement. His breed was disappearing and a new era was coming in on a fast train that couldn't be stopped. “It was the progress of man,” he thought to himself as he spit on the ground. What kind of progress leaves the ones who built it behind.

So, under Chief Ray Miller, the County of Tulare was quite and abiding. There was the occasional robbery, some break ins, scads of stolen cars and once in a while an uncontrolled out break of domestic violence, but all in all it was peaceful, at least until the fall 1966.

Betty took the call right after the beginning of her 2 A.M. shift.

“Tulare County Sheriffs Department. Is this an emergency,” Betty said into the phone?

A sobbing, half cry, half scream came out of the phone that brought Betty to full alert. She could tell in the young female voice a terror that was real.

“Hello hun. You need to try and calm down so you can speak clearly, so I can get you some help,” Betty said calmly and slowly into the mouthpiece.

“They’re all dead, I’m hurt,” the voice cried out again and fell to a series of sobbing gasps of air.

“Alright, hun. That’s good. You’re doing fine. Can you tell me were you are and I’ll get someone over there in just a minute to help you out,” Betty responded, keeping her calm as well? With her left hand, Betty reached out and pressed the small button mounted on the side of the dispatch console. This button sounded an alarm in the Sheriffs office that told him his presence was needed in a hurry. By the time her finger left the button and pressed a second switch that transferred the call to a speakerphone and switched on the recorder, Sheriff Ray was standing behind her, leaning over her with his ear close to the speaker.

The sobs died down momentarily. “They’re all dead,” the girl said again. “ I got out but I think the rest are all dead.”

“Where are ya, hon,” Betty asked?

“Walnut and Temperance,” the voice began to break again.

Chief Ray spun around at hearing, Walnut Street and headed toward the door, grabbing his hat and gun belt from the coat rack as he passed. Then came his booming voice. “All you guys hit it. Head over to Walnut right now. When Betty gets an address she’ll call us.”

Betty waved with her hand as she continued to talk to the girl, signaling that she would work out the address and call it out. Pandemonium broke out in the office as Deputies scrambled at the Chiefs orders.

The radio crackled in Ray’s cruiser. “Chief, I got an address for ya. 3882 Walnut. It’s the Camarillo Club, just outside of town. It’s that Mexican bar out on Walnut and Temperance. The girl called from a neighbors. The neighbor says she’s shot and needs an ambulance. Says someone came in shooting and killed everyone. Be careful Ray. She doesn’t know if they are still there or not. I still have her on the phone. I’m rolling the ambulance too. The girl says there are about 6 or 7 people been shot. I’ll call over to Social and have a Councilor start heading that way. The ambulance is rolling but will not go in until you give the OK. The neighbor is taking her to Tulare General.”

“Good job Betty. Get hold of the Coroner as well. Call in the Highway Patrol and get Sam out of bed with his dogs. We may need some backup. Stand by. OK all you Deputies. You heard what Betty said, so approach with great caution. Surround the place. Keep it quite, no sirens. Use standard defense approach and make sure you use your earpieces. We don’t want the radios telling everyone where we are. It’s probably a robbery gone bad. The bad guys are probably still in the area so look for any abnormally traveling vehicles as you approach. Don’t come out shootin’ unless you have too. Keep it simple and go home safe at the end of your shift.”

The cruiser skidded to a stop in the gravel of the abandoned country store that set next to the Camarillo Club. Ray turned his cruiser so that the passenger side faced the club. He stepped out of the car and crouched low, waiting for the deputies to arrive, facing the side door to the barroom. His gun, in his hand was at the ready. One by one they quietly arrived and positioned themselves around the club. Each man positioned himself as Ray had, outside of their cars, with their guns drawn and the safety removed. Somewhere in a backyard a dog barked relentlessly, warning his master of danger. Across the street, some 50 yards away, another dog joined in on the alert.

As the deputy’s eyes became accustomed to the dark they could make out more details around the club. There was six cars parked around the club. John Camarillo’s red Road Runner set motionless in the dirt parking lot near the front entrance. Lights could be seen inside the bar but no motion or activity. Somewhere in the distance a radio pounded out the bass of Los Dug Dug’s, "La Piedra Dorada," a hot Mexican pop ballad, popular with the locals. Ray picked up his microphone that was clipped to his shoulder strap.

“OK Pete. Are you set up out back,” Ray asked? “How about you Ron?”

“10/4 Chief. We’re ready,” Pete Rumson chirped back into the mouthpiece.

“Betty. You covering this OK?”

Ya betcha, Chief,” Betty came back. “Sam should be there with the dogs any second now,”she added. “The recorder is spinning so ya’all are being taped. Keep it clean.”

Ray could hear Sam's pickup make the corner off of Walnut and come to a skidding stop in the gravel.

“Chief. There’s something moving about 15 feet out the side door. Looks like ones down and crawling,” Pete advised.

“Wait for Sam and the dogs,” Ray ordered

“10/4, Chief,” Pete voice cracked in the tinny earpiece.

Behind Ray’s cruiser a Highway patrol car slid to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust. Another black and white headed around back of the bar where Pete and Ron waited.

Sam slid up alongside Ray and knelt in the parking lot dirt. Two leashes were wrapped around his hand and his two dogs, Carl and Harley obediently sat down looking up at their master as though waiting further instructions.

“What’s the plan Ray,” Sam asked?

“Pete said there is someone down by the side door that was moving a while ago. Can’t see anything inside. Not a peep or movement. I think everyone’s dead or gone. Let’s get the one on the ground and then move up to the exterior walls. Setting out here is too much like being a setting duck for me,” Ray threw in.

“Pete. Pete,” Ray whispered into the mic. Anymore movement from the one on the ground?”

“Naw, Chief. I think he gave it up,” Pete responded.

“Ok, Pete. We need you and Ron to secure the side area. Check out the one on the ground there and get him out so we can get him to a hospital if it’s not too late. If they’re dead. Leave em lie,” Ray instructed. “Leroy,” Ray called to the Highway Patrol Cruiser. “Can you get another car around back to cover Pete and Ron. Make sure they watch the windows for any shadow movement from inside.”

“10/4 Sheriff,” Leroy squawked back.

The Highway Patrolmen ran up behind Ron and Pete and knelt to the ground.

“I’ll go first,” Ron said. “When I make it to the door, if it’s clear I’ll wave you in and you make it to the body and check it out. I’m sure he’s dead by now, but check him out and if he’s dead, just leave him lie and make it to the other side of the door with me.”

Ron didn’t wait for Pete’s response and he was off running at a half crouch. He jumped over the body lying on the ground and went straight to the side door and squashed himself into the shadows. The door stood slightly ajar and he saw dark stains streaked down the concrete steps. He knew it was blood from the man on the ground that had crawled out of the bar. He looked back at the man and saw that he was wearing some sort of Security uniform. “Probably the bouncer,” Ron thought to himself.

Ron stretched over to look through the crack in the door. He gently nudged it open a couple more inches. He could see glass on the floor and another body lying in front of the jukebox. He could see where blood had pooled up and something had dragged through it toward the door where he now crouched in the darkness. Ron jumped as Pete slid in behind him in the shadow.

Ron just looked at Pete and said, “I’ll slap the snot out a you, if you sneak up on me like that again.”

Pete strained to look inside. He nudged the door and this time the door opened half way up. Inside on the floor they could see three, maybe four bodies. Blood had flowed everywhere. Shattered pieces of a mirror lay across the far end of the bar. Stools were strewn everywhere. One lay in shattered pieces.

“Ray, This is Pete,”

“Yeah, Go ahead,” Ray said.

“We got a pretty good view inside and it’s not pretty. At least four bodies. Maybe more. Blood everywhere. I don’t think any ones at home anymore though. Bring the dogs around and let’s send them in.

Ray grabbed Sam by the shoulder and motioned him to follow with the dogs. In a half crouch they ran across the dimly lit dirt parking lot to the shadows on the side where Pete and Ron were waiting. By the time Ray got there the two Highway Patrolmen were there too, peering through the door. Pete had gone toward the back of the building and pushed open a small window where he stood staring into disbelief.

