It was 1907. Henry Starr took his wife and child to Guthrie, the capital city of the new state of Oklahoma, for the grand celebration. Kid Wilson accompanied them. There were banners everywhere for “Oklahoma” and “the 46th state.” There was an atmosphere of celebration and festivity seemingly permeating the very air. There was no place to escape the teeming crowds. Indians of fifty-seven different tribes and blacks and whites and some of indeterminable racial mixture rubbed shoulders with each other, crowded against each other. The formalities of the statehood ceremony were planned for and carried out outdoors because of the tremendous number of people in attendance. For the main ceremony a large platform had been constructed in the open, and the people mobbed around it. The platform was crowded with dignitaries. C. N. Haskell, the newly elected first governor of the state of Oklahoma, was up there, and Robert L. Owen, prominent Cherokee politician, now United States senator from Oklahoma, was also there. A band had been playing, followed by speeches from Haskell, Owen, and others. Finally a symbolic wedding ceremony was held in which a white man, young and handsome and dressed in white cowboy clothes, representing the Oklahoma Territory, was married to an Indian girl, beautiful in her white buckskin dress, representing the Indian Territory.
A master of ceremonies stepped forward and bellowed to the crowd through a megaphone.
“And that’s the marriage of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory—the union that has resulted in the creation of the forty-sixth state in the United States of America—the great state of Oklahoma.”
The roar that went up from the crowd was deafening. Fireworks were set off in the background, and a few slightly rowdy celebrants fired off six-guns. In the crowd, standing beside his wife and holding his infant son, Henry Starr spoke out loud, though his voice was obscured by all the noise.
“Why is it an Indian woman and white man?” he said. “Why not the other way around?”
At that instant Kid Wilson came pushing his way through the crowd. Squeezing up to Henry, he leaned over as if to whisper in Henry’s ear. Yet he did not whisper. He shouted.
“Henry,” he said, “come out of this crowd.”
Henry handed little Theodore Roosevelt to his mother and fought his way with Kid Wilson out of the crowd. It took some doing, but they finally got away from people to a spot where they could talk unlistened to by others.
“What’s this all about?” Henry asked.
“The word’s out,” said Wilson, “that just as soon as Oklahoma statehood is official, Arkansas is going to ask extradition on you for that Bentonville bank job.”
“That was years ago,” said Henry. “I’ve been straight for nearly five years and spent the nine previous in the pen. That’s counting the Fort Smith jail time.”
“I guess them hillbillies don’t never give up.”
“Can they do that to me, Kid?” asked Henry. “I got a pardon from the President.”
“What I’ve been hearing is that the pardon just only covered the crime that you was in prison for at the time. You got pardoned for that, but not for anything else. Arkansas still has a live warrant on you, and it’s enforceable.”
“But the new governor of Oklahoma will have to agree to it. Right?”
“That’s right,” said Kid Wilson.
Henry paced away from Kid Wilson a few steps, then paced back. He scratched his head underneath the white Stetson he wore as a dress hat.
“Kid, you’ve got to help me,” he said. “I’m taking my family home. You stay around the capital here and find out what they decide. Call me just as soon as you know. Do you know the number?”
“I’ve got it wrote down here,” said Wilson.
“All right,” said Henry. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Henry left Kid Wilson and headed back into the crowd to find his wife and child. Fireworks and gunshots continued. The celebration would last long into the night.