As the Union Pacific train that Kansas Charley and his soundly sleeping companions were hitching a free ride within sped on towards Hillsdale, Wyoming Charley lifted the whiskey bottle that Waldo Emerson and Ross Fishbaugh had left sitting beside their belongings. Then Kansas Charley, on a very empty stomach, began to drink.
An Unforgivable Act
What happened next was certainly brutal and unforgivable. And Kansas Charley, later, could never entirely explain it. Perhaps, due to the whiskey the hungry boy had consumed, he did not completely remember what happened or what he was thinking at the time. It is not remote to consider that years of being an orphan after seeing his father take his own life, often not having enough to eat, or as now not having anything to eat for many hours, that something dark and sinister snapped within the mind of the Charley Miller, the ragged boy who called himself Kansas Charley.
Kansas Charley, with pistol in hand, climbed over railroad ties to where Waldo Emerson and Ross Fishbaugh lay sleeping. At close range, he shot Waldo in the head, through his right temple. The sound of the shot caused Ross to stir and Charley turned and shot his other companion, almost in the exact location that Waldo had received Charlie's deadly bullet.
Ill-Gotten Gains Gathered
Charley then, methodically, went through the two young men's pockets, seeking money or any other valuable item. Somehow, perhaps with panic now beginning to settle upon him, Charley only went through Emerson and Fishbaugh's pants pockets. He entirely failed to check the pockets of their coats.
From Waldo, Charley gained a knife and a silver pocket watch. From Ross, who was still alive though barely, Charley took "forty-five dollars in paper money, two silver dollars, a knife," and the .38 revolver the man had been flashing about back in Sidney, Nebraska. The pistol taken from Ross was far superior to the one Charley possessed, therefore Kansas Charley left the actual murder weapon tucked beneath Emerson's lifeless body.
Kansas Charley Commits Murder: A Deadly Double Deed is Done , continues with Kansas Charley A Deadly Outlaw: No Dime Novel Hero Now
Previous: Kansas Charley Alone and Starving: Whiskey and Hunger: A Deadly Mix.
