Butch and Sundance: An Afterword To Their Story. Part 2
Here's Butch and Sundance in their city duds, Sundance is on the left, unfortunately we don't have any good, clear photos of them in their Western attire:
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
I promised some of my readers that I'd give an update on the Butch and Sundance story if I found more information regarding their demise.
Well, as I was finishing my series of posts on these guys I found out that the main researcher I'd been using, the amazing Anne Meadows, had written an addition to the latest printing of her book, Digging Up Butch and Sundance.
In my last post on the subject I talked about additional information which adds to the evidence that we already have about what happened to them. This post is the rest of that information.
Can't we prove this thing once and for all?
Uh...no. But using DNA IS the way to do it. The legend at the San Vicente cemetery where the outlaws were buried gave a location of an unmarked grave.
That grave was supposed to be between a German prospector who blew himself up thawing a frozen stick of dynamite on his woodstove and a Swede who accidently shot himself while dismounting his mule.
So in 1996 an exhumation was done on the supposed grave site but only one body was there and it turned out to be the German prospector. DNA was run just to be safe and no match to either Butch or Sundance.
In the Afterword Anne Meadows explained that they learned of a mistake in the translation of the location of the two outlaws. It didn't say between the German and Swede. It simply said they were buried in the same cemetery as the other foreigners, the German and the Swede.
That ain't gonna happen
The researchers ran into tremendous resistance in exhuming that one body. The locals don't believe the dead should be bothered. The only way to find out for sure if Butch and Sundance are buried there would be to exhume almost every grave in the cemetery and they would never permit that.
The circumstantial evidence that the two perished in that little windswept town is overwhelming though. If that gold watch hadn't disappeared then it could have been identified as the one Sundance bought at Tiffanys in New York City in 1900.
The skeptics have a good question
Skeptics ask why did they stop in a town when they had always camped away from towns when they were on the run?
Well, the weather for one. San Vicente is over 14,000 feet up in the mountains and it was bitter cold. The inventory list showed they had no winter clothing.
This is a great photo showing the barren landscape of San Vicente:
In addition to that, they had no food for their mules so they had to stop and buy food for them. The terrain was barren with no grass. This was basically a high desert.
In the interviews that the investigators did with the locals one of the locals stated that he heard the two debating about staying at the village.
One wanted to get supplies and push on, the other wanted to spend the night. Turned out to be a fateful decision. They were in a remote village two mountain ranges from the crime so I think they felt safe.
The skeptics have another good question
Critics also argue that this couldn't have been Butch and Sundance because Butch always stationed fast horses spaced out every ten miles or so along his escape routes.
That is true. But the area of Bolivia which they were in is mountainous terrain with narrow trails and mules were used to traverse those trails.
I believe this photo is a very accurate image of what the trails looked like, there were no "roads" per se, at least not modern type roads:
So there was no "fast" escaping in this terrain. I don't know if they could have done the same thing with mules as he did with horses but he didn't.
They DID have a route mapped out on a map which we discussed in the last post but they took a hostage the first day to be their guide and on the second day they stopped at a village to ask for directions.
One more correction
The initial reports which were examined claimed that they had left their rifles on the front porch of that little house but the inventory list of the items in the back room where the bodies were found included a new Winchester rifle with 120 rounds of ammunition.
And they also had lots of ammunition for their pistols so they had plenty to keep firing. But they knew they were surrounded and pinned in, they were both wounded, and there was no escape. So instead of trying to take more lives they decided to take their own.
This final act confirms what I have learned about them. They were men of courage and had a core morality against killing.
The painful truth
The fact is, they drastically underestimated the Bolivians.
But when you steal a mine payroll in a section of the country composed of nothing but miners then the whole country is on the lookout and even in little San Vicente they had been alerted to watch for two Americans with a mine-owned mule.
That gold dredging operation manager who they took hostage for the first day of travel said that he warned them and told them he thought their plan was "unwise" and he said that Sundance replied to him with confidence.."They won't get us."
Thanks for going on this journey with me folks, I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
I didn't know you could still write Lord Janton! You must have done this when you were sober - guess they ran out of beer at your local shop!
Nice addition to the research here and it was surprisingly comprehensible! Seems some of your posts are doing pretty well - look at your rep as well. You'll be 70 in no time
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haha! I did run out of Redneck beer
so that might have had a little something to do with the coherence of the thing!
