Henry Starr sat at the head of the dining table in his Tulsa home. Around the table sat Lewis Estes, Bud Maxfield, Claud Sawyer, Al Spencer, and Grover Durrell—all white men. They were men Henry Starr had carefully searched for. All were known and wanted criminals. The hardcases listened intently as Henry talked.
“The reason I’ve gotten all of you together,” he said, “is to make bank robbing history. I’ve already robbed more banks than any man in history, at least, that’s what they’re saying about me, so robbing just one more won’t make a whole lot of difference to me. But no one has yet succeeded at robbing two banks at one time.”
Estes’ eyes opened wide.
“Two banks at one time?” he said.
There were murmurs around the table. Henry paused to allow the rumbling to subside on its own. When the men around the table were quiet again, he went on.
“The Dalton boys tried it in Coffeyville back in ’92 and got wiped out in the attempt. Here it is 1915. That was twenty-three years ago, and no one’s done it yet. But we’re going to do it, and do it right.”
“Where at?” said Spencer.
Henry looked over the faces around the table. The men were all quiet, all watching him and waiting for his answer. If there had been initial objections, they had seemingly vanished.
“Stroud, Oklahoma,” he said.
On March 27, 1915, on the main street of Stroud, Bud Maxfield stood with six horses at a hitch rail in front of a store. A few doors down from where Maxfield waited, Henry Starr, Estes, and Sawyer opened the front door of a bank and walked in. Out in the middle of the street, just as the third man disappeared into the bank, Spencer and Durrell pulled out their pistols and fired a few shots into the air. The shots had the desired effect. People on the street ran inside of doors—whatever doors were handy. The street was cleared. One of those who ran for cover was sixteen-year-old Paul Curry. He ducked inside a butcher shop that stood between the bank and the storefront where Maxfield waited with the horses. Spencer and Durrell, holding their guns ready for action, kept turning to look from one end of the street to the other, watching nervously for any sign of interference with their plans. A door opened next door to the bank, and Spencer whirled to level his six-shooter at whoever might come out. Whoever it was saw Spencer and immediately reconsidered. The door shut again quickly. Then Henry, Estes, and Sawyer came back out of the bank, each with money sacks stuffed. They calmly walked into the street, heading for the second bank, just across from the first one. In the middle of the street Spencer and Durrell turned and fell in step with the other three, and all five walked into the second bank.
Across the street in the butcher shop, young Paul Curry watched, fascinated, through a dirty window in the front door. His heart pounded, and he felt his breath heavy in his chest. He saw the five men come back out of the bank across the street from him. Each man carried a sack stuffed, apparently, with cash. The five men were walking across the street at an angle that would take them directly to the six horses and the sixth man who waited for them. Young Curry realized that the bank robbers would have to walk right past the butcher shop—right past him.
“No one’s doing anything,” he said to himself.
The robbers were almost in front of him.
“They’re just walking away from the bank. No one’s making a move.”
Paul looked around frantically inside the shop. There in a corner was an old rifle the butcher used for killing hogs. Paul ran to it and grabbed it up. He checked nervously to see if it was loaded. It was. He stepped back to the door. The outlaws had passed the butcher shop and were almost to their horses.
Out in the street Henry took up the rear in the move back to the horses. He felt, as always, something like a military commander with the responsibility for the safety of his command on his shoulders. He would be the last one to mount up and ride away. Moving at an easy pace, he spoke to his gang.
“Well, boys,” he said, “we’ve accomplished a bank robber’s dream and outdone the Daltons all at once. Now let’s mount up and see if we can get out of here in one piece.”
Estes snorted over his shoulder.
“Hell,” he said, “ain’t no one trying to stop us.”
As Spencer and Durrell, the first to reach the horses, were climbing into their saddles, Paul Curry opened the front door of the butcher shop. Rifle in hand, he stepped out into the street. He put the hog-killing rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. Henry Starr felt the slap against his hip an instant before he heard the report of the rifle. His legs quit working, and he crumpled into the dirt. The other five hesitated, confused. Henry called out to them from where he lay in the street.
“Go on, boys,” he said. “Get out of here.”
The five outlaws put their spurs to their mounts and rode quickly out of Stroud, and Henry Starr lay looking into the tough faces of a crowd of armed and irate citizens that had suddenly materialized around him. They had found their bravery, he thought, after he had fallen wounded and the others had ridden off. He glanced back toward the butcher shop where he knew the shot had come from, and he saw the young Paul Curry with the hog rifle. Not only that, his thought continued, they had let a kid do the only shooting of the day for them. He lay back in the dirt street and relaxed to await his fate.