Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Author Tom Clavin Discusses His New Book "Bandit Heaven"

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Author Tom Clavin Discusses His New Book "Bandit Heaven" · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Third hour of the Morning Show with Presdin's Coy. Good
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  Speaker 1: Morning Friends. It's Tuesday, October twenty second, two weeks from
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  Speaker 1: election day. Jose, can you see over there in Studio
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  Speaker 1: one A right in the broadcast. I'm here in Studio
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  Speaker 1: one B, and it is Show five thousand, two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty nine, and I'm thrilled to have back with us.
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  Speaker 1: He's one of my top two three favorite authors in
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  Speaker 1: the world. His name is Tom Claven. The latest book
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  Speaker 1: is Banned at Heaven and it is on sale today.
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  Speaker 1: Sir Tom, how in the world are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm fine, thank you, and thank you for having me back.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, you keep writing these kind of books, man,
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  Speaker 1: You're going to always find time on my program. I Tom,
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  Speaker 1: I've got to find out. I have in my head
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  Speaker 1: how this book happened. But you tell me if I'm
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: far from wrong here, I'm guessing. As you're writing some
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of the other incredible Old West book books, Dodge City,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Wild Bill, Tombstone, the Last Outlaws, they're like these sticky
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  Speaker 1: notes that are getting built up, and you at some
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  Speaker 1: point look at them and go, you know, that's another book.
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  Speaker 1: How close am I? Well?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I think yeah, I think you're very close because it
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: seems like one thing led into another. There it was
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: like a progression of non intentional necessarily, but like it's
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: almost chronological with Wild Bill takes place. A lot of
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: it is during those Civil during and after the Civil War.
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  Speaker 2: You have Dodge City and follow Me the Hell take
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: place in the eighteen seventies. Tombstone is something that like
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: early eighteen eighties, The Last Outlaws was about the Dalton
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  Speaker 2: Gang where they met their ward a Lewin Cockinggilt Kansas
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  Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety two. And then what Bandit Heaven is about.
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  Speaker 2: It's as the subtitle says, the final chapter of the
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  Speaker 2: Wild West is that there were still outlaw gangs and
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  Speaker 2: outlaws like Watch Cassidy, Sundance, Kid, Kid Curry, some of
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  Speaker 2: the others part of the Wild Bunch into in the
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  Speaker 2: eighteen nineties into the twentieth century, into the early nineteen hundreds.
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  Speaker 2: And so I wanted I felt like I'd done these
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  Speaker 2: previous stories that took the readers on his journey that
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: began Babe with the Civil War, it took them to
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  Speaker 2: the end of the century. Let's finish things up in
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  Speaker 2: a way. It doesn't mean that it's not more stories
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  Speaker 2: to tell about the American West actially, but let's let's
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  Speaker 2: talk about what were the final gangs and how did
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  Speaker 2: the Wild West sort of come to an end? What
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  Speaker 2: was what? What? What put put these gangs out of existence?
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  Speaker 2: And that's that's what basically what Banded Heaven is about.
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  Speaker 1: You describe bandit Heaven and I'm going to loosely describe
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  Speaker 1: it as as three specific spots in an area. Tell
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  Speaker 1: me how you came upon these spots, how you knew
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  Speaker 1: about them and their significance one to each other.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's as part of my research, I
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  Speaker 2: found out about what was called the Outlaw Trail. This
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  Speaker 2: actually existed from the Canadian borders to the Mexican border
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  Speaker 2: where outlaws could go on this trail pretty much unbolested
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  Speaker 2: by lawmen. They went to the rough terrain and the
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  Speaker 2: lawman didn't want to go near them. And they had
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  Speaker 2: three main stops along the way. There was the Hole
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  Speaker 2: in the Wall and Wyoming, which is literally a hole
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  Speaker 2: in the wall that was hot you could loman couldn't
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  Speaker 2: get in there. There was a place called Robbers Roos,
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  Speaker 2: which is partly in Utah Party in Colorado, and it
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  Speaker 2: was up on a plateau, so you could see part
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  Speaker 2: as you were abandoned up there or abandoned gang you
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  Speaker 2: could see somebody coming from miles away, so it was
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  Speaker 2: very easy to protect the place. And then there was
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  Speaker 2: also a place called Brown's Hole, which was a hole
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  Speaker 2: was the name for a valley also at the time,
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  Speaker 2: surrounded by hills and mountains with very difficult access. So
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  Speaker 2: these places were like good hideouts for bandits. They would
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  Speaker 2: rob a train, let's say, and head for Brown's Hole,
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  Speaker 2: a head for robber's roos, and there there they would
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  Speaker 2: be safe until it was time to go out robbing again.
