Christopher Evans: Canadian Outlaw

            On Friday my sore behind was still keeping me behind.

            I worked on memorizing Serge Gainsbourg’s “Les petits ballons” and while practicing singing my translation I made some changes so the English would fit the rhythm.

            I washed the inside window ledge in my living room and the top of the bookshelf and radiator casing that runs parallel to it. I also washed the plate that holds the planter where the stump of my lemon tree is and where something else has grown 30 centimetres tall, although I don’t know what it is.

            I got caught up on my journal and took a short bike ride around the neighbourhood. When I got home I did some exercises for my butt muscles.

I read through all of Albert Moritz’s notes on my manuscripts. He liked most of the poems but on half of them he thought there were some flaws. I agree with about two-thirds of his criticisms. In some cases I think if I explain the poem he might get why it has to be the way it is. For the next little while I’ll go through the poems and make some corrections to send back to him.

I boiled three small potatoes, sautéed some small peppers, heated a slice of roast beef and gravy and watched two episodes of Stories of the Century.

The first story was about Sontag and Evans. Sontag had been a railroad track builder who'd gotten injured on the job and poorly compensated. Evans is being forced off his property by the railroad. Both men are angry and join up with others that bear the same grudge to sabotage and rob trains. Evans’s niece Sue is romantically involved with Sontag. Evans and Sontag are partners in s livery business. The sheriff finds a Peruvian coin in their stable from a shipment that had been stolen from a train. When he questions them the sheriff is shot and the pair escapes. There are plenty of settlers that also hate the railroad and so the two find shelter. Sue is followed to their hideout in a mine. A posse comes and there is a shootout. They seem to chase the posse away but other members of it sneak around. Sontag is mortally wounded. Evans is hit but still able to shoot. He and Sue retreat to a cabin at the other end of the mine. He is determined to fight to the end but Sue gets in the way and begs him to stop. Evans tells the posse that he will only surrender if no railroad man gets the reward for his capture and that the reward is given to the widow Perkins who owns the cabin and who’s also been railroaded. They agree and he gives up. Evans is sentenced to life.

The real John Sontag was born in 1861 in Minnesota. In the late 1880s he came to work for the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in California until his leg was crushed while coupling rail cars in the Fresno yard. He was angry that the railroad did not treat his on the job wounds and refused to hire him back once he’d recovered. In 1889 he got a job on a farm owned by Chris Evans, a Canadian from Bells Corners near Ottawa.

Evans had left Canada at the age of 17 because he wanted to fight in the Civil War and help to liberate the slaves. He served as a scout and later deserted. He worked as a teamster, a logger and a miner and in 1874 he married Molly Byrd. Evans was angry at the railroad for forcing settlers to sell their property to them. Sontag and Evans leased a livery stable in Modesto. Sontag became engaged to Evans’s daughter Eva.

After their business burned down they began robbing trains. They would put horses near the spot where they intended to rob the train and then would walk back to the depot and sneak on. When the train got near their horses they would emerge from hiding and force the engineer to stop. They would dynamite the express car to get the money and then ride away on their horses.

Sontag’s brother George Contant had been serving time in prison for theft. When he was released he went with he and his brother to Minnesota where they tried to rob a train. Back in California they robbed a train but got only $500 and some bags of nearly worthless Mexican and Peruvian coins. Contant was arrested again but Sontag and Evans eluded the law for a year until their capture after the battle of Stone Corral. Sontag was severely wounded and died in custody. Evans lost an eye and an arm before he finally surrendered. In 1893 Evans was convicted and imprisoned. With the help of an admirer of Evans named Ed Morrell (who would later be a character in Jack London’s Star Rover), Eva smuggled a gun to her father’s cell and he escaped. But devoted fathers make lousy fugitives and he couldn’t keep himself from visiting hi family. He was recaptured two months later. Evans spent 17 years in Folsom Prison where he became a Socialist. He was pardoned by Governor Hiram Johnson after many of Eva’s appeals. He was kicked out of California and spent the rest of his life in Portland, Oregon where he wrote a socialist book. He died in 1917. He had a son named Joseph and three daughters, Eva, Ynez and Winifred.

The second story was about Rube Burrows, the Alabama Wolf, who was the first person to single-handedly rob a train. He does it by shipping himself in a crate on a train, then emerging, forcing the clerk to open the safe and leaving when the train stops for water. There are accomplices at either end though, so in a sense it isn’t single-handed. He steals $30,000. His girlfriend has been picked up for questioning. Burrows comes to the jail in drag disguised as Emma’s mother and then busts her out. They are supposed to meet up with the other four members of the gang but only one is there. Emma tells Rube the others aren’t coming and convinces him to just split the money with her. He can’t bring himself to shoot his partner and so she kills him. They are followed by the law as they make a getaway in their wagon. Shots are exchanged and Rube is killed. Emma tires to get away but wagon chases always seem to end up with a wreck on this show. She dies when the wagon crashes.

The real historical figure was named Rube Burrow. He tried to be a farmer but when his crops failed in 1886 he and his brother Jim began robbing trains. The first attempt only garnered $300 but the second time they stopped the train on a trestle which kept passengers from other cars from trying to stop them. This was more profitable and they repeated that system. Detectives caught one of the gang when he left a raincoat behind and they traced it to a store. He was identified, arrested, questioned and he ratted on Burrow. Up until this point Burrow had no criminal record. Late in 1887 the brothers were surrounded while riding a train. Jim was captured but Rube shot his way out. Rube had several narrow escapes from capture with a lot of gunfights until he was finally caught in 1890. He entertained his captors with funny stories all the way to jail. At the jail he got them to hand him his bag for some ginger snaps but there was also a gun inside. He locked the guards in the cell and escaped but ended up in a gunfight in the street with a detective and died.