‘Greatest Escapes With Arturo Castro’ Episode 15: Wildest of the Wild Bunch

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, Ben Feldman (Monsters at Work, Superstore) sets off into the sunset with Arturo as they hop on the trail of one of the Wild West’s greatest outlaws, Kid Curry. Read all the transcripts here.

Arturo Castro: ¡Hola, Amigos! This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories. Today we’re telling an iconic story of the old west, getting into the life and escapes of Kid Curry, the wildest of the wild bunch.

I’m Arturo Castro, and my guest today is actor, producer, and incredibly generous lover Ben Feldman!

[Wild West theme]

Ben Feldman: Beautiful.

Arturo: Wow! Ben. Welcome to the show.

Ben: Thank you for having me. Thank you for that incredible intro music. That was really, I—it’d be really funny if you went straight from that into like a really kind of maudlin sad, like, serious podcast.

Arturo: So then everybody, so this—this story, uh, begins with everybody dying and how that has affected masculinity throughout, uh, the generations.

1. Ben’s Escape
2. Chapter 1: Another One Bites the Dust
3. Chapter 2: Taking Names and Robbing Trains
4. Chapter 3: Kids & Pinkertons
5. Chapter 4: Spotted
6. Chapter 5: Outfoxed
7. Chapter 6: Riding Off Into the Sunset?
8. Outro
9. Credits

Ben’s Escape

Arturo:  So, Ben, what do you consider your greatest escape?

Ben: Now, you know what’s funny is I was thinking about it this morning cause I was thinking about escapes and, and I guess I—I’m constantly having to be reminded, just sort of what a hashtag blessed life I’ve had.

Arturo: You are so blessed.

Ben: I was like, “have you ever been trapped?” And I—I mean, I’ve been trapped in like boring, like—there’s been like, jobs that I’ve bailed on and stuff like that, but that’s not interesting. I kept coming back to I got trapped in my head because I accidentally took mescaline at a concert.

Arturo: Yes. The year was 1964.

Ben: –and it—exactly. Nobody takes mescaline–

Arturo: What does mescaline do? Can you–

Ben: OK, so, mescaline is essentially peyote. And like, I was at a Phish concert …

Arturo: Yes.

Ben: –at turn of the century, Y2K, like the 2000, when we all thought the computers were gonna kill us. Um, and it was like, a three day event and by the third day, no one could find any, um, Molly, like, is what we were looking for. This feels wrong to tell on a podcast, but whatever.

Arturo: No, I uh … dude. Yeah. I’m familiar.

Ben:  But we, we were looking around, everything was, you know, it was just like dry, like there was just nothing. Um, and then we kept kind of yelling out for it, and then all of a sudden this guy dressed as the Grim Reaper—uh, and by the way, like, I was like, a theater major. Like, I should understand foreshadowing. Like if the Grim—the Grim Reaper literally shows up and is like, “I’ve got all the Molly you want.” And, um, he gave us these pills.

And so we started watching the show and I’m standing next to this guy, who was like a huge—he had a problem. And I just happened to be standing next to him, so I’m kind of keeping up with him. And like, he took his first one and then he took his second one. And so I kept taking ’em.

And then suddenly, everybody was a demon. Like everybody’s faces. And—and I looked around and I was like, “I gotta get outta here. Everybody’s turned into a demon.” And so I guess there is an escape because I’m leaving my friends and—but I, I’ll take like, one step and then I’ll turn around and they’re like 20 yards away from me and then they’re demons and people are melting into my shoulder. And then I looked down at the ground and I thought it was a battlefield because there’s just bodies everywhere, which were, in retrospect, probably people just like laying down.

But to me it was just like–

Arturo: Having the time of their lives, but it was still a battlefield.

Ben: Yeah. Having the time of their lives, but to me they were dead. This, this was just a … a post-apocalyptic–

Arturo: Like, why are these soldiers dancing in rhythm? Um …

Ben: Yeah. It was all of these things.

And then the sun came up and I saw everybody kind of wander back to the tent, like zombies. And, um, I don’t really remember anything except the next thing I knew, I was in a car with my friend Lily, and we drove back from Florida. So, um …

Arturo: Aw man, that’s a great story. That’s a great escape.

Ben: That’s—that’s like when I think about like getting trapped. Yeah. I’m trapped in my own head.

Arturo: You know, that was a fantastic escape. In fact, we, we have one of the producers–

Ben: Carl, you here to tell me that? I can’t—I can’t do any of that?

Arturo: No, no. Carl—Carl is like, is having PTSD from the time when him and I went to see an Aqua concert, um, in Sweden in 1998. Man, that was a f***ing time. Wasn’t it? When they played “I’m a Barbie Girl,” I was a Barbie girl. I literally was a Barbie girl.

Let me ask you something, Ben, have you ever considered robbing a train?

Ben: Only every day. Um … when I think of all the places I’d love to rob, um, which I do often, train is not high on the list. It does not seem like a very lucrative, um, loot for me.

Arturo: Do you like westerns? Is that a thing?

Ben: Yeah, if it’s a good one, I don’t know.

Arturo: Well, today I’m gonna tell you the greatest Western you ever heard, man.

Ben: Is—is this Yellowstone-y? I like Yellowstone for some reason.

Arturo: Yeah. It’s Yellowstone-y. That’s right. Kevin Costner’s coming on.

Ben: Just like your opening song.

Arturo: That’s right. Uh, well, let’s—let’s escape, shall we?