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  Speaker 1: Were these locations locations that were happened upon after a
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  Speaker 1: crime or prior to were these planned places to go,
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  Speaker 1: you know both.
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  Speaker 2: Initially they were sort of stumbled upon, not necessarily by
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  Speaker 2: criminals but by others who was looking for just exploring,
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  Speaker 2: for example, Jim Bridger, I think the Great Mountain Man
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  Speaker 2: that was found one of them. And but once once
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  Speaker 2: the work done around at these places were kind of
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  Speaker 2: isolated and kind of easy, easy to protect, the criminals decided, well,
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  Speaker 2: you know what, we're going to build a little They
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  Speaker 2: actually built cabins in these places and corrals, has stolen livestock,
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  Speaker 2: and they became you know, gang band in Heaven. That
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  Speaker 2: was a collective name for these three places. They were
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  Speaker 2: banded Heaven because they were a place that they can relax, enjoy,
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  Speaker 2: you know, don't don't worry about the law, lowman, and
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  Speaker 2: plan the next job.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Morning Show with Preston Scott. New York
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  Speaker 1: Times best selling author Tom Clayven back with us. I've
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  Speaker 1: got a ton of his books proudly displayed in my
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  Speaker 1: office library at home, and this will be another addition
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  Speaker 1: to it, The bandits. It's Banded Heaven, and we're discussing
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  Speaker 1: the book. Without giving much away, I have to, but
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  Speaker 1: I have to note we're on the fifty to fifth
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  Speaker 1: anniversary of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
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  Speaker 1: which was an it's an iconic film. What did they
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  Speaker 1: get right? That intercepts and overlaps your book.
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  Speaker 2: What they got right was that but Cassidy and the
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  Speaker 2: Sundance Kid were rather charming, roguish outlaws, and they you know,
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  Speaker 2: if you notice in the movie, which still holds up
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  Speaker 2: fifty five years later.
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  Speaker 1: Yes it does.
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  Speaker 2: They don't. There's not much violence in it. There is
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  Speaker 2: some and especially of course there's a very dramatic shootout
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  Speaker 2: ending in to the movie. But but casting the Sundance
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  Speaker 2: Kid were not violent men. They were criminals, not trying
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  Speaker 2: to whitewash them, but they were not prone to violence,
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  Speaker 2: and they got that right, and they were kind of
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  Speaker 2: charming and that they had a very strong friendship. What
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  Speaker 2: they sort of overlooked was that except for at a
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  Speaker 2: place played by Cassin Ross's the movie, there wasn't really
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  Speaker 2: many of the other characters who are part of the
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  Speaker 2: Wild Bunch gang they call the Wall Gangs. And that's
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  Speaker 2: a big part of what Bandon Had is about. There's
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  Speaker 2: so many other interesting, colorful characters. Dirty Dave, Rudebag, Gunplay, Maxwell,
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  Speaker 2: Ben Tall, Texan kill Patrick, George Flatt knows Curry. The
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  Speaker 2: list goes on and on. Everybody had a nickname, and
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  Speaker 2: you know one of my favorite characters. And people are
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  Speaker 2: gonna say that they hear this right, But George Beak
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  Speaker 2: knows Parrot who And as people will find out when
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  Speaker 2: they band Has haven't ended up as a pair of shoes. No, yes,
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  Speaker 2: I can tell the story.
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  Speaker 1: You do what you want without giving away what you
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  Speaker 1: don't want to give away.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, he was a pretty bad outlaw who finally
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  Speaker 2: got caught and he was scheduled to go to trial,
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  Speaker 2: but he tried to break out of jail. Angry townspeople
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  Speaker 2: strung him up and hung them and a couple of
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  Speaker 2: local doctors that got permission to examine his brain to
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  Speaker 2: see if there's any indication of why is somebody a criminal?
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Why is someone not? And while he were at it,
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  Speaker 2: they decided to take off some of his skin and
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: they send it to a hennery, which made it a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: little pair of shoes, and the next time, the next
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  Speaker 2: governor of Wyoming, he wore those pair of shoes to
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  Speaker 2: his inauguration ball. No, it's true. Oh that's why I
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  Speaker 2: prob I love nonfiction. It could be straight to the fiction.
