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18. Hiding in Plain Sight
- University of North Texas Press
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166 CHAPTER 18 Hiding in Plain Sight W ill Carver may have been in a hur ry to get to Texas because he wanted to see his girlfriend, Laura Bullion, whom he had promised to marry. Laura was born in Washington County, Arkansas, in October 1876. When her father died in 1881, Laura’s mother moved her three children to their mater nal grandparents’ Dove Creek ranch near Knickerbocker, Texas. Laura reportedly left home not long after her mother died in 1891, and it is believed that she worked as a prostitute in San Antonio, possibly at Fannie Porter’s Sporting House. It is known that she returned to the Knick erbocker area for visits and to attend dances over the next few years. Will had been married to Laura’s aunt, Viana Byler , for less than six months w hen she died of pregnancy complications on July 22, 1892. He was devastated by her death, and it is said he began courting her niece because she greatly resembled Viana. He had left Laura in San Antonio before going off to rob the bank in Winnemucca.1 However, Will forgot all about Laura when he met a girl named Callie May Hunt in October 1900 at the San Antonio Fairground’s annual International Exposition.2 Callie was born in 1876 in St. Louis, Missouri, and her mother died w hen Callie was a young child. Her father moved the family to Palestine, Texas, where she ran away in 1893 at the age of seventeen to become a prostitute. By July 1900, she was working at Fannie Porter’s brothel, going by the name of Lillie Davis. Carver introduced himself to Lillie as Will Casey.3 Kid Curry and Ben Kilpatrick had also arrived in San Antonio at this time, and met up with Car ver. In fact Curry had attended the f air with Carver, where he fell for Lillie’ s business associate, Maud Delia Moore.4 She was described as not beautiful, not ugly, but “somewhat good looking .” She had a slender build , dark complexion with high cheek bones, and thick dark auburn hair. Her “piercing black eyes … fairly danced as Hiding in Plain Sight 167 she spoke,” and two gold teeth showed conspicuously when she smiled.5 She “was a pert and headstrong woman,” one author said, “[with a] fiery temperament.”6 She could also turn on the charm with her cheerful, flirtatious side, which was an asset in her profession. Maud was born in Tarrant County, Texas, in August 1875, and grew up in Kennedale, near Fort Worth. She was raised by her mother Leona, her grandmother Martha Turner, and step-father Silas D. Penny.7 Possibly owing to problems at home, she left w hen she was eighteen and found work as a prostitute in F ort Worth, San Antonio, and Mena, Arkansas . Maud married a farmer named Lewis Walker in 1896, but left him three years later because she w anted excitement and did not lik e being poor. She returned to her earlier profession in San Antonio at Fannie ’s, and was using the name Annie Rogers when Kid Curry met her.8 Annie knew Curry at this time as Bob Ne villes or Nevils.9 When he came to visit, Cur ry would sometimes collapse into F annie’s bed after too much to drink, w earing his boots and spurs. Fannie did not take kindly to having her expensive satin sheets torn to shreds.10 Laura Bullion was abandoned with no place to go, so Fannie took her in as one of her girls, probably not for the first time. Ben Kilpatrick often visited the bordello, and soon took up with Laura. 11 There is evidence that Ben may have known Laura earlier when he worked on ranches in the Knickerbocker area and she lived with her grandparents, Elliott and Serena Byler, on their ranch at Dove Creek.12 Ben showed off to the girls by doing tricks on a new bicycle, an incident which has been erroneously attributed to Butch Cassidy in later histories.13 After Carver left them atThree Creek, Sundance and Cassidy escaped through Twin Falls, Idaho, and then rode southeast to souther n Wyoming .14 By mid-October they were reported to be in Ra wlins, attempting to exchange Winnemucca gold and possibly Wilcox powder-burned currency, for good paper .15 They spent a fe w days at their hideout in Powder Springs before tur ning east to...