As Ray came up Pete looked over at him and said in a normal volume voice, “I don’t think you’re gonna need them dogs. I can see two more bodies from here. Looks like everyone’s dead.”

“OK. Sam, send them in anyway.” Ray ordered.

Sam pulled Carl and Harley up to the door and unleashed them. The dogs seemed to understand their assignment and entered the building. 40 seconds of silence passed like hours as the deputies waited in the dark, then Harley returned to the side door.

“I guess that’s it Ray. Ain’t anyone alive in there,” Sam reported.

With guns drawn, The deputies entered the building one by one. Pete and Ron walked back to back out of years of experience in covering each others back. Once inside the lawmen seemed to instinctively form a circle facing outward, each with their gun poised high and ready.

Inside the barroom was a sickly oder of blood, death and the acrid smell of gunpowder. Glass was everywhere. Near the Jukebox lay a females body, at the end of the bar another woman lay dead. Ray moved toward the end of the bar. Two male bodies were there. A man in an apron lay toward the kitchen door, Another woman lay in the middle of the room. In all there were eight dead bodies, including the security guard outside.

“God almighty,” slipped from Ray’s lips. “It must have happened fast.” Ray stepped around behind the counter. He reached down under the counter and lifted up a shotgun and laid it on the counter.

“Ok fellows. Let’s stick together and search the place.” In unison the group moved from room to room, opening closet doors and storage rooms but no one was there.

“Ok,” Ray ordered over the radio. “Let’s secure a parameter and get the detectives in here to piece it all together. Betty. Call the Corner and tell him what we need. Tell him we have eight down. Also, Ron, get with Betty on the radio and find that survivor and start to question her. Get her to the hospital and get her checked out and get her some help or tranquilizers, but, I want to know what happened here and who all these people are.”

Righto,” said Ron.

“10/4, Chief,” Betty chimed in from the radio.

“Betty.”

“Yeah Chief,” she called back.

“Get on the horn to the Justice Department and FBI. They may have something on this,” Ray instructed.

“10/4, Ray.”

THE CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE

Within an hour the barrier tape was up and no less than 30 official type cars were parked along the roadside. It was figured that most of the outside evidence had already been destroyed, but they tried to maintain whatever was left.

During the next 48 hours, over 4500 photographs were taken of the entire lot, building, doors, windows, bodies, tracks, cigarette butts, position of cruisers that had made the original call. Every tire track in the parking lot had to be photographed, imprinted and accounted for. If it didn’t come from one of the cruisers, it was evidence.

74 blood samples were taken on gauze pads and air dried and packaged to deliver to the crime lab. A toilet bowl water sample was taken to test for urine and blood type. Blood samples from each victim were taken. A sample of hair was taken from each victim. The bathroom floor swept for hair and more samples taken. Traces of cocaine and amphetamine showed positive in the hallway to the bathroom and in the bathroom near the sink and in both stalls. Traces of cocaine were found in the office and on the bar top.

Over 175 identifiable fingerprints or fragments were lifted, cataloged and filed. All glasses were printed and 68 were bagged as evidence because of a fingerprint or lipstick and saliva. 8 beer bottles and fragments were collected and bagged.

3 guns were found in the bar. A shotgun from behind the bar, a 38cal was in the register and a 44 in the office in a desk drawer were all taken for evidence. 4 baseball bats, a jukebox with 3 bullet holes in it, two cigar boxes with cash and the cash register were taken. A screwdriver and tire wrench lying behind the bar on the floor were tagged and bagged as evidence as well.

43- 9mm slugs were taken from the bodies, walls, jukebox, doors and the bar itself. Of the 43 slugs, 36 shell casings were found on the floors. It was later theorized that the killers tried to pick up the shell casings but quickly gave up the task as to labor intensive and at least seven slugs were lost through windows.

The lab reports would be weeks or months down the road. Eight autopsies had to be made. Hundreds of sketches, drawings and diagrams depicting trajectory, angle and position of the bodies were made based on splatter marks and bullet trails. Thousands of man-hours were spent gathering evidence and interviewing neighbors and family and regular customers of the Club.

The victims were Johnny Camarillo, his wife, his mother, his half brother, his sister-n-law, a security guard and a waitress and the male cook. The sole survivor was another sister-n-law who survived when one of the victims fell on her after she lay on the floor from being shot herself in the stomach and buttocks. She reported that the killer walked over to where the two women lay and pumped two more shots into the woman on top of here and one into her side. The survivor being on the bottom was protected from a fatal shot from the victim that fell on her. In all she was shot three times.

It was determined from sketches and trajectory that the killers entered the front door. The bar had just closed and the owner had forgotten to lock the front door. The crew was cleaning up. The owner, John Camarillo had emptied the register and rolled the bills up and stuffed it into his pocket where detectives found it. The first to appear to be killed was John’s Mother who quite often stayed in the bar in a seat reserved for her at the closest end of the bar to the entry door. She was shot three times and two missed, hitting the mirror behind her. Johnny’s wife and sister-n-law were shot next and landed on the floor in mid barroom where they were sweeping up. The security guard or the brother-n-law in the apron was next. The brother-n-law came out from the kitchen when the shooting started. The guard was picking up bottles and turned and caught one in the neck and torso. He latter died outside after crawling 35 feet trying to reach safety. At some point in time the waitress was killed by a single shot to the head. Then the cook came out of the kitchen and caught two to the chest. Johnny was presumed the last to be killed. He was in the office and heard the first shot. He ran to the bar trying to reach the shotgun. It isn’t known why he didn’t take the 44 from his desk. He was shot 3 times and fell to the floor behind the bar. Two more slugs were fired into him as he lay on the bartender’s catwalk. The time estimated for the killings was less than 30 seconds. Investigators deduced that the killers had to change clips at least three times.

The killers did not leave right away. They tried to pry open the cash register but couldn’t get it open. They picked it up and threw it against the floor. Johnny’s blood was found on the register. Then it was picked back up and set on the bar where the killers tried once again to pry it open. It is believed that while the attention to the cash register was taking all their time, the security guard crawled out the back door. The killers then gave up on the mission of robbery and left the scene. The surviving sister-n-law remained conscious but in shock. When the killers left she crawled out from under her sister-n-law’s body and ran out the side door, tripping over the security guard. She ran blindly toward the lights of a house across the road where the neighbor called for help.



HISTORY

The Bar was outside of the City limits so it fell into Ray Miller’s jurisdiction. The club had been a sore spot with County Supervisors for years and they had tried to close it down more than a couple of times. Each time the County Officials tried to shut him down, Johnny Camarillo came out swinging. The bar was his life and from the bar he supported over 40 people. It was a family business and Camarillo took care of business. Although rumors flourished about a drug trade and prostitution, he didn’t allow such things to go unchecked in the bar. What people did on their own was their business, he thought. As long as it was in the bathroom or outside where he or his Mother couldn’t see it, he didn’t care what people did.

The clientele was predominately Mexican farm laborers and families. Camarillo took pride in that he considered his bar as a family place where people could come, eat and drink and dance to Mexican music. His own family, including his kids worked the Club. Sheriff Miller had many conversations with Camarillo over a beer at the bar where Camarillo died. The Sheriff liked Camarillo and respected him because he was a businessman and he worked for a living and took care of his family. John Camarillo alone saved Tulare County hundreds of thousands of dollars by supporting his family rather than seeing his Mother and the many kids grow up on welfare like so many other Mexican families in the area. When the harvests were done, most were out of work. Johnny hired them and then took back some of his money he paid them in the form of entertainment. The fact that Camarillo and his customers were Mexican didn’t trouble the Sheriff in the slightest. Besides all that, Camarillo paid thousands of dollars in sales taxes and fees to the county and state. Ray figured Camarillo helped pay his salary and deserved as much protection as anyone else.


THE AFTERMATH

Within 8 hours of the first call, helicopters, newsmen and reporters from all over the country poured into Tulare County and all showed up at the crime scene. Ray arrested two reporters for crossing the crime scene barriers trying to get photographs. The Sheriff was possessive about his crime scenes.

