Conversations and subsequent calculations convinced Print that the Platte Valley’s combination of grasses, soils, weather and proximity to the UP outweighed the similar considerations of his Texas operation. And he counted one big bonus in the Platte Valley column, no Texas rustlers. Print understood that the future belonged to the ranchers who maintained a permanent range near the railroad. That strong, straight-line steel wind from the east changed everything.
The seeds of the move north had been planted, but the Texas soil required some tilling and some drought years before the idea could come to fruition. The rest of the family had grown comfortable with their new wealth and were not anxious for the upheaval that Print’s plan would work on their families. The drought did come though, in the form of complete lawlessness in the Yegua Creek country.
Bands of outlaws outnumbered any minimal law enforcement officers. The area was populated by desperate men who saw the Olive fortunes as targets of opportunity. They stole with abandon. The Olives hired their own gun crews, posted notices that rustlers would be shot on sight, no warning or questions asked. They were known to have killed and disposed of an uncounted number of suspected rustlers, rumor having it that wells were dug, filled with bodies, then covered in.
The Olives were not subtle in their messaging. Tales of the ‘green hide’ incident swept through the plains and made headlines in both east and west coast newspapers. They reported in lurid detail that the Olives had encountered two men driving a herd of Olive-branded cattle out of the area. The story, significantly not denied by the Olives, detailed that Print ordered the two rustlers to kill and skin two of the purloined beef. They then reportedly wrapped the two miscreants, mummy-like, in the green hides with the Olive brand clearly showing and left them to suffocate in the blazing Texas sun.
The gangs were no more subtle, putting a $500 bounty for the killing of any Olive male. It was all-out war. The gangs were not the only ones to suffer casualties. Print’s brother Jay was killed in nighttime raid and gunfight when the gang attacked the Olive home. Calculations changed. Now the price of staying outweighed the unknown of the move north.
One task remained, and that was to avenge Jay’s death. Print and his younger brother Bob identified the three gang members most responsible, tracked them down and shot them on the spot. Dispatched by Print the next day to scout out the best site for their future operation, Bob traveled under the alias of Bob Stevens, the Olive name having a disconcerting effect when it landed on many ears. Their reputation preceded them, the saying goes.
Bob traveled first to the area near the Wyoming-Nebraska-Colorado border. He was quickly disabused of the notion that Wyoming Territory held any opportunity for the Olives. The Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association had been founded by longhorn men who had left Texas for many of the same reasons that the Olives had, and they made it clear that ‘this range is closed.’ Bob’s father Jim would have recognized a pattern he’d left behind in the plantation south, land controlled by the powerful few. Strangers need not apply.
Bob turned east, headed for the Platte River valley that Print had scouted earlier. When he reached North Platte, he found a rapidly growing, bustling community. Businesses were flourishing, supplying the influx of homesteaders and miners who were heading for the gold in the opening Black Hills. Buffalo Bill Cody had recently established a huge ranching operation that extended as far north as the dismal River Country. Things had clearly changed since Print and Jim Kelly had visited the area eight years earlier.
Bob rode north into the Sand Hills. As he rode through the country of the South Loup River, he found what he was looking for: unclaimed grasses, water, timber… a site he judged ideal for the Olive headquarters. What he could see from the perch atop his horse looked perfect. What he couldn’t see were the converging winds. From the south were the expectations of land, freedom from restraints of any kind, a place where the Olive power could take and hold what they desired. But the winds from the east carried a different set of futures. The legislature had already drawn lines on the country. Counties had been established and named. President Lincoln’s railroad had been built. Business and communities were attracting and supplying homesteaders with the essentials for securing their allotment, including miles and miles of barbed wire. Order would be established.
Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek