Scallywags

The "Scallywags" series will appear as three novels. The books are told from the point of view of my great-great-grandmother, Cathron Taylor Eakin as she relates her family memories of the Old West. They were a fascinating bunch of ancestors. Some were outlaws or associated with outlaws.

Billy the Kid was a family friend whom my family maintained was never shot and killed by Pat Garrett. Cathron insisted she fed him breakfast a week after he was allegedly dead, and continued to see him occasionally throughout the ensuing years. William Henry Roberts was the name he used until he died in the 1950's in Hico, Texas.

My third cousin was John Wesley Hardin, the "Gentleman Gunslinger," who later became an attorney and was killed by a former enemy.

One of the most fascinating stories had to do with my great-grandmother's sister, Hallie Eakin. Hallie was married to Lucius Hightower and they lived in Silver City, New Mexico. In 1915, Lucius shot Hallie twice as she ran from him. Her two small children and neighbors were witnesses. As Hallie lay dying (which took several hours as doctors tried in vain to save her) she and Lucius made up and forgave each other. In his words, they "kissed and agreed all our troubles were over." Lucius went to trial for the murder and his hanging was the first legal hanging in Silver City as a town in the state of New Mexico.

Hightower was decapitated by the hanging. The Silver City museum director recalls a second-hand account of his head being kept in a bottle of preservative at a local bank. Their son, L.C. (Brian) went on to become an early stuntman with MGM in Hollywood.

The first book in the Scallywag series will be My Friend, Billy the Kid, the second will be on the Hightower murder, the third will be on John Wesley Hardin.