Family members collected and then went into hiding out of fear of more killings of their remaining family members.

The mornings Fresno Gazette Read,

“Camarillo Club Massacre, Worst In City History”

“The Camarillo Club owner Johnny Camarillo, who always
had a gun and an attitude when handling rowdy patrons in his
nightclub, apparently had two too many customers kicked out.
In the worst mass killing in city history, Camarillo and seven others
were shot to death and one other woman was wounded in the southeast
Fresno bar Sunday morning by two disgruntled patrons. A security
guard escaped to seek help at a nearby house but died before he reached safety.
Police said the gunmen, angry at being kicked out of the club Friday
night, returned after closing time Sunday morning and opened fire
with semiautomatic pistols before fleeing. They remained at large
late Sunday.

A neighbor who talked to the survivors minutes after the shootings
said he was told that the victims had been lined up and that some
scrambled for cover when the shooting began. The survivor said some
hid under pool tables and others under the kitchen sink.

"I only glanced in," said the neighbor, who asked not to be
identified. "I really didn't want to see it. There were bodies
scattered all around."

Ray threw down the paper and stared at the phone that sat on his desk. He hadn’t slept in over 48 hours. He looked at his phone and watched as each of the six lights for each line blinked on and off. The only light that didn’t blink was his outside line that was reserved for special people. It was his “Hot Line,” so to speak. As he stared at the telephone, it to lit up. He reached out and depressed the button and picked up the receiver.

“Sheriff, this is Commissioner Appleton. There’s a press conference in thirty minutes in front of the Courthouse. Your presence is required.” Then a dead silence as the click disconnected Ray from the Commissioner.

There was a crowd of reporters gathered, waiting for the Sheriff and Commissioner. The Board of Directors were there as well. Ray thought to himself, “Never miss an opportunity to get ones face on TV.”

“Sheriff,” What happened out at the Camarillo Club,” the Reporter from The Visalia Times yelled out?

From next to him, another reporter from KMK Radio yelled out, “Is there any truth to the rumor that several kilo’s of Cocaine were found?”

Another yelled out from somewhere in the back of the crowd, “Was this a professional hit?”

Ray held up his hand to silence all of them. He had prepared a short statement that would have to do for now.

“Thank all of you for coming out this morning. It’s been a long couple of days and we are confident that the evidence we have collected will shine a light on this crime. As all of you should know by now, I can’t speak to specific questions of the investigation for obvious reasons. This was a horrendous crime in which 8 people were killed. We are piecing the scene together and are optimistic that the evidence will turn up the suspects.”

Ray backed away from the microphone as question began to bombard him from the crowd.

“Sheriff, Is it true that this was a Mexican Mafia hit because of a soured drug deal,” the reporter from The Times called out.

“Sheriff, is it true that Johnny Camarillo was in the Mexican Mafia,” another chimed in.

Ray stepped back toward the microphone Commissioner Appleton beat him to it. “There is no evidence that this was a professional hit nor that there was any drugs involved other than the trace amounts found at the scene.”

If looks could kill, Ray’s stare of disbelief from what he just heard come from Appleton’s mouth would have knocked the Commissioner out.

“So drugs were found,” the reporter shouted back.

“By the Sheriffs glare, I fear I’ve said to much already,” Appleton told the crowd.

“What kind of drugs were involved? What kind were they,” chimed out from several reporters.

Ray stepped up to the microphone and said, “The investigation is ongoing. I ask you reporters not to let your imaginations run wild with this. There were several victims and the Camarillo family has a right to grieve in peace. The evidence has not determined any drug involvement in this crime. Give us time to do our jobs and you will be informed of what we find, but what we have to do is find out exactly what happened, why it happened and who did it. Not only for the sake of the victims and their family but also for the entire community. There is a vicious killer or killers running loose and we have to catch them before this sort of thing can happen again. Justice will prevail, but it will take time. Please be prudent in your reporting and don’t jump to conclusions. An article in this morning’s paper is a complete fabrication, which my office will investigate. We simple do not know what happened at The Camarillo Club yet, but the evidence will tell us what happened and who did it.”

With that said, Ray announced that the press conference was over and there would be another one in a couple of days. Then he walked away from the crowd, taking the County’s microphone with him.

Ray waited for Appleton in the Commissioners office. When Appleton walked through the door Ray had him by the collar of his suit, lifting him a good six inches off of the ground before the Commissioner knew what had happened.

“You blood sucking piece of shit,” Ray roared at the Commissioner. “You keep your mouth shut about this case or your ass will be decorating the wall of my office. There were innocent people killed out there and for you to start a feeding frenzy for the media was about as low as I’ve seen you go. And believe me, I’ve seen how low a pile like you can go.”

With terror in his eyes, Appleton tried to talk but the Sheriffs grip was to strong and was cutting off air to the Commissioner. He hung limp in the air like one of the sides of beef hanging on a hook down at Henley’s Market. Ray loosed his grip and let the Commissioner slid back to the floor.

“Ray! You’ve assaulted me, you know that people have a right to know about these things,” Appleton said as he choked back a gasp of air.

“The people have a right to know the truth when it is time to know it. Right now is not the time and what you said was bullshit. You did a great dis-service to this investigation. If you open your mouth again, to say anything that is not released by my office, I’ll lock your sorry ass up, and if you don’t believe that, just try me,” Ray yelled into Appellation’s face and turned and left the office.

“Good job,” said Midge as Ray walked past her desk on his way out of the Commission office. “Why don’t you run against that asshole.”

As Ray walked down the hall of the Courthouse he passed Tim Moore, who had just came out from his side office next to the Commissioners. His Dad went to school with Ray. Tim nodded to Ray and said, “About time someone collared that creep. Good work Sheriff.”

Ray put on his hat and walked out into the midmorning sunlight.

Within hours of the shootings the press had already tagged a name on the crime. “The Camarillo Club Massacre” was in every paper in California and many across the nation. The trial was already well under way in the press as rumors and outright lies became fact in the daily updates that the papers printed. For the industry it was a boom. Papers were selling like hotcakes. People were afraid of a drug war and wanted to know what was happening. They turned to the only trusted source of information that they had. But that did little to aid the investigation or the pain suffered by the remaining Camarillo family.

The press had painted John Camarillo as a local drug Czar who ran whole sale drugs out of his nightclub. As if drugs weren’t enough, the Club was also being labeled, by some unidentified county officials as the main source of prostitution and crime for the entire area. The Fresno Times went as far as to print an unsubstantiated story that indicated the killings were a professional hit on Camarillo and his cartel family for going rogue and taking away territory that belonged to the Mexican Mafia. Another story played on this story to indicate that organized crime was undergoing a massive reorganization of crime families and that Camarillo was a victim of the war between rival factions. Newspapers didn’t have much actual news to print so the news became the news. Each paper went into competition with the others and they played off of each other’s stories using “unidentified sources” as their source of information. Sheriff Ray Miller knew that one of these ‘unidentified sources,” was Appleton, and if he could ever track it back to the Commissioner, the sparks would fly.

Ray held a second press conference in which he discredited most of the stories as “acts of desperation and greed” coming from politicians preparing their campaigns for the next election. This acted as the first shot in the war between Appleton and Sheriff Miller leading up to the November elections. Ray was forced into releasing some of the evidential facts of the case, trying to quell the frenzy and give a little relief to the Camarillo family, who were becoming even more distraught over the rumors and stories trashing their family.

In front of a bank of microphones, Sheriff Ray Miller told the press, "The stories that I have read in most of the local newspapers and that I’ve heard on the radio are unconscionable and untrue. The rumor that the Camarillo Club was a front for a drug cartel is untrue. Trace amounts of cocaine were found in the bathrooms. This is a bar frequented by hundreds, if not thousands of people of all kinds, and although cocaine is illegal, people obtain it and use it at their own will. Without condoning its use, it is understandable that on a night of drinking or dancing one might use this illegal substance. It was done in privacy in the bathroom and what we found was very minute traces that someone spilled at some time or another. This finding of a trace amount of any kind of drug by no means indicates that there was any kind of illegal activity going on out at the Camarillo Club. The FBI is assisting us with this case and a profile of the killers is being made to help us catch those who are guilty of this crime. Rumors and false allegations disrupt the flow of information and lead Detectives on wild goose chases that allow the killers more time to escape. This profile, that the press is making of the Camarillo’s is totally fabricated to sell papers.” Miller did not entertain any questions from the reporters and the conference was short and brief.

