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About this Book
“I shot him in the left temple; the gun dropped from his hands; he
quivered one instant, and Andy McGinnis climbed the Golden Stairs....”
T his
was Chris Evans speaking. Evans, the killer, train robber and fugitive,
was describing the famous 1892 shootout at Young's cabin when he and his
partner John Sontag ambushed and killed two members of a posse that was
pursuing them.
In California Desperadoes, Evans and seven other early outlaws tell
their own raw stories—tales of holdups, shootouts and desperate flights
from the law.
Witness the cruel confessions of the ruthless gang of California bandits
who murdered a whole family, men, women and children, in the opening
days of the Gold Rush. Stand on the gallows with the notorious Jim
Stuart as he is hanged by San Francisco vigilantes determined to retake
their city from hordes of Australian convicts, robbers and killers.
The ill-starred adventures of Tom Bell, Tiburcio Vasquez and Charles
Dorsey will hold you spellbound as the outlaws themselves take you along
the dangerous trails they rode. And stage robbers Jim Smith and Dick
Fellows will shock you with their own tales of the harrowing and
sometimes hilarious antics of the California highwaymen of another day.
These are true stories told by true desperadoes and illustrated with
many rare photographs.
About the Author
Born in Fresno, California, in March of 1930, William
B. Secrest grew up in the great San Joaquin Valley. After high school he
joined the Marine Corps where he served in a guard detachment and in a
rifle company in the early years of the Korean War. Returning to
college, he obtained a BA in education, but for many years he served as
an art director for a Fresno advertising firm.
Secrest has been interested in history since his
youth and early began comparing Western films to what really happened in
the West. A hobby at first, this avocation quickly developed into
correspondence with noted writers and more serious research. Not
satisfied in a collaboration with friend and Western writer Ray Thorp,
Secrest began researching and writing his own articles in the early
1960s.
Although at first he wrote on many general Western
subjects, some years ago Secrest realized how his home state has
consistently been neglected in the Western genre and concentrated almost
exclusively on early California subjects. He has produced hundreds of
articles for such publications as Westways, Montana, True West, and the
American West, while publishing seven monographs on early California
themes. His book I Buried Hickok (Early West Publishing Co.)
appeared in 1980, followed by Lawmen & Desperadoes (The Arthur H.
Clark Co.) in 1994 and Dangerous Trails (Barbed Wire Press) in
1995. Books published with Word Dancer Press include California
Desperadoes (1999), Perilous Trails, Dangerous Men (2001),
and When the Great Spirit Died (2002). Current projects
include a biography of Harry Love, the leader of the rangers who tracked
down Joaquin Murrieta, and famous feuding families of California.
Reviews
“Sometimes
the best thing a writer can do is to stand back and let someone else
tell the story, which is exactly what William B. Secrest has done with
magnificent success....a fascinating and handsomely designed
book....destined to become a valuable source book for students of Outlaw
and Western History.”
—Jay O’Connell, The Kaweah Commonwealth
“Secrest
lets the outlaws themselves tell portions of their own stories. And what
fascinating tales they are.”
—John Boessenecker, author of Gold Dust and Gunsmoke |
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