Authors: Harry N. MacLean
McFadin called McElroy and told him not to go into Skidmore, because the people in town were riled up.
"Nobody can keep me out of anywhere," he replied. "I go where I want, when I want. I'm not afraid of anyone."
"Ken, use some common sense and stay out of there," said McFadin. "If you have to go, call me first."
On Friday, July 10, 1981, the sun rose early on the uneven horizon and streamed across the gently sloping bean fields and hedgerows. The white rays reflected off the Skidmore water tower and lit the tops of the tall elm and maple trees. A farmer arising at 5:30 could see the lack of moisture in the air, and knew there would be no clouds moving in before the day was over. Today would be like yesterday and the day before-hot and dry, with the south wind rising in late morning. The crops still looked healthy, but the sun had been beating hard and steadily for two weeks, and the roots were drying out in the parched soil. Most of the mud from the last rain had dried up and blown away; only a few traces remained on the streets. Even the clumps of grass in the cracks in the sidewalk seemed lifeless.
A few people had heard about the continuance, but they made little effort to spread the word, thinking that people might as well come in and talk about the problem and see what could be done. Pickups began arriving in Skidmore around 6:30, rumbling in from every direction and parking at the usual odd angles in front of the cafe and up the street toward the tavern. By 8:00, both sides of the main street were lined with trucks. Some of the men went inside the cafe for coffee, and others stood in clusters on the sidewalk and in the street. They had come from Graham and Maitland and Quitman, and almost everybody knew everybody else.
Rumors floated through the crowd that the hearing had been canceled. Finally, one farmer said authoritatively that the hearing had been continued to July 20, a full ten days away. A few men began drifting up the street toward their trucks, some went back inside the cafe, and others stayed where they were. Somebody mumbled that it wasn't any use with the courts and lawyers, and there was work to be done. Maybe they should go back to their farms and not worry about it until July 20. They had stuck their necks out and been sideswiped again, and what the hell could they do about it anyway?
Somebody else stepped forward and said, "Well, shoot, you know, everybody's here. Let's see if we can get together and figure out some way to protect these four guys."
Pete and his sons were there, along with Gary Dowling and the four Clement brothers and their father, which probably helped the group hold together. When someone suggested that everybody gather in the Legion Hall, there was no dissent. A few people got in their trucks and left, but most of the men headed up the hill, walking in twos and threes on the sidewalk and in the middle of the street, to the Legion Hall.
The men bunched up at the front door while a key was located and the door opened. The diffident mood outside the cafe had evaporated on the walk up the hill, and the frustration began to express itself. "What the hell are we going to do now?" "What's going to happen for the next ten days?" The farmers talked first of protecting the four signers until July 20, but then somebody mentioned that McElroy was bound to find out about the meeting, and if he got paranoid, the whole town would be at risk.
Everyone began talking at once, and the din rose as more and more farmers came in. When the door finally shut, nearly sixty men were inside. Q Goslee had gone home after learning of the continuance, but he had decided to return to be with his buddies. He changed into his work clothes and arrived a few minutes late. His son Kermit, who had not heard about the meeting, noticed all the trucks and asked around to find out what was happening. He walked in a few minutes after Q. The Dowlings, the Clements, the Wards, the Sumys, the Kinneys, the Linvilles, and the Barretts -all the major families-were each represented by at least one member. Left out was Red Smith, who was stuck behind the bar at the tavern, as usual.
The gathering soon became rowdy as some men went over the past failures of the law, others talked about the caravan of McElroy trucks and the time the machine gun was hanging in his rear window, and a few suggested various other ways-some of them violent-of dealing with Ken McElroy. Finally, Pete Ward stepped forward and took the floor.
"No guns," he said forcefully. "We finally got him this time. He's going to be locked up, and let's don't do anything to jeopardize that." There was a murmur of agreement around the room, along with some grumbling. A
few of the men scanned the crowd for unfamiliar faces and found none.
"No guns," Pete reiterated. "There can't be any guns. We've got to be real careful here and not do anything that would allow McElroy to come back and charge us with harassment and get his conviction thrown out." Pete looked around the room and met no challenges.
Bank president Ken Herner, who had been in Omaha the night before, had planned to take a carload of farmers to Bethany in the caravan, but he was a little late getting to town. When he got out of his car, someone told him about the meeting in the Legion Hall. He walked in a few minutes after 8:30, and found the gathering completely disorganized. Some people were standing, others were sitting, and several were gesturing and talking at once. Pete Ward was trying to obtain order, telling people to be quiet and let one person talk at a time. Mayor Steve Peter was there, but he couldn't handle the crowd of upset farmers. When Ward saw Herner, he turned to him and said, "Here's the banker, what do you think we ought to do?"
"I thought we were going to Bethany," said Herner.
"It's been postponed," Pete responded. "What do you think we should do for the next ten days?"
"Let's get hold of David Baird and get some legal advice on what we might be able to do. Maybe he can come over and talk to us."
The concrete suggestion, the voice of reason, seemed to calm the crowd somewhat. Herner walked across the street to the bank and phoned Baird. He told him the situation and asked him to come over. Baird refused to come and Herner got the impression that the prosecutor didn't even want to talk about McElroy for fear that McFadin would come back into court and file a motion, and the case would be thrown out. Baird felt he could not attend the meeting because if anything happened afterward, he might be severely compromised in any ensuing prosecutions. Baird suggested they might want to hire a private attorney for some legal advice.