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  Speaker 1: Well you know what that that that moves me right
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  Speaker 1: to the question. And and forgive me, Tom, you've been
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: on the show with me maybe five or six times now,
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  Speaker 1: maybe more, And I asked this question, but for the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: sake of people that that didn't hear the previous times
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you've answered it. How do you find this stuff? Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like you're talking to living sources
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  Speaker 1: that wandered around with butcher and and and sun dance.
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  Speaker 2: You know, that's a good question because I sort of
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  Speaker 2: feel like I'm a prospector. You know. I put my
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  Speaker 2: my my hat, my helmet on, my lamp is on right,
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  Speaker 2: I got my pick my little pick axe there, and
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  Speaker 2: I went to these these uh you know, a minor
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  Speaker 2: and there's all these different tributaries and these sides nutting
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  Speaker 2: roads with caves and tunnels and stuff like that. And
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  Speaker 2: I just keep digging and you find this that information
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  Speaker 2: is there. It's a question of can he dig it
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  Speaker 2: out and just go from one thing to another. And
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: by the time I get ready to write a book,
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  Speaker 2: I've got all this information. Not all of that can
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: make it into a book, but some of it is
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  Speaker 2: very unusual, like this Joyce Beikos parrot story. And there's
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: other stories too. I mean a man named gun Play
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  Speaker 2: Maxwell is a character in the book, and he got
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  Speaker 2: his name because every time he got any trouble, he
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  Speaker 2: went for his gun first. And yet he lived for
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  Speaker 2: a pretty long life until he's probably is probably going
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  Speaker 2: to do his gun faster than he could.
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  Speaker 1: You know, without getting into a commentary about the state
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of modern journalism, there's an axiom and ideal that you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: always find two or more sources. But in your line
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  Speaker 1: of work, how do you find that second source or
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  Speaker 1: do you just do the best you can with the
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  Speaker 1: one you got?
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  Speaker 2: You know, a great second source. I mean you can
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  Speaker 2: read things and other books, and that doesn't mean it
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  Speaker 2: necessarily true. But to go back to the contemporary source,
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  Speaker 2: is you know what was being reported of it. You know,
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  Speaker 2: one of the benefits of to me in working on
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  Speaker 2: Band in Heaven is it takes place in the eighteen
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  Speaker 2: nineties and the early nineteen hundreds, and there were a
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  Speaker 2: lot of newspapers all across the country, all throughout the West.
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  Speaker 2: Newspapers were reporting at the time on the adventures of
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  Speaker 2: some of these criminals Knowledges, Puts, Cassidy, but other people
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  Speaker 2: I mentioned Kid Curry, Tom Horne of those. And so
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  Speaker 2: you can find actual reporting being done at the time.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, certainly when you find a story that is
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  Speaker 2: covering the inauguration of that Wyoming governor referred to the
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  Speaker 2: pair of shoes he was wearing used to be a
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  Speaker 2: beak nosed parrot. And so the closer you can get
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  Speaker 2: to something that had actually happened and the reporting on it,
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  Speaker 2: the more reliable it.
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  Speaker 1: Is, and because we are an iHeartRadio station, we are
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: broadcasting proudly across the fruited plane and around the world,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: which means today, all over the country, wherever you're listening
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to us from you can get a copy of band
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  Speaker 1: in Heaven, Tom Craven's latest book. He's the author of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a ton of books. We've talked about them all on
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the program, whether it's Dodge City while Bill Tombstone, follow
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  Speaker 1: Me to Hell, the story of mcnelly's Texas Rangers, or
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: The Last Outlaws. This book Banned Heaven though, Tom, you
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  Speaker 1: were talking about this this era of time and that
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  Speaker 1: it kind of marks a unique time. First, before we
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  Speaker 1: talk about that, are there heroes in this book?
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  Speaker 2: You know, that's a good question because in my previous books,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: they were very easily identifiable heroes as main characters, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the White Arab of Bat Masterson, even Doc Hollidy Lea.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned McNelly, Landa McNelly. But in Banded Heaven, it's
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  Speaker 2: your main characters are Bridge Cassidy's Sundance Kid and other
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  Speaker 2: members of the Hole in the Wall gangs like Tall
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  Speaker 2: the Tall Textan Kilpatrick and some of the other people
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  Speaker 2: Tom Horne. So yes, there are heroes in the sense
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  Speaker 2: that if you consider you know lawman as your heroes,
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  Speaker 2: there's the the detective Charlie Sringo. Uh, there are the
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  Speaker 2: other lawmen that that Joe la Force, who is what
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  Speaker 2: it was the minor character in the film version of
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  Speaker 2: which casting a sun dance kid. But a lot of
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  Speaker 2: times what happened happens in band in Heaven has there's
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  Speaker 2: a very thin line between the hero and anti hero,
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  Speaker 2: between law man and bandit, and so something like Tom
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  Speaker 2: Horne is a good example. Some people might recall us
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: a Steve a Queen movie made of Tom many years ago,
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  Speaker 2: and he was he was a detective as an army scout,
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  Speaker 2: but then he became a paid assassin and uh, working
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: for the large ranchers who wanted to get rid of
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  Speaker 2: some of the people who who they thought was ranching
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  Speaker 2: on their land. So it's it's it's an interesting question
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  Speaker 2: because I think less so than some of my other books.