Nine days after the killings the Camarillo family had it with the authorities and newspapers and held their own press conference. Outside of the American Legion Hall in Selma, California, 34 remaining members of the Camarillo family, which included brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins gathered before a bank of microphones and reporters to have their say in defense of their brother and their family. The family, represented by Luis Camarillo and his sister Loupe Sanchez, stood before the reporters and microphones.

Luis Camarillo stepped up to the microphones on the steps of the Hall. His voice had a tremor in it. He was not used to speaking in public and he was facing more than one hundred people. He swallowed hard, briefly recited a quick prayer.

“I want to thank each of you for coming here today,” he said in a broken voice. He quickly recovered and his voice cleared up.

“Nine days ago my mother, brother, step brother, and two sister-n-laws and three close friends of our family were brutally murdered in our family business, The Camarillo Club. Since that time our family has undergone a tremendous sorrow and fear because of our losses. To compound our grief, there have been several articles printed in the papers and talked about on the radio programs that paint a portrait of my brother and our family that has sickened my family even farther.

I am here today with my remaining family to tell you the truth.

The rumor that this was a hit on a drug organization or a Mexican Mafia hit is just the imagination of some news reporters who will stoop to any level to sell a paper. Since these stories have been circulating, my remaining family have been deluged with phone calls, death threats, and vandalism that not only keeps us prisoners of our own homes but bring us a great, great psychological pain because of the closeness of our family.

We are a traditional Mexican family who share the same love for our family as you do for yours.” Camarillo’s voice began to break. Then he continued. “We ask that you please not believe these stories and that you leave us in peace to go through our grief in a way that we choose to go through it.

We are not satisfied with the results of the investigation and feel that because we are Mexican/Americans and because these rumors have surfaced, the investigation is taking the back seat to lesser crimes. Rather than the killers of my mother and family being profiled for the crime, my family is being profiled to look like the guilty party when they were in fact, the victims. We feel that this is politically motivated in order to save the County money on the expense of a proper investigation. The County has targeted our family more than a couple of times, trying to shut down our legal family business. We feel we are being swept under the carpet and that these blatant lies have been spread to turn the tide of public sentiment in favor of not pursuing this crime to it’s full extent. In short, there is a growing belief, spreading out from this fictitious stories that what happened to my brother and my mother was brought on by their own illegal activity. We demand that these damaging stories of our family stop and we ask authorities to pursue with the greatest vigor the killers that committed this horrible crime, not only against our family and the Hispanic community but all of us that live together in this county.”
Camarillo backed away from the microphone as his sister stepped up to it.

“I will be briefer than my brother, but I wish to echo his words. We are and always have been a descent, law abiding family that works hard to take care of our own. Our family business was just that, a legal family business that paid thousands of dollars in taxes and fees. For God's sake, they even killed my mother and for the media to paint……,” Loupe’s voice broke and she covered her face with her hands as she sobbed. Three women, who stood behind the brother and sister as they spoke, rushed to her aid and helped her from the platform. With that, the press conference was finished.

As the reporters turned to walk away, a young woman who stood silently behind the speakers went to the microphone and picked it up.

“Sheriff, Sheriff Miller, I know you’re out there and you can hear me. You find those that murdered my Grandmother! You find them and kill them!” More of the family ran to her and hugged her and ushered her to a waiting car.

Three days later.

“An elderly man, Ed Cox, 80, a retired carpenter was shot and then straggled in his mobile home. Neighbors say that Cox had been “dating” a young woman in her 30’s. The woman and a male companion were seen leaving Cox’s home prior to the discovery of his body.

Police are looking for Carol Dennis and her brother Troy.

The young couple have had several run ins with the law and are wanted for questioning in Cox’s death.”

The Exponent


Two days later.

“A Police Sargent, Pat Mallory, was shot, point blank in the face after visiting the home of Carol Dennis and her brother Troy Dennis. The couple were sought in the investigation of the death of retired carpenter, Ed Cox.

Mallory went to the Dennis home after a tip revealed where the couple lived. Officer Mallory was looking through a side window of the residence when he was shot through the window. He is in serious but guarded condition in Sierra Leone Hospital.

An arrest warrant for Carol Dennis and Troy Dennis has been issued.”

The Fresno Times

Ray picked up the phone and dialed the number to the lab. “Did those test results come in on the ballistics on the Cox and Mallory shootings, yet,” he asked? “Ok. I’ll be right down.”

“We have a match, Ray,” Detective Walker said as the Sheriff walked through the laboratory door.

“The slug from the Mallory shooting and the Cox shooting do not match, but the slug from the Mallory shooting matches one of the guns used in the Camarillo shootings,” Walker said. “We’re pretty certain that the Mallory and Cox shootings were both done by the Dennis’. Since we can tie the Camarillo case and the Mallory together and the Mallory and Cox shootings together, it stands to reason that our young brother and sister act are involved in a very tangled web. I think we have enough for a warrant. Let’s run it by prosecution.”


“We don’t have enough for a solid conviction, Ray,” said District Attorney Bob Nathan. “There’s plenty for suspicion for arrest but I would not prosecute on this. If we were to go in to court with less than a smoking gun, we stand a chance to lose this case. Then we can never try it again unless the Feds want to pick it up on a violation of civil rights. That’s a big risk, Ray. Our eyewitness was terror stricken, not to mention shot and badly bleeding. A good Defense Attorney will spin it and come out with a reasonable doubt. All the hype the Club took over the drugs and Mexican Mafia crap may push a jury to let these two off.”

“OK, Bob. It’s your call. The way these two kids are tearing it up, they will slip up soon and get picked up. Then we’ll lock them up and take our time with the details,” Ray said.

Fatigued, Ray returned home. The hot, steamy water of the shower cascaded over his face. He turned his back and let the water pulsate on his back, massaging his tense muscles. He stepped out of the shower and slid the frosted door closed. The smell of the towel brought back memories of a life, long ago. It had been, very long ago. He dried off and slipped on a clean T-shirt and a pair of faded blue sweat pants. He popped a TV dinner into the toaster oven. A harmonica sounded from the radio that he had switched on for noise. He settled into the stuffed chair and leaned his aching head back against the cushion. Sleep came almost instantly and in his dream the raspy voice of the singer’s song, from the radio became a part of the dream in which he escaped …….

“……take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time,
far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees,
out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach
of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea,
circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep
beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today
until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.”
Bob Dylan
“Mr. Tambourine Man”

The smoke reached his nostrils and he awoke to the acrid smell of burning Salisbury steak.

Three weeks later…….

The unruly crowd had assembled on the Courthouse steps. The cameras had set up a staging area looking up the steps using the Courthouse entrance as a backdrop. The bank of microphones was placed on the top landing, looking down over the crowd and into the awaiting lenses.

Ray stepped up to the microphone but before he could speak the man in the denim work coat yelled out, “If the people at Camarillo’s were white, the killers would already be in jail!”

Another from the crowd yelled out, “Racist pigs!”

Another joined in. “There is no justice for our people.”

Ray held up his hands to silence the crowd. The camera’s rolled as the media recorded the events.

“People, please. Let me speak,” Ray appealed.

“We want protection!” another woman screamed at Ray.

“Justice now! Justice now!” went out the chant as the crowd joined together to shout down the Sheriff.

The District Attorney, Bob Nathan pushed to the microphone. “Please, here him out. We have suspects in custody.” The crowd fell silent.

Ray resumed his position at the microphone. “Carol Dennis and Troy Dennis have been picked up on a robbery in Oklahoma. They were connected to the shooting of Officer Pat Mallory and an APB was put out on the brother and sister. The Mallory shooting was technically linked to the Camarillo shootings.”