But the rep is all fake, I just bought some votes to get a jump in the rep score.
I'm still just a little account with few followers.
Most people aren't as open minded about bloody Westerns as you are!
Haha I don't see your face on those beer bottles Lord Janton, they must be low quality beer lol!
It's sad that has to happen where people need to buy their way up but I'm determined to change the culture. I'm powering up my account as much as I can and starting a new exciting contest with the PHC next month. It's going to take time though.
I guess with the Baroness wielding her axe you need to do something and fast lol
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howdy again sir nickyhavey! well, people don't have to buy their way up but if you have the steem to spend then it's very tempting. It IS misleading though and weakens the perception of the rep score to many people who know what many are doing.
But kudos for starting a contest, is PHC the music thing?
Yes as far as the Baroness, lol....I have cut back on commenting to do more work outside and to help the impression that I'm not sitting at the computer all day! That way I'll appear to be good for at least getting some chores done!
I have to admit, I don't get how they all work but I just wish the bid bots didn't affect rep. Sure if you want to grow your SP and steem balance then do what you got to do but the rep system should be a marker of community value and not be bought in my opinion.
Just wish a few tweaks could be made but hey, this platform is in its infancy even after a few years so will see if anything gets done to improve matters as there's a lot of good things here.
PHC is the #powerhousecreatives that you're a part of Lord Janton 😉 keep your eyes peeled for 1st April or follow @phctop3 for now. Think you'd enjoy what we have coming.
Well I hope you don't cut your comments too much. Who else am I going to hurl abuse at with such aplomb haha. But yes, I know how it goes. You get married and within minutes, the balls don't belong to you anymore haha.
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Howdy sir nickyhavey! I agree with you about the vote bots and reps. I just want to increase my sp as fast as possible and the fastest way to do that is with ocdb. But the way the system is set up, your rep score is tied to the amount of earnings you bring in so increasing earnings with vote bots increase your rep score with it.
But that shouldn't be part of it. But good luck getting that changed. We can't even get the evil downvoting people's post into dust changed.
What the Samhill is phctop3? That goes nowhere with me. I ain't talking about my personal life to any significant degree and anytime I see these things that ask you to answer personal questions about yourself or to tell people things about yourself ...no way. lol. I run as fast as I can the other way! that's a facebook type social media insane type thing. The only things people need to know about me is I'm a redneck from Texas and don't try coming onto my property un-announced!
What the tarnation is wrong with you people? I just told you my top 3 things about myself.
About the commenting...well sir...with all humility I'm still commenting at the very top levels and possibly more, I just don't have to try for it, I can talk to who I want instead of going after as many different people as I can find which is a big metric in that contest but that doesn't really work for me because then I have an impossible amount of people to talk to and my regulars get missed.
The only thing I can think of that would solve it is a hard fork but I don't get the whole technology so if one of these technophiles can sort it that would be swell!
I looked at ocdb as a few said they use it but it's still a bid bot whether it's for profit or not. Now if I was going to use it, I'd only delegate as it seems you get payments directly into your steem wallet rather than upvotes on your posts, which won't affect rep score. But I only skimmed the website so could have that wrong.
I guess we could ask redneck based questions such as "what's your top3 things to shoot whilst drunk" or "what's your top 3 words a redneck attempts to say comprehensibly" lol. I see you guys don't do fun over there unless it involves shooting snakes with shotguns on your mowercycles haha.
You're certainly one of the more engaged members of the platform, whether it's with humility or not lol! I don't really do contests. That engagement league I totally forgot about and when I boycotted for a couple of weeks well, pretty much ended any contest for me haha.
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howdy sir nickyhavey! Well yes indeed ocdb is a bid bot and they say it's not for profit so I don't know how they do it unless they just want to help everyone. But they give you huge upvotes on your posts. I just know that if you have increased earnings then that boosts your rep score, is that what you've found? I'm about as technical as a fence post so I don't know! lol.
Those redneck questions are hilarious, they should put you in charge of those! Yeah, people think they have to do silly challenges and things when people name them for some reason. I get named all the time and just laugh it off, I've never considered doing one.
the Engagement League was great because I just did what I was doing anyway until they changed the metrics and made the number of different people you talk to one of the main factors, then it became a struggle to constantly find more people which overwhelmed me because I couldn't keep track of them all.