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  Speaker 2: You'll find fewer heroes in this one. Charming characters, but
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  Speaker 2: maybe fewer heroes.
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  Speaker 1: Does band in Heaven still exist? Do these do these locations?
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  Speaker 1: Are they still places people go to and see and stumble.
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  Speaker 2: Upon, Yes you can. I mean Brown's Hall, for example,
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  Speaker 2: has been a bit of place that people have lived
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  Speaker 2: in for decades and decades as farmers and small ranchers.
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  Speaker 2: It still exists. Robbers Roost not so much, very rough terrain,
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  Speaker 2: not the place that people want to necessarily live at
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  Speaker 2: it especially not abandoned. And the hole in the Wall
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  Speaker 2: was basically a hole in the wall in Wyoming, so
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  Speaker 2: it's again kind of remote areas, not something the place
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  Speaker 2: that you'll find a subdivision.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just curious if, if you know wild West Officionado's
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  Speaker 1: ever try to track these places down? What ended them?
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  Speaker 1: What ended these places? Was it just the end of
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  Speaker 1: the outlaw?
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  Speaker 2: It was the end of the outlaw, because you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: what happened was that the rest of the country was
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: getting into the nineteen hundreds, and these cowboys and outlaws
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: had not really made that transition. They were still doing
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: the old fashioned things of stealing cattle and try to
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: rob trains and try and rob banks. But the technology
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: got better. I mean, if you had a bank that
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: was robbed in one town, you could make a phone
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: call to the sheriff for the next and get a
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: posse going. There was you know, for those about to
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  Speaker 2: drive cars. I mean Andison was inventing the electric light bulb,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and the telephone was being line was being strung, so
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  Speaker 2: one by one or two and threes, these outlaws became
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: either imprisoned or were killed. When Butch, Cassie and the
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Sundance Kid were killed in nineteen oh eight, that was
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: really you can really see that line of departure. That's
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: where the Wild West ended officially, because they were not
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: saying there wasn't an outlaw anywhere after that. But the
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: outlaw Aids was pretty much done with. But the Sundance
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: died all of a sudden.
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  Speaker 1: The entrance of the automotive, you know, era changed the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: way outlaws and gangsters operated. Tom, What is it about
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the wild West that attracts people? I mean, is it
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: something that you can just sort of, I don't know,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: express or is it something that maybe an email is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: shared with you? What's the end during charm of this?
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  Speaker 2: I think because we have really interesting characters who actually existed.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can write a good novel it's a
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: lot of adventure about the American Western create a very
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: interesting fictional character. I mean, look at what Laren McMurtry
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: did with Lonesome Dove. We have two very intriguing characters.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Even those characters are based on real people. So I
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: think when my line of work non fiction, I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: writing about people who actually existed and finding out if
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: you can anything new about them or are the most
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: interesting adventures. You know, how many people knew that when
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Wired up in Bad Messs and was still young men
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in their twenties, they were the principal lawmen together in
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Dodge City. So I think there's this constant fascination with
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: people who actually existed, that did have lives that were
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: as interesting as they was sometimes portrayed on the screen.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: They actually existed, They actually had these interactions without laws
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and some of the outlaws, you know, some of these
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: bandits and bad guys we're to be charming. You know.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: People still talk about Jesse James and when he robbed trades,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: he would handle his own press releases to the passages.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So I think there's a constant fascination.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Tom, thanks to you and the dogging you do
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and researching you do, I think we all feel like
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: we know these characters and these people better. Thank you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: so much for your work, and thanks for sharing time.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. So it's a pleasure being on your show.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Tom. Tom Craven with us this morning. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the book is Bandit, Heaven, The Hole in the Wall,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Gangs and the final chapter of the wild West. The
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: book is on sale today