Anderson acknowledged, “We know who’s responsible. It’s Ketchum and Mitchell for sure. Print came through here a few days ago with his suspicions, and he asked me to prepare a warrant for Ketchum’s arrest. How about this? I appoint you as my deputy. You deputize a few men good with a gun, and you go bring Ketchum in.”

Accounts vary on the nature of the posse of ‘deputies’ that were assembled to arrest Ketchum. Some say that Print was the general, laying out every detail of the action and holding a backup crew in an adjacent ravine when Bob and his men rode into the Ketchum-Mitchell compound. Some accounts hold that Print was still in Cheyenne holding counsel with a gathering of cattlemen, making plans for consolidation after the homesteaders were driven back behind the ‘Olive Line.’

In either of the two versions, it seemed like a lingering, unfinished story … a Confederate army preparing an attack on a Union encampment. Which was exactly what it was. The only things missing were the grey and blue uniforms. It was still a fight over which rules applied…. the power of guns to determine who controlled the land, or the power of elected governments to enact and enforce laws.

Bob with two deputies rode toward the soddy, spotted Ami near a wagon in the yard, and hollered, “I have a warrant for your arrest.”

Here again accounts disagree on who threw first lead. Some accounts contend that Ketchum fired first from his cover under a wagon. Other versions have Bob, anxious for a ‘dead’ outcome in the ‘dead or alive’ set of options, called down a rain of fire from his men. In either case, guns were emptied and reloaded and emptied again. Ketchum was wounded in his right hand by a bullet that ricocheted off an iron wheel. Olive was moving to position himself for a killing shot and failed to notice Luther Mitchell emerge from the soddy. For a third time, accounts disagree on specific details. Some say the Union veteran leveled a Winchester rifle and sent a slug into Bob Olive’s side. Other versions say it was a sawed-off shotgun, and that his number-4 pattern shot formed a circle about a foot in diameter in the center of Olive’s back.

Lacking video or first-hand evidence, authors of that day, as is the case with this writer, have a story to tell, and lacking both certainty of the facts and the absence of anyone capable of countering their version with any greater certainty, write what they will, improving the truth as they see fit. Consider this cautionary should you base any future bets on the accuracy of any of this account. In any case, it’s the story that matters. The results need to sing.

‘Deputy’ Robert ‘Stevens’ Olive was able to stay in his saddle and was hustled out of range of any following fire. Mitchell and Ketchum, an adrenalin high still flowing, stood with no small satisfaction in the moment of temporary victory, knowing that they had withstood the best that the mighty Olives could throw at them.

“I think that shot’ll kill Olive,” Luther said.

Kill Bob Olive it did. Print was present when he drew his last breath. He arranged to have his brother’s body taken to the funeral parlor in Kearney, then sent by train to Texas. His mother Julia had once cautioned her sons when they had made dark talk of retaliation and destruction to be inflicted on the Yegua thieves:

‘Shoot one accidental arrow into the breast of an enemy and his friends will loose a thousand lances upon your heads. Try to think thoughts of peace, boys.”

Print could not recall his mother’s words. All he could think was, “Do or get done.”

Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek