Butch Cassidy (15 page)

While waiting for the rainy season to abate, Dimaio provided Argentine police with wanted posters identifying Cassidy, Longabaugh, and others. Dimaio was then summoned back to Pinkerton headquarters in the United States where he briefed Robert Pinkerton on the situation. Pinkerton subsequently initiated a correspondence with Argentinian officials, warning them of the possibility of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid renewing their outlaw ways in their country. In actuality, Cassidy and Longabaugh were law-abiding and contributing citizens of Argentina and remained quite peaceful until the Pinkertons started closing in.

It is believed that their neighbor Gardiner learned of the Pinkerton reward circular and informed Cassidy. It has also been suggested that their other neighbor, former lawman Juan Commodore Perry, had a role in the departure of the bandits. Unknown to the two outlaws, Perry had been contacted by the Pinkertons and asked to keep an eye on them. It has been written that Cassidy and Longabaugh learned of Perry’s involvement with the authorities and decided to leave before it was too late.

In any case, sometime in late 1904, Cassidy and Longabaugh no longer believed they were safe in the region so, after selling their stock, buildings, and a number of personal possessions to Thomas Austin, a Chilean land company official, they fled from the ranch. By 1905, the holdings were abandoned.

No one is completely certain of the whereabouts of Etta Place during this time, but the notion of whether or not she remained with Cassidy and Longabaugh is controversial. It has been speculated that she returned to the United States permanently around this time, but some researchers believe she remained in South America and even participated in a number of Cassidy- and Longabaugh-led robberies.

Cassidy and Longabaugh, after packing only a few necessary belongings and leaving the Cholila ranch, fled to a location near a point where the Tigre River flowed into Lake Cholila. Here they established a rude camp and lived for approximately one year. As a result of the ubiquitous reward posters, the two outlaws were eventually recognized by a number of people, so they decided to move again. They traveled across the Andes Mountains and settled for a time in Chile.

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency relied in large part on external funding for a number of their efforts. In particular, the pursuit of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was financed by the Union Pacific Railroad (UPR) and the American Bankers Association (ABA). After being convinced the two outlaws were alive and well in South America, Robert Pinkerton contacted the UPR and ABA to request more funding in order to remain in the hunt and, hopefully, capture their quarry. Both organizations, however, refused, each believing that as long as the two bandits were out of the country they posed no threat to their operations. Without adequate funding, the Pinkertons pulled all of their agents out of the field but continued to monitor the two outlaws.

Butch Cassidy was living in South America when his mother passed away on May 1, 1905, at fifty-eight years of age. Cassidy’s sister, Lula Parker Betenson, maintained Annie Gillies Parker, who deeply loved and constantly worried about her wayward son, died of a broken heart.

A few writers have claimed that Butch Cassidy returned to Utah for his mother’s funeral, a claim not supported by any evidence. Betenson denied her brother had returned and stated that while living incognito in South America he was in no position to receive the information that his mother had passed away.

According to some, Cassidy and Longabaugh traveled to Rio Gallegos in extreme southern Argentina where they checked into a hotel room or small house. Details are sketchy, but two outlaws, going by the names Brady and Linden, held up the Rio Gallegos Banco de Londres y Tarapacá and, though estimates vary, made off with between $70,000 and $130,000. The release of information that the bank was robbed by two Americans led many to jump to the conclusion that the perpetrators were Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Several miles from town, pursuers found the robbers’ horses, along with a third, which they had apparently exchanged for fresh ones. If Etta Place had accompanied the two outlaws to Rio Gallegos, and if it is indeed true that Cassidy and Longabaugh were the robbers, she may have been waiting for them out of town. Others suggest that the third rider was Harvey Logan who, it is theorized, may have joined the bandits for a time in South America. Several weeks later, the Pinkertons eventually admitted they were convinced Harvey Logan was in Argentina, probably with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Despite the inclusion of this incident in a number of treatments of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there is no compelling evidence that the two were involved in the Rio Gallegos bank robbery. Different versions—all conflicting and contradictory—of the robbery and escape increase the doubt of what actually occurred there. Among other problems, the physical descriptions of the bandits turned out to be quite different from those of Cassidy and Longabaugh. Additionally, witnesses claimed the bandits were between twenty-five and thirty years old. At the time, Cassidy and Longabaugh were close to forty years of age and greying. Furthermore, at the time of the robbery, Cassidy and Longabaugh were reported to be hundreds of miles away.

Following the Rio Gallegos robbery, Cassidy and Longabaugh, and perhaps Etta Place and Harvey Logan, reportedly journeyed to Chile. There exists a good possibility that this quartet robbed the Banco de la Nación in the town of Villa Mercedes on December 19, 1905, escaping with the equivalent of $130,000. (Another date given for this robbery is March 2, 1906.) Typical of a Butch Cassidy holdup, there was no gunplay, although when one or more of the bank employees resisted, the outlaws struck them with their pistols. The pursuing posse reported the robbers consisted of three men and a woman. Consistent with a Cassidy mode of operation, tired horses were exchanged for fresh ones along the escape route.

When shown photographs of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place, a Villa Mercedes bartender identified them as visitors to his tavern just prior to the robbery. Additionally, the foreman of a nearby ranch stated the three had stayed there for a few days just before the bank was robbed, departing only hours before the holdup.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid eventually found jobs with the Concordia Tin Mines near Tres Cruces in the foothills of the Bolivian Andes, some seventy-five miles southeast of the capital La Paz. The year was probably 1906. Cassidy, going by the alias of Santiago Maxwell during this time, showed up at the mining headquarters, sought out manager Clement Rolla Glass, and inquired about a job. He was hired at $150 per month plus room and board. His duties were to purchase livestock and occasionally transport payroll remittances. In no time at all, Cassidy impressed Glass with his competence and honesty. Cassidy would be given a significant amount of cash before leaving on a horse- or mule-buying expedition. Each time, he returned with fine stock and turned over to Glass any monies left over. In a short time, mine officials were trusting Cassidy to deliver payrolls, sometimes totaling as much as $100,000.

Several weeks after Cassidy went to work for the Concordia Tin Mines, Longabaugh, using the alias Enrique Brown, joined him. Glass hired Longabaugh to break and train mules.

By this time, all trace of Etta Place seems to have vanished. The consensus is that she left South America and returned once again to the United States, this time for good. Evidence suggests she traveled to Denver, where she may have undergone an appendectomy. According to a statement made by Cassidy to a mine supervisor, Etta had no confidence in South American hospitals. He said he and Longabaugh drew straws to see who would accompany her to the United States; Longabaugh lost, so he went with Etta. Longabaugh returned to South America alone shortly afterward.

It soon became clear to Glass that “Maxwell” and “Brown” had known each other prior to coming to La Paz, and though he suspected that they possessed a dark past, he remained pleased with their work. Glass described Cassidy as “pleasant . . . cultured . . . charming . . . used good language and was never vulgar. Women . . . invariably liked him.” Other officials at the mines described Longabaugh as “distant . . . sullen . . . difficult to strike up a friendship,” as well as “taciturn” and “morose” (from Richard Patterson’s
Butch Cassidy: A Biography
). The two men were hard workers and dependable. In time, however, the managers found out their true identities.

A man named Percy Seibert was reportedly employed as an engineer at the Concordia Tin Mines and eventually became good friends with Cassidy and Longabaugh. Author Larry Pointer wrote that Seibert was employed by a Bolivian supply company that did a considerable amount of business with the Concordia Tin Mines. Seibert’s notes and recollections provide most of what we know, or what we think we know, about many of the South American activities and attitudes of the two outlaws.

Seibert met the two Americans when he returned to the mines following a purchasing trip to the United States. At first, Cassidy and Longabaugh tried to avoid Seibert, but they gradually warmed to him. The engineer grew to like the two men and enjoyed numerous conversations with them, learning much of their past as well as their hopes for the future. In time, Cassidy and Longabaugh told Seibert about their true identities, about their outlaw activities in the United States, and about being pursued relentlessly by the Pinkertons, the railroad companies, and detectives working for the American Bankers Association. They came to South America, they told Seibert, with the hope of becoming anonymous and pursuing a new and honest life, of becoming legitimate. Unfortunately for them, the large rewards offered for their capture kept lawmen, detectives, and bounty hunters hot on their trail, making life difficult for them and causing them to flee throughout the countryside. During one conversation between Cassidy and Seibert, the outlaw referred to Etta Place as a great housekeeper with “the heart of a whore.”

In spite of the outlaw backgrounds of the two new mine company employees, Seibert came to trust them, particularly Butch Cassidy. One time, related Seibert, he and Glass were counting out payroll money from a large stack of gold coins when Cassidy walked into the room. Cassidy joked about how easy it would have been to steal the gold. Ultimately, Glass and Seibert trusted Cassidy to take a significant amount of the gold—believed to be worth well over $100,000—and exchange it for paper currency. Though it would have been very easy to disappear with the small fortune, Cassidy completed the job and returned, remaining true to his commitment never to rob from an employer.

Seibert listed a number of contributions Cassidy made during his tenure at the Concordia Tin Mines. Once, on learning that a group of American outlaws was planning to kidnap a neighboring businessman and hold him for ransom, Cassidy warned the intended victim and even arranged for a bodyguard. Another time, Cassidy foiled a plot to assassinate one of the tin mine officials.

Even though Seibert and Glass learned their two employees were still wanted by law enforcement authorities and that it would have been an easy task to turn them in and collect the reward money, they agreed to keep their identities secret.

Some writers, including Betenson, are convinced Cassidy returned to the United States with Longabaugh and Place around this time. During their travel, according to Betenson, Cassidy was spotted visiting friends in Rock Springs, Wyoming, but Seibert’s recollections challenge this.

Clement Glass eventually left the Concordia Tin Mines, and Percy Seibert was placed in charge. During his tenure as manager, he and his wife grew even closer to Cassidy, less so with Longabaugh. The two outlaws were often invited to the Seibert residence for dinner. For obscure reasons, around this time Cassidy began using the alias “Jim Lowe.”

Seibert grew very fond of Cassidy and believed he was better off having the outlaw working for him. During the time Cassidy was employed, no other outlaws came near the mines or threatened the payroll. In his memoirs, Seibert described Cassidy as sober, a gentleman, agreeable, pleasant, and trustworthy. On the other hand, Seibert was never able to establish any kind of close relationship with Longabaugh.

Cassidy’s decent nature is manifested in another of Seibert’s recollections. After leaving the employ of the Concordia Tin Mines, Cassidy arrived at a mining camp owned by two Scotsmen. He scouted the area, the trails, and the payroll schedules as he planned a holdup. Cassidy entered the mining camp and, posing as a down-and-out prospector out of money and food, asked for a job. The two Scotsmen offered to hire him as a night watchman, explaining they didn’t really need one but they would give him the opportunity to make some money before traveling on. They also fed him well and told him to help himself to the whiskeys and other liquors they had in their own supply. Ultimately, Cassidy decided the two Scotsmen treated him so well that he did not have it in his heart to rob them.

According to Seibert, Cassidy once told him he thought Harvey Logan was the most fearless man he had ever met. He also stated he tried to get Logan to join him and Longabaugh in South America, but contrary to Pinkerton reports, Logan never showed up. He also told Seibert the second-bravest man he ever met was Ernest Charles Woodcock, the express car messenger who resisted Cassidy’s attempts during both the Wilcox and Tipton train robberies.

In later years, Seibert was named the commissary general of the Bolivian Railway Commission and, according to writer Gail Drago, was “one of the most decorated Americans in South American history.”

For a three-year period ranging from 1906 to 1908, the two outlaws worked at the Concordia Tin Mines. While they were afforded numerous opportunities to escape with large amounts of money and gold, the two outlaws never considered robbing their employers. On the other hand, most researchers believe, they committed robberies at other mines in other locations while they were employed at Concordia.

The longer Cassidy and Longabaugh worked at the Concordia Tin Mines, the more people became aware of who they really were, and Cassidy was constantly worried they would be discovered by law enforcement officials. Coupled with the fear of discovery was his concern for Longabaugh’s growing drinking problem. During an evening spree in the nearby Bolivian town of Uyuni, the Sundance Kid became drunk and talked openly about robberies he and his companion had pulled in Argentina. Concerned, Cassidy paid the bill and hastened Longabaugh out of the cantina. But it was too late, and word got back to the Concordia Tin Mines.