No, I'm not one of the more engaged members of the platform I am the MOST engaged member as the engagement league has shown for the past six months, no one else has even been close. But it's time to cut back some soon.
I can certainly understand them not wanting to dig up their whole graveyard! I think this ending for them is very fitting. Rather brave and more honorable than getting blasted away trying to make a run for it, not knowing the entire army was outside the door, like in the movie.
Howdy tonight Melinda! Yes until they invent a machine that can read DNA from above ground no one will be 100% sure. Did you work on steemit most of the day?
I have not been here hardly at all. It's been a TV kind of day. It feels weird and really good!
haha! It feels like a vacation? That's great. Yeah I did as much commenting as I could this morning then took off completely for about 6 hours which is a record I think. lol. But it does feel good to completely disconnect and relax.
I'm quite content with it, and the best part is that I know I can step right back in whenever I am in the mood!
Exactly. And you can catch up with your reading and other things that were getting left behind.
Plus maybe it will encourage more engagers to rise to the top. I feel like I have held a place in the green long enough... It's time to make room for some new folks who are trying to build their accounts.
Howdy again Melinda! That's a great point and with both of us gone that's two more spaces. That should really have an impact!
The part that got me the most was the guy BBQing a stick of dynamite and the other guy shooting himself while getting off the horse. Shit was rough back then.
haha! howdy sir madgoat! I thought the guy blowing himself to pieces by thawing out a frozen stick of dynamite on the woodstove was hilarious but you're the only one who mentioned it. Maybe you're the only one who read it! People say everyone skims. I read the whole post or I don't comment. But anyway, thank you sir, yes life was hard and frought with dangers back then, life spans were many years shorter.
I told you already, they didn't die! Criminal mustaches make people immortal!
haha! howdy blacklux! oh that's right, I forgot, you are so right! lol.
Howdy Janton! I agree with your clever profiling, because it makes sense and it's futile to argue it. It would be nice if their ending was happier, however, this was a huge mistake on their part and they really misjudged Bolivia! Oh well, they lived on the edge their whole life, so ending like this is no surprise. But now is really time to say goodbye and God bless their souls.
howdy Miss Lena! You are so right. They can argue about what happened to Etta Place but I don't think there is any evidence that those two outlaws that died weren't Butch and Sundance. And like you said, with their lifestyle, that was probably the best way to go out. Better that than a public hanging.
Oh that's for sure. I would hate them being caught and hanged!
howdy tonight Miss Lena! sorry this reply was so late. I was pulling a Miss Lena
by playing around offline! lol. Oh, I agree, that would have been terrible.
No problem Janton, but I don't quite understand what are you saying, lol.
oh, I was just saying that I was acting like you by disappearing from steemit for awhile. lol.
I know you have much more important things to do than be on here all the time.
Oh I see, lol......just don't forget to check my posts time to time. I never forget to check yours 😉
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Howdy c-squared! Thank you so much for the upvote and for all you do to help others!
Nice conclusion @janton my friend. You've pulled together the loose ends
Well methinks. Sad ending to an amazing story.
It's been a great series, very enjoyable!
Howdy tonight sir Keith! how's it goin up there? Thanks for the kind words sir.
Howdy tonight sir
Keith! how's it goin up there? Thanks
For the kind words sir.
- janton
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
Having a good weekend, my friend! It's sunny and finally warmer - we're up to the mid-fifties now and the air smells like spring. I have to get outside and try to find some mountains or birds or something :-)
I would be quite happy with where the story ended -without the Afterword. The Afterword raised more doubts and uncertainty - all without answers, or rather the answers rendered the Afterword unnecessary. But what do I know right?
howdy sir Vincent! The afterword gave alot more evidence to the pile of circumstantial evidence that there already was so it was like nailing the coffin shut, I think it answered the biggest question. What questions do you think it raised or created doubts about?
Good afternoon janton, so did they really die in this god forsaken part of the world or not? I reckon they debate will continue forever! There will always be a little bit of what if? Why a nightmare digging up a whole cemetery where religious views are very strong.
Maybe more books are yet to be written, haha.