“What do you mean, technically linked?” the man in the denim coat yelled out.

“As you know,” Ray pointed his statements to the man, “we live in a scientific world with laws and rules of law and evidence. Because this is an ongoing investigation and the suspects have rights, we can not reveal the nature of the evidence at this time. All that will be done in court and…..”

Ray was interrupted. “This sounds like more smoke and mirrors to cover up the bungled investigation,” the man shouted at Ray.

“Suspects are in custody and we are beginning the extradition process. If all goes as predicted, the suspect will be turned over to us and flown back here within sixty days. They have a court appointed attorney in Oklahoma and are going through the process. As you know we just can’t take people and kidnap them. It is all coming together folks. Johnny Camarillo was an acquaintance of mine and I want to put his killers away as much as each of you do. As much as I’d like to see you string them up from that oak tree over there, that is not the way we do things. It will all come together and we will all have justice,” Ray spoke as he finally brought the crowd around to hearing him.

The ache began in Ray’s shoulder and worked it way down to his wrist. His fingers began to tingle and then hurt. He felt his pulse in each fingertip. He felt hot and the air was stale as he began to perspire and then the chills hit him. He looked out over the crowd as the sounds dulled. He saw them milling around and then stop what they were doing and saying to each other and began to stare at him. He turned to Bob and his vision blurred and then went to gray and then to black.

Three months later……

“Welcome back Boss,” Gracie said as Ray walked through the front door of the Sherrif’s office.

“Good to see you make it back Ray,” Pete added as Ray slid the key into the lock of his office door.

Ray turned and faced all of the officers that had gathered in the office to see him return to work. Each had visited him in the hospital and at his home but this was a special day for all of them.

“I want to thank each of you for the many cards, flowers and visits and good wishes. It feels great to be back. We’ve got a lot of work to do and the bad guys didn’t take any time off while I was away. I’m going to tell all of you up front, however. My mission is to close the Camarillo case and then I will be retiring. I’ve got some serious business with a fly rod and a German Brown Trout somewhere up on the North Fork. Each one of you has a very important job to do and each of you are very capable.”

“But Ray, Who’ll run things when you’re gone?” Gracie asked.

Ray smiled, “I don’t care.” He turned and pushed the door to the office open that had housed his life for so long. “It was good to be back,” he thought to himself. Then in his own thoughts he added, “I’m going to miss it.”

He pressed the button to the new intercom that had been installed during his absence. “Gracie. Get Bob Nathan on the phone. Ask him to drop in and bring his notes on the Camarillo and Dennis case. ”

Bob Nathan had been the District Attorney in Tulare County for ten years. His boss was the political hopeful, Commissioner Appleton, who was the prime suspect in the leak of the drug test information from the crime lab.

Bob was good at his job. He was thorough and had a sense about his cases. Not only was prosecuting a criminal case a science, it was an art in selecting juries and getting those that were selected to hear the cases to believe in your credibility and your case. A prosecuting attorney that gave the jury the slightest hint that he or she was hiding something or not on the up and up, was doomed for failure. It was the defense attorney’s job to plant the seeds of doubt into the mind of the jury. In a criminal case, the guilt of a suspect hinged on reasonable doubt. It was different in civil cases where one only had to convince someone else that they were wronged, in criminal cases you had to prove it within a shadow of a doubt. All the details were very important. There could be no loose ends. If the Defense saw a loose end, they would take hold of that loose thread in the case and begin to unravel the Prosecutions case by discrediting the methods, the investigators and then the evidence itself.

For 10 hours Ray Miller and Bob Nathan went over the details, page by page, of the case. During the meeting, 12 phone calls were made to clarify a fact or some evidence. If it could not be explained, it was set aside. Very little in Bobs files was unexplainable. There were names, addresses, references, histories, witnesses, reports, opinions, tests, documentation and verification of every aspect of the case. Hours, days, weeks and months went into the case. Bob did not accept shoddy detective work.

Two men in Tulare County had to give the go ahead for the Prosecution. Ray Miller and Bob Nathan. After 10 hours and multiple cups of coffee and a large cheese pizza, they sat in Ray’s office in silence. The day shift had long went home and been replaced bt the swing shift.

“There’s one last detail, Ray,” Bob said.

“What’s that, Bob?” Ray asked.

“I’m going to offer a deal.”

Ray sat up, erect in his chair. “What kind of a deal, Bob.”

“It’s impossible in this state to get a capital charge against a woman. I want to offer Carol Dennis and Troy Dennis a deal. We’ll give her life without parole if she goes states evidence."”

”She’s not going to do that, Bob,” Ray threw out.

“No she won’t, but she might if she thinks we will go easier on her brother if she works with us.” Said Bob.

“So you’re not just talking about offering her a deal. You’re talking about giving them both a life time deal to not have to face the death penalty.” Ray said.

“That’s about the size of it, Ray.” Bob responded. “This is a 2 to 3 million dollar case that will get a new venue in a place that never heard of any of this. We can take him all the way to the chamber but she’s the problem. If she walks, for any reason, we may loose our capital case on him as well. We’ll get a conviction, but he may walk out in 25 years a free man. That’s the way it is Ray.”

Ray stared at Bob. Ray was a learned man. He was a man of faith in the system but he was a realist. “Ok Bob. It’s your call. Life isn’t what I want, but it will do. The Camarillo’s deserve more. Johnny Camarillo deserves better. But I see your point. But OK, hear me out. She’s not going to turn on her brother. She’s as hard and cold as he is and maybe more. But he may throw in the towel for her. She’s the one that sat up the old man and did him. I think half the time Troy was following her. He may just throw in for her and ask for a deal to save her from the gas chamber.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” Bob said to Ray.

“It’s a done deal then,” Ray responded. “It may take a few more months to let the seeds soften and sprout, but it might work. Before you do it, let me go over and talk to Luis Camarillo. I’d like to have the family on board. In the long run, it’s really all about them.”

Bob nodded his head. “I’ll get the ball rolling and you talk to the family.”

The interview room was a 12 ft. by 10 foot room right out of the movies. At one end was a large mirrored plate glass window. Behind it was a recording room where police could record interrogations with suspects without the suspects seeing them. In the center of the room was a metal table, bolted to the floor and one chair on one side for the suspect and two chairs on the other side of the table for the interrogators. The south wall of the room was the ventilation system ductwork. Gone was the interrogation lamps and modern day fluorescent had been installed high above the table with wire mesh screen covering the fixtures. In the corner was a small worktable for the detectives to place their briefcases. In the floor near the suspect’s chair were recessed cutouts with a u-shaped iron bar embedded into the concrete. When the suspect was brought in they wore iron manacles around their ankles. These were then attached to the recessed iron bar with a pair of handcuffs fastened to the chain on the manacles and the bar.

When Ray and Bob arrived, Troy Dennis was already setting in the chair, safely chained and handcuffed to the floor. Each hand was cuffed to the chair he sat in and he was belted in as well. This was standard operating procedure for maximum security suspects while in the interrogations room. The standard was written by Ray Miller after a detective was taken hostage in the room by a man arrested on child molestation charges.

Bob entered the room first and Bob followed.

“Good morning Mr. Dennis,” Ray said to the prisoner.

“Good morning Sheriff,” Troy Dennis responded back. “What’s the weather like outside,” he asked.

“Not bad, yet. It’s starting to warm up but it’s getting a little humid. Probably going to hit somewhere in the low nineties today,” Bob Nathan told Dennis.

“How you doing Troy?” Ray asked. “Everyone treating you alright?”

“Not bad. Foods good. The guys are great and we get to take a wood carving class next week to learn how to carve pistols out of pine wood,” Dennis said laughingly. “The week after that we get a class on jump starting cars. Foreign models only.”

“Well, sounds exciting. But in the meantime, we have some business to take care of. We need to get this Camarillo thing behind us. A lot of people were killed and there are a lot of people that want us to turn you over to them for a necktie party in front of the courthouse. A many boys swung on that tree out there before we brought the law to Tulare County.”

“Well, Sheriff, I’d like to help you but I was out of town when all that happened. I think it was them Mexican Mafia boys from down Sanger that did ‘em, if you ask me. You know how them people are. Always fighting and they’d steal just about anything that ain’t tied down.”

“Glad you mentioned that Troy. We been talking to your sister, Carol, and she says it a little different. You know the fact that you and your sister are close, only goes so far. We’re talking a capital crime and the gas chamber. Besides all that, we got the forensics that connect the guns used in the Mallory shooting with the Camarillo shootings and they all point to you and your sister. Not to mention that we have eyewitnesses that saw you and Carol leaving the Cox place when he was found dead. He was strangled and shot, if I remember right. Then of course we have some letters from him and Carol, and some more forensics from his bathroom and bed sheets. So we pretty much know your sister was engaged in a …familiar way with him. That pretty well ties both you and your sister to that one. One of you strangled the old man with the coat hanger and then the other pumped a slug into him, that we dug out of the carpet.”

“You got me Sheriff. Better arrest me and put me in jail,” said Dennis.

“We’re going to do more than that Troy. We’re going to talk to you and if you co-operate we are going to send you to a nice prison, with all the schooling and classes you can stand, for the rest of your life. If you don’t co-operate, we’re going to strap you and your sister into a cold iron chair and drop some cyanide into the room and watch you both gag until your colder than old man Cox. You have to understand that Son. We have nothing against you and don't know why you are like you are, but we're dead serious and going to lock you up or kill you and your sister,” Ray told him. “ We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way. You’re the ones who will suffer. To me it’s just a job. I get paid either way. But one way you live. The other way you both go in the ground. Oh it will take ten to twenty years to do it. Maybe even by the time it comes around you will change and be sorry for what you’ve done. But by then it will be to late. The wheels turn slowly to give you a chance, but when they start to roll it’s hard to bring it all to a stop. Even if I kill over dead tomorrow, there will be someone else step into my place and pick up where I left off.”

Troy Dennis sat motionless. The Sheriffs words reached into him. He stared at the wall, avoiding eye contact. A tear slid from the corner of his eye.

“When we was kids, not more than nine or ten years old, my Mom brought home some drunk and he lived with us for awhile. He was the first of many. He would set in a recliner watching TV. If Carol was around he would make her kneel down in front of him and …….” He lost his voice.

“Son, I’m sorry for what you and your sister had to go through. I’d love to get my hands on him and have him where you are instead, but I can’t roll back the clock for you. You have a sad story to tell. I’ve heard hundreds just as sad and each one of them is engrained in my memory. I can’t feel your hurt like you can, but all I can do is offer a helping hand. What he did to you kids was wrong. Sometimes bad people get away with what they’ve done. Sometimes they don’t. You weren’t one of the lucky ones. I guess you’d know more about your luck than I would, wouldn’t you? You never been lucky and it isn’t going to change. You’re not going to get lucky this time either until you walk a different path than you’ve ever walked before. Your at the fork in the road, son. You can go on like you have until the end. Until that last putrid breath seizes up your lungs or you can take the other fork in the road and work with the law. You can still have a life. It will still be behind bars where your mothers boyfriends can’t get you anymore, but it will be a life worth living.”

Troy still faced the wall. “Let me think on it Sheriff. I want to go back to my cell.”

Three days later

Visalia Times Sun

“Based on police reports and interviews with police officials and
defense lawyers, it's apparent that detectives believe the gunmen at
Camarillo's were Troy Dennis, 25, and step brothers Mike
Heldin Jr., 36, and Albert D. Heldin, 25. Police also suspect that
the getaway driver was Dennis's sister, Carol Lynn Dennis,
26.

Dennis and his sister are also charged with the killing and
robbery of 80-year-old Ed Cox, two days later. Police allege
they needed money to get out of town after the shootings.

The search intensified when police investigating the shooting looked
in the trunk of Dennis's car. They found two guns that were later
determined to have been used at Camarillo's. Police said they also
have recovered a third gun used at the bar.

From sales records, police determined that at least one of the guns
was in Dennis's possession before and after the killings.

Younger brother Albert Heldin has an arrest record for assault and
burglary. As a juvenile, he spent time in a California Youth
Authority facility.”

Three weeks later….

Visalia Times Sun

“Albert Heldin, younger step brother to murder suspect Troy Dennis, and the only suspect that is not under arrest in the Camarillo shootings was found dead in a motel room not far from where the Camarillo Massacre took place three years ago next month. Heldin, with a long history of run-ins with the law, apparently ended his own life of crime with a 9mm handgun. ”

“Ray?” the squawk box asked. “Pete, over at the jailhouse called. That Dennis boy wants to see you.”

“Ok Gracie. Call him back and tell him I’m on my way.”

“Hello, Troy,” Ray said as he walked into the second floor interrogation room.

“Sheriff,” Troy responded.

“Shame about Albert. I guess things got to him,” Ray said to Troy Dennis.

“Yeah. He was a good kid.” Troy responded back to Ray. “Sheriff, let’s get this business done. There’s been a lot of misery on all sides and I’m willing to talk if we can come to an arrangement.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that Troy. I’m going to have to make a few phone calls and round up some people. Bob’s got to be here and we have to get a stenographer and a recorder in on overtime. It may take awhile. Might not even get it put together until Monday. Would that be ok?”

“Ok. Do whatever it takes and let’s get it on.” Troy said.

Eight people were behind the mirror to witness the interview with Troy Dennis. It was the same number of people that died in the Club that night. In the interview room itself was Ray Miller, Bob Nathan, Paul Hinicky, Troy Dennis’s Attorney and Troy Dennis, two jail guards a stenographer and one recorder operator. Behind the mirror were two recording monitor operators, two camera operator, two Assistant Deputy District Attorneys, another stenographer and The Tulare County Jail Chaplain.

“Ok, the tape is rolling. Everything is being taken down by the Court Reporter and being backed up on audio tape recording. If anything goes wrong with any of the equipment or a tape has to be changed, we will stop the interview until the problem is corrected. Troy, you understand that you are being asked to make a confession to crimes and the confession you are about to make is being audio recorded and recorded by a court reporter and can and will be used in a court of law.

“Yes,” Troy Dennis responded.

Ok, Troy. I’m going to ask you some questions and you need to just answer them truthfully,” Bob Nathan said.

“Troy Dennis, you have agreed to make this confession to the Camarillo shootings and in return The District Attorney’s Office of the County Of Tulare has agreed not to seek the death penalty, but will seek a life sentence with no possibility for parole. Do you understand the bargain you are making with the District Attorney’s Office?”

“Yes,” Troy Dennis responded.

Three and a half years after the Camarillo murders, Troy Dennis confessed to the shootings. He named Albert D. Heldin, 25, as the second gunman. His sister, Carol Lynn Dennis, 26 was the driver in the getaway car. Mike Heldin Jr., 36 acted as the lookout and remained in the car with Ms. Dennis.

Troy Dennis also confessed to the killing of 80 year old Ed Cox. He claimed he did not intend to kill the retired carpenter but only intended knock him out and rob him. His sister had befriended the elder Cox and used the man for a source of income.

Dennis also confessed to the shooting of Officer Pat Mallory.

Troy Dennis’ plea was accepted by the court and he was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Carol Lynn Dennis pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to the Camarillo killings and the Cox killing and is serving 25 years to life in the Corchrane State Prison for women.

Mike Heldin Jr., 36, pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and robbery and is serving in Pelican Bay Prison on a 25 years to life sentence.

Albert D. Heldin, 25, remorseful over his part in the Camarillo killings committed suicide. He was never arrested or charged with any crime.

Sheriff Ray Miller did as he had promised. He finished the Camarillo case and retired. Friends tried to persuade him to run for Commissioner, for whom he would have easily defeated Appleton, but he kept his date with a trout in the North Fork near Three Rivers in Tulare County. He still rides with the Tulare County Sheriff Posse.

The Camarillo Club remained closed and was eventually purchased and converted into a restaurant but quickly failed. It remains closed and boarded up. Neighbors still claim that on occasion they hear Mexican music coming from the old building and one neighbor phoned in a report late one night of gun shots coming from the old night club. The building was broken into by a couple of transient workers for a place to sleep, but they quickly left the building after hearing strange noises and what sounded like gunshots and screams. They never returned.

The Luke Dressor Incident

“The stage was set
the sun was sinkin' low down…
As they came to town to face
another showdown.
The lawmen cleared the people
from the streets.
All you blood-thirsty bystanders,
won’t you try to find your seats?…”

Doolin-Dalton
The Eagles

Luke stood out in front of the White Water Saloon, waiting. He leaned back against the post that held the hitching rail upright. Anticipation surrounded Luke. He would lean back for a minute then he would stand straight or pace in front of the saloon and peer down the dusty street. It was obvious that he was waiting for someone.

The thud of the horse’s hooves could be heard before the cloud of dust blew across where Luke waited. He stopped his pacing and stood at the street side of the hitching rail. His hand caressed the butt of the Colt revolver he had slung low in his gun belt.

Luke worked for Marv Rumson over at the Balentine Ranch. Normally he was docile and the least of problems within the small cattle town. He lived at the edge of town with his sister Anna and their Mother Bessie. Mostly he rode the fence line that divided the foothills from the flat pastureland of the valley floor. Luke was capable of doing most chores on the ranch and was saving his money to buy twenty-five acres of grassland over near Navelencia.

Today would be different. Much different. Luke watched as the approaching horses descended on his location.

The four riders pulled their horses up to the trough at the hitching rail and dismounted.

Luke stepped out in front of them and squared off with the lead rider.

“Why Luke Dressor. You look like you’re filled with malicious intentions, standing there with that hogleg slung low like that. I surely hope you ain’t got any intentions of carving a notch on that smokewagon handle for me,” Jesse Angelo said to the young cowboy as he dismounted and flipped the reins of his horse loosely over the hitching rail. The other three Cowboys followed their leaders example and dismounted.

Luke stood facing the dusty cowboys, his hand shaking at first, had now steadied at his side.

“Jesse. My sister told me what you done to her after the Grangers dance last night. You had no call to go and treat her like she was a Saloon gal. She’s a decent girl and you shouldn’t have done that,” Luke said.

“Well, I’m sorry your sister didn’t have a good time. She sure seemed like she was having one last night over there in Barton’s Livery Stable. In fact the boys here were all there and I’m sure they’d step right up and tell ya what a good time she had with them after I was finished,” Jesse snickered at the young boy as he puffed out his chest and lowered his hand to the butt of his revolver.

Luke’s hand flashed and before Jesse could move, Luke had the Colt out of its’ holster. He depressed the trigger as he fanned the hammer in rapid session. The shots were so close together that they sounded like one long shot. The four horses, as well as a number of others tied up and down the street bolted at the sound of the explosion and reared up, breaking free of the hitching rail to run off to various parts of town. One of them, leaving a trail of blood spurting from the hole in its’ shoulder, left by a slug that passed through Tim Cardin’s neck. The bullet broke Tim’s neck and severed his spinal cord, then exited at the base of his brain, lodging into the shoulder of the horse.

Jesse took a step forward and looked down at the center of his chest. In amazement, a trail of blood trickled down his shirt. The other three cowboys fell to the dirt as the life drained from each of them. None of the cowboys got the chance to touch their guns except Jesse who touched the handle of his revolver but never cleared leather.

Jesse looked up at Luke as his eyes clouded over and he fell dead, face first to the San Joaquin dirt.

Smoke whiffed up from the end of the barrel as Luke stood staring at the death he had dealt out to the Cowboys.

From behind the young boy, a raspy voice commanded, “Drop that gun, Luke.” It was the gruff voice of Buford Miller, who with his brother Otto, had kept the law in the San Joaquin Valley for more years than most people had lived. Off to Buford’s left, twenty paces or so, stood Otto Miller, his colt in his hand, pointing toward the ground, ready to do what it was meant to do.

Luke turned and looked down the barrel of the Buford’s shotgun then glanced over at Otto.

“Drop the gun son, so we can find out what this is all about,” Buford ordered again. “I won’t be tellin’ ya again.”

Luke dropped the gun and sagged to his knees in the cow town dirt. The town folks saw that Otto and Buford had things under control as they slipped from where they had been hidden in silence and now gathered around the lawmen and Luke Dressor.


“Grandpa,
Everything is changing fast
We call it progress, but I just don't know
And Grandpa,
Let's wander back into the past
And paint me the picture of long ago
Where lovers really fell in love to stay
And stood beside each other come what may
When a promise was really something people kept
Not just something they would say and then forget.”

The Judds


“The Luke Dressor Incident”
1894
Chapter 4 in
The Settlers Series
By HLGordon


Luke sat on the edge of the iron cot in the cell at the back of the Marshall’s office watching Buford and Otto completing the paperwork that the court would need to schedule and conduct the trial.

In the office was two ancient wooden desks. One desk was Buford Miller’s, which was piled with wanted posters and mail. The other desk could barely be seen beneath the stack of magazines and boxes of test equipment that Otto Miller had collected in his exploration of new detective techniques. Otto had become consumed with ways to preserve evidence and collect it from the crime scenes that he and Buford visited. Slim Quinn, a local handyman and part time deputy, busied himself on the far wall of the office where the City Council had approved the funding to knock out the wall and extend it out another ten feet. The wall would then be rebuilt and lined with shelves for books and evidence boxes. Otto had been working on a numerical system of numbering the boxes and the evidence so that it could easily be kept track of and retrieved when needed for trial. Nether man cared much for paperwork.

“Ok. I guess that about does it. I’ll get this over to the telegraph office and send this out and then swing by the Post Office and mail the papers,” Buford told Otto.

“We should get word back in a day or two about when Judge Murray can get over here for an arraignment.”

This was a full ten years before Buford, in his opinion, was forced to shoot his brother, Otto, in the leg in order to make a point that he was the older brother and therefore in charge. For the most part the two brothers were inseparable and got along well with each other. Only occasionally, Buford felt the compelling need to establish a ranking system in which he was in charge. Otto, the smarter of the two, usually went along with it for a week or so and usually by then things would fall back into place and life would go on, as usual in the Valley.

As Buford returned from his errands, Anna and Bessie were preparing to walk out of the door of the Marshal’s office. Anna, a handkerchief, dotting at her tear-swollen eyes, looked down at the floor as the door opened and Buford stepped inside. Bessie nodded to Buford.

“Well, Marshal?” she demanded. “When you gonna set me boy free? You know he didn’t do nothing that you wouldn’t have done for your sister.”

Buford tossed his hat toward the hook on the wall and turned to Bessie.

“Now it isn’t just that simple anymore. I’ve known Luke for a long time and I know he’s a good boy. Can’t say as I wouldn’t have done the same thing myself. But times have changed and those men, laying over at McCroy’s have rights. They got family who have questions and everyone has a right to know what happened and why. As soon as we get word from Judge Murray we’ll know more about when we’re gonna answer all these questions. In the meantime, you and Anna come on by anytime and bring Luke whatever you like except maybe a gun or knife. If things are looking good here in a few days we’ll let him out for a walk when you come by. But we got to uphold the law.”

“Well, you know as well as I do that them boys was mean and a fight was a coming. Luke feels bad about killing them boys and so do I. But what’s done is done and my boy did what was right,” Bessie told Buford point blank.

“Well, Bessie. I know’d you a long time too. You know what has to happen and it’s gonna happen here and get over with. I’m sure Luke will be coming on back home when this is finished. But for now it’s gotta be this way,” Buford told her. “Now if you are finished, I gotta get back to building them shelves and straightening this place out so we can all live in peace. It’s always a pleasure Bessie.” Buford moved off to the other room.

“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right Bessie,” threw in Otto. “It’s the way it’s gotta be.”