Herner returned to the Legion Hall and reported his conversation with Baird. Some people grumbled and complained about Baird, and others tried to resurrect the idea of barring McElroy from town, calling for a special meeting of the town council. Q thought hiring a private attorney was a good suggestion, so he slapped a $50 bill down on the table. Other bills immediately followed and within a few minutes more than $500 lay on the table.
Herner went back to the bank and called an attorney in Maryville. The attorney said he had to be in court at 10 a.m , but if four or five of them came over to his office around 11, he would discuss the problem with them. "No more than four or five," he repeated. He added that the town could not pass an ordinance against Ken McElroy.
By the time Herner returned to the meeting, the men were talking about organizing a posse to patrol the town streets and the country roads to keep track of McElroy. The idea caught on: They wouldn't be looking for McElroy or going after him; they would simply be keeping track of him, trying to know where he was at all times. In years past there had been a Nodaway rural posse, and men had been deputized to patrol the back roads, looking mainly for hog and cattle thieves. Why not bring the posse back? More money hit the table as men talked about buying radios and gas for the trucks on patrol.
"Don't you think we should be deputized to do this?" someone shouted.
"Yeah," came another voice. "Let's get the sheriff over here and find out legally what we can do, and what we can't do. You know, how far is too far."
Ward and Herner agreed that any posse had to be run legally, so getting Estes over to advise them made sense. Herner left again and called the sheriff's office in Maryville. A woman answered the phone, and when Herner said who he was and what he was calling about, she told him she didn't know where Estes was. Herner explained patiently that the court hearing to revoke McElroy's bond had been postponed, that people were having a meeting, and that they were getting real upset.
"It's getting a little warm here in Skidmore," Herner said. "You better tell the sheriff to get here as fast as he can, or this place is likely to fly apart."
Twenty minutes later, exactly enough time to drive from Maryville to Skidmore, Sheriff Estes walked through the door of the Legion Hall. The crowd turned to him, and questions flew from all sides. "What can we legally do to protect ourselves?" "How are these four guys going to make it through the next ten days?" "How in the hell can we stop McElroy?"
After stressing that there should be no guns, Estes talked about forming something akin to a neighborhood-watch committee. A network of individualssss in town and on the country roads would use radios to contact each other if McElroy showed up at someone's place, and they would come to their neighbor's assistance. They wouldn't do anything more than he did, just drive around and stay with him. If he created a disturbance, they would call the police.
"What if, when we're doing that, he sees us and realizes there are a couple of trucks around, and he steps out with a shotgun or a rifle? When could someone pull the trigger and not get hung for it?"
"Any time someone has drawn a gun and has it pointed at you," said Estes, "you've got a total right to blow him away."
"What if we shoot him some night when he's out stealing hogs on the back roads?"
"If that happens, it happens," Estes replied, only half in jest. "As long as I don't know anything about it." Later Estes said, "If he pulls down on you and you shoot him, I'd say it'd be the funniest case of suicide I'd ever seen."
Someone in the back remembered the earlier question and asked, "Can we be deputized? That's how it was done with the rural posse."
One farmer volunteered, and then another and a third and a fourth.
"That's not a bad idea," Estes responded. "But I'd have to go to the county commissioners and get their approval." He promised to try that afternoon. "But you boys be careful roaming the back roads at night looking for McElroy, or you'll get yourselves killed."
Everybody agreed that monitoring McElroy's movements was a good idea, but they still had some details to hammer out. One problem was that McElroy would listen in on their radio transmissions. Somebody suggested that if McElroy came to town and started driving around Pete Ward's house, Pete could get on the radio and say, "Let's go and have a beer," and that would mean "McElroy's here; I need help."
At 9:30, as Ken was filling his stock tank with water so the kids could go swimming, his sister Dorothy drove up.
"There's a meeting in town," she said, "and the streets are lined with pickups."
McElroy wasn't surprised-he had heard about the meeting the day before. He went inside and called McFadin's office, but the secretary said McFadin wasn't in yet. McElroy hung up the phone, turned to Trena, and said, "Let's go."
Trena had a bad feeling about going to town and tried to talk him out of it, but McElroy was adamant. "Let's go," he repeated.
To those who knew Ken, everything about his behavior that morning was strange. Usually, he cleaned up and changed clothes before he went to town. This morning he left just as he was. For the first time since the judge had prohibited him from carrying a gun, he went to town without a back-up truck and rifle. Tammy said she wanted to go in a second truck, but McElroy said no. Trena was to ride in the Silverado with him, and that was all.
In Trena's view, Ken had always been able to tell when things were going wrong for him, yet today he was walking right into obvious danger, unarmed and totally unprotected.
The Silverado stopped first at the small house down the road where
Tim and Mabel lived. Mabel had diabetes and severe respiratory problems, and she was hooked up to an oxygen tank most of the time. She had been getting better, but just this morning Tim had had to take her back to the hospital in Maryville. Now he stood outside tending to the dogs.
"They're having a meeting about me in town, and I guess I better go and see what it's all about," Ken told his brother. To Trena, Tim didn't seem particularly concerned.
When the Silverado passed the Methodist church on the right and came into view of the business section of the main street, Ken and Trena saw plenty of vehicles but no people. No kids were playing around the old railroad station, no farmers were standing around in front of the cafe, and no women were chatting on the post office steps with the morning mail in their hands. The town was deserted. Pickups stuck out at all angles on both sides of the street, and the only empty slot was right in front of the tavern. When Trena saw the single space, her sense of foreboding increased, and she tried to talk Ken out of stopping.