Chapter 1: Another One Bites the Dust

Arturo: So born in Iowa in 1867, Harvey Logan and his brother started out as wandering ranch hands and horse breakers working across the west from Wyoming to Colorado and then down south all the way to Texas.

No one knows exactly why he changed his name, to be honest. Maybe it was just a line of work. But at some point, Harvey decided it would be best to choose an alias. So when he arrived in Rocky Point, Montana, in the fall of 1884, he introduced himself as Harvey Curry. OK?

Ben: Curry?

Arturo: Curry, that’s right. He was ahead of the game in the Southeast Asian food spice market. You know?

Ben: It just, I was—I was expecting something a little more west-y. You know, they all had nicknames. I was about to say, what a ridi—of course he changed his name to like, you know–

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right.

Ben: –Steel—Steel Toe Bullet Chewer, or whatever they call themselves.

Arturo: And he—yeah, he was just like, “Harvey Potpourri was taken.”

So historians guessed that Harvey was trying to outrun the law because of a saloon brawl in Colorado. Also, his older brother was trying to make sure that he couldn’t be tracked down by his wife.

Ben. Give me a [imitates whip sound]

Ben: [imitates whip sound]

Arturo: There we go.

Ben: I could do your sound effects. So anyway, this guy, this cowboy, Mr. Curry…

Arturo: Yeah. One of the local Montana ranchers said that Harvey and his brother were the best cattle ropers around. They were known for being hardworking and good-natured. So it sounds like he’s got a nice life of cattle ranching ahead of him.

But all of that changed in 1894 when Harvey tracked down his neighbor Pike Landusky at a bar.

Ben: Pike?

Arturo: That’s right. Yes. So the two men, these two men—these two neighbors had been feuding and Harvey wanted to settle the score.

Ben: Ok.

Arturo: So he found Pike probably a f***ing alien so let’s just, you know. Let’s just say that’s not really–

Ben: Great name though. I like the name Pike.

Arturo: Yeah. So he found him drinking at a bar and tapped him on the shoulder and he, as he was turning around Harvey, bam! Hit him in the jaw. [Punch sfx] Give a, yeah, that’s right. Gimme a [makes punch sound].

[Punch SFX]

Yeah. Yeah. That’s OK. That one hurt.

[Bar crowd SFX]

That’s—is that the bar “oo-ing?”

Ben: There’s an audience, right?

Arturo: Wow. Good. So Harvey hit him in the jaw with a right hook pike, hit him back, and then the two men ended up rolling on the floor, right? Harvey ended up on top of Pike punching him until the bystanders begged him to stop.

[Bar crowd SFX]

Right? That’s right.

Ben: Oh, that’s them. There they go. There’s them begging.

Arturo: There you go. They only have one level and that is shocked. So that—that might have been the end of things, but as Harvey was walking away, Pike drew his pistol and he pointed at Harvey’s back and he pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed.

[Gun Jam SFX]

Ben: No. I thought that only happened in movies.

Arturo: I’m sure there’s some embellishment here from, I don’t know—it’s f***ing the west. Everybody’s like, “yeah, his gun jammed.” Um, in response—I’m like, “I don’t buy it, but f*** it. I’m saying it anyway.”

In response, Harvey shot Pike three times in the chest.

[Gunshot SFX + Grunts]

Can you—like, that is such classic Western sh*t though, isn’t it?

Ben: The three times—the amount of times he shot him?

Arturo: Well, just the, like—the gun jams and the like, you know, two beating him up and you’re like, walking away all cool.

Ben: Well, I—what I don’t understand is like if there are no rules, we can all use our guns and shoot each other, why are they rolling around—before they got to the rolling around on the floor part, I can’t believe a gun didn’t come out. Why did the gun not come out until sort of, they’re—he’s exiting, you know?

Arturo: Maybe they just wanted to like duke it out, you know? He didn’t intend to kill Pike? But then, you know, you—you got bystanders. I mean, we’ve heard them, they sound f***ing cool from whatever Ben Chugg is playing.

[Bar crowd SFX]

Ben: It does. It sounds cool. You gotta shoot someone if you wanna hear the oohs and ahs.

Arturo: Exactly. I get it. I totally get it.

[Glass and coins dropping SFX]

Ben: Yeah. Oh, did someone drop something?

Arturo: Yeah. I—are those chains?

Ben: It was total chaos. Yeah. He was wearing—he had one of those chain wallets on, and that was just that jingling.

Arturo: Just kept beating on the floor as he’s beating his ass.

So Harvey’s life of cattle ranching was over from then on, right? He went on the run, but he knew where he was gonna go. He set out for a bandit camp called Hole-in-the-Wall, and he had some friends there. You see, while he was running cattle, Harvey met some extremely wild dudes, including a man who had served time for horse thieving—in Sundance–

Ben: And his name is Jasper Rabinowitz.

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And his name is Choo-Choo Lemons.

Um. Um, yeah. So this was in Sundance, Wyoming, as in the Sundance Kid. That was the Sundance Kid.

Ben: Oooh.

Arturo: There it is. Yeah. So Harvey Curry now had a body to his name and met up with the one and only Sundance Kid. Right? So soon he had a new name to go with this new friend. They called him Kid Curry. Whoa.

Ben: Kid Curry. OK. That sounds really modern. That sounds more like–

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he had an awesome album–

Ben: Yeah, exactly.

Arturo: –in 2010.

Ben: He’s like the liberal version of Kid Rock.

Arturo: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. He’s a more–

Ben: He’s on the trail for Biden, not Trump. That’s the only difference.

Arturo: That’s right, that’s right. He—he’s seen the way–

Ben: Yeah.

Arturo: He used to be