“Alrighty then. If I can’t change your minds, I gotta get my bread to cookin’ for the Women’s Suffrage League Bake Sale tomorrow. There’s women folk in this town that got no men to take care of em and no jobs to pay their way. You boys is supposed to be the Law around these parts but you’re lettin’ women folk suffer on their own. Since you boys are the Government of sorts, ya oughta be making sure that women are safe in this town and not losing their homes and families to that Cole Carlson over there at that bank. He’s done far more robbin’ of folks, especially women folk, than any of them bandits you two are off chasin’ after all the time. My boy is the only man in this town that done what’s right in defendin’ us women and seeing that these drifters and other dregs don’t come in here thinking they can have their way with us and then mosey on down the road a piece. Good day to you boys.”

Otto and Buford stood staring at the floor as Bessie finished up here speech. Otto swallowed in rock candy he had been sucking on and looked up at Bessie as she moved toward the door. He turned and walked into the other room and picked up his hammer. Then he turned and walked back just as Bessie was opening the door.

“Bessie, we can use a woman’s touch around here if you can spare Anna for a few hours everyday. We can pay her $2.00 a week to tend to the prisoners and tidy up around here,” Otto said.

“That’s mighty neighborly of you boys. I’ll send her on by, startin’ tomorrow,” Bessie responded. “She probably knows more about buildin’ bookshelves and such than either one of you two sharp shooters anyway.” Bessie nodded and turned without further word as she walked out of the Sheriffs office into the warm Valley sun.

Three weeks later…..

“It is the decision of this Circuit Court of California, holding jurisdiction in this matter in Tulare County, California that you, Luke Dressor have been found guilty of murder on all four counts brought against you in this Court of Law. It is also the decision of this Court that on Tuesday next, at 6:00 PM sharp, you shall be taken to the Tulare County Courthouse in Visalia, California, where you shall be hanged for your crimes against the People of this State. May God have mercy on your soul.” Judge Murray’s gavel fell and he rose and walked out of the courtroom.

“ I don’t like it Buford,” Otto said. “It aint’ right. That boy did them killings but he was right in what he done.”

“Well, I reckon it don’t much matter what you and I think, at this point. The Law has decided and the Law will do what the Law does,” Buford added. “It’s up to you and me to uphold the Law even when we don’t agree with it.”

“Well, I guess there ain’t much arguing that point,” Otto said. “Just the same, Bessie ain’t gonna take to them hanging her boy, and I can’t say as I blame her. But just to be safe, I think we oughta have a couple of the Deputies stake out over there in Johnson’s Livery in that front tack room and keep an eye on this place from a across the street just in case Bessie tries something. That’s one woman I ain’t gonna let get the drop on me.”

“Oh come on now, Otto. You know Bessie always been sweet on you and the only drop she’d put on you is the kind I wouldn’t be telling anyone about,” laughed Buford.

“Well, just the same, Bessie can be a driven woman, and there ain’t many men folk around these parts that could stand up against her in a fight of any kind,” added Otto. “That woman is as deadly as any desperado that come through these parts, when she’s a mind to, and she ain’t gonna stand by peaceful like and let her boy meet Jesus at the end of a rope.”

“I reckon your right about that. What should we do about Anna?” Buford asked.

“It’s probably a mistake on my part and yourn for letting it happen, but I guess for now, we can keep her comin’ round. She might be useful in dealing with Bessie,” Otto said. “She might be the reasonable one of the bunch.”


The next day.

“Hey ya Luke?” Anna said to her brother.

“Hey Anna,” Luke threw back at her.

“How ya doing, Luke?”

“Well I guess I’m doing ‘bout as fine as the next feller who’s getting ready to do the rope dance,” Luke laughed uneasily.

“Don’t you worry Luke. Me and Mamma’s gonna get you out of here.”

“What about Buford and Otto?” Luke asked his sister.

“Well Mama’s gonna try and talk to Otto and get a feelin’ for if’n he’ll help us or not. If they won’t help and they won’t get out of the way, we gotta kill em, Luke,” Anna said.

“We can’t do that. They ain’t in control of this business. They’re both good men, just doing a job,” Luke argued with Anna.

“It don’t matter, Luke. Good people been gettin’ killed forever, and it ain’t getting’ none better,” Anna said. “They probably always will. That’s just the way of it.”

The next day Anna caught Deputy Floyd Logan by surprise when she brought in Luke’s dinner. She bashed him a good one on the back of the head and took his gun and keys. She later let him go thinking it would be easier to let him go than to watch him constantly.

Anna and Luke Dressor stayed barricaded in the Sheriffs Office for three days. They were out of water and out of time. Otto and Buford had taken up headquarters in the tack room at Johnson’s Livery. It was a waiting game. There was only one way out of the occupied Sheriffs Office and the two brothers had it covered. They both agreed that waiting it out was the safest course of action.

The time brought Anna and Luke closer and gave them time to talk about the childhood. Then they decided it was enough and there was only one way out of this situation. Anna realized praying was the only thing that they hadn't tried yet, so Anna took Luke’s hand in hers. She wasn't sure she knew quite how to pray so she looked up to the ceiling and said, ”You don't owe us nothin' Lord and as far as I know, we don't owe nothin' to you. So I ain't askin' for a miracle Lord just a little bit of luck will do.”

Anna and Luke stood facing each other holding Colt Revolvers in each hand. Anna looked at her brother, “Sorry I got you into this Luke.”

“Hey,” he said. “That’s what brothers are for? If a man can’t stick up for his sister, who can he stick up for?”

Anna and Luke looked toward the door as both pulled back the hammers of their guns. Luke spit on the dirty hardwood floor and they turned and walked out into that street.

Sheriff Richard Veals, from Contra Costa County, was down looking into a purchase of some stolen cattle that turned up in a Stockton Beef Yard and was setting in a chair over behind the water trough across the street reading a dime novel. The sudden appearance of Luke and Anna caught him by surprise and he jumped up and went over backwards in the chair. The commotion caught Anna by surprise and she let out a cry and a shot that caught Veals in the bottom of his left foot as he lay on his back in the upturned chair.

The gunshot brought Kelly Abrams out of the Livery Office and a slug from Luke’s pistol caught him in the shoulder and slammed him back against the closing door. Luke detected movement in the shadows of the tack room window and shot through the glass pane. The lead caught Otto on the tip of the ear lobe and blood squirted out across his shirt. Buford smashed out the rest of the window pane with the barrel of his scatter gun when a slug from Anna’s six-shooter crashed through the wall and knocked the brass lantern off the wall square onto Buford’s head, knocking him out.

Ed Erin was standing on the steps of the White Water Saloon when Anna spotted him. He immediately raised both hands into the air in a surrendering fashion.

The sound of horse hoofs brought their attention to the Sheriffs office side alley as three more slugs from Luke slammed through the Tack room wall sending all the occupants scurrying for cover. Bessie Dressor, at full gallop rode up to the front of the Sheriff’s office with two paints in tow. Anna got off two more rounds into the tack room. By the time the slugs penetrated the wall, all three Dressor’s were in the saddle and heading east out of town.

All in all there were 10 shots fired from Anna and Luke. Kelly Abrams was the worst hit but he survived. Sheriff Richard Veals limped on his left foot the rest of his life and told the story hundreds of time at the bar at the Gray Whale Saloon in Stockton. Otto sported a scar on his ear and was mostly wounded in pride. Buford took the brunt from his brother’s teasing him about “fainting” in the midst of the gunfight. Only one shot was fired at Anna and Luke and it was actually an accident when Buford’s scatter gun discharged when the lamp hit him on the head and fell to the floor. It wasn’t the Miller boys finest hour but with Luke, Bessie and Anna gone, things eventually quieted down and the small town returned to normal.

Anna, Luke and Bessie were never heard from again but stories emerged that they formed a gang and took up to robbing banks and trains. Otto received a letter a couple years later from the Sheriff in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It contained a wanted poster with a likeness of Luke Dressor on it. He was wanted for questioning in the killing of a gambler who had gotten into a dispute with a Saloon Girl and slapped her and turned up dead the next morning with a shot through the heart.