Part 9: The Treasure of the Sierra Juarez

We’re finally getting some of Silas’ backstory.

Also, the shotguns are fun.


Concept art




Nuggets of Truth


George Sutherland Curry, better known as Flat-Nose Curry, was a mentor for another famous outlaw, Harvey Logan. Logan, who adopted the last name of his more experienced friend, came to be known as Kid Сurгу, The wildest of the Wild Bunch.

Both men robbed banks together and later joined the famous Wild Bunch led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Flat-nose participated in the famous Union Pacific Overland Flyer train robbery near Wilcox, Wyoming in 1899. Flat-Nose and Kid Curry delayed the posse formed in the wake of the robbery and killed the marshal in charge.

Not a year later, Flat-Nose was in the business of cattle theft in Utah when his luck ran out. Bullets found him when Sheriff Jesse Tyler tracked him down. Upon hearing the news, Kid Curry decided to avenge his "brother from a different mother." He made his way to Utah and killed Sheriff Taylor and his deputy in a bloody shootout.



On the morning of June 2, 1899, the driver of the westbound Union Pacific Overland Flyer No. 1 sent the following message from Medicine Bow, Wyominq: "First Section No. 1 held up a mile west of Wilcox. Express car blown Open, mail car damaged. Safe blown open, contents gone..." the Union Pacific Railroad office in Omaha, Nebraska, responded with an offer of a $1000.00 reward for each train robber, dead or alive.

Later, Pacific Express, a company that owned the safe, made a matching offer. The U.S. government added to the pot, raising the total reward for each criminal to $3000.00, which, counting all six perpetrators meant a combined reward of $18,000.00. Today that's the equivalent of $380,000.00.

Seven hours after the robbery a specially equipped train full of people, horses, provisions and equipment arrived at the scene. The posse sent by Union Pacific Railroad was not the only one. It was joined by detectives from the Burlington Railroad, the Pinkerton agency, and an assortment of local posses looking for a rich payday. When the governor of Wyoming sent a company of the state militia, that boosted the total number of people looking for those outlaws to over a hundred.

The robbery in question was the handiwork of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang (which damaged the bridge in the process of blowing up the safe) and, as usual, had an excellent escape plan in place. Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry and his mentor George "Flat-Nose" Curry were definitely among the robbers and they shot one of the pursuers, Sheriff Hazen. It's impossible to say if the "brains of the operation" and the gang's leader, Butch Cassidy, took part in the robbery, but Harry A. Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan) and Will Carver most likely did.

Over the Following dozen years all the outlaws involved in the Wilcox Train Robbery met an untimely end, revolver in hand.



Hole-in-the-Wall was the name of a secluded hideout in the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming. It was used towards the end of the 19th century by various outlaw gangs looking to disappear. The location was ideal. It was a perfectly defensible place, nearly impossible to take by force and equally difficult to sneak up on without alerting its inhabitants. The hideout was also well equipped and provisioned. Permanent huts provided shelter during harsh winters. During the Hole's golden years, there were even stables, a corral with animals and a storehouse full of food, which everyone did their best to replenish.

The best-known inhabitants of the Hole-in-the-Wall were without a doubt, members of the appropriately named Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Led by Butch Cassidy, they were also known as The Wild Bunch. But all sorts of criminal gangs and outlaws on the lam called the Hole in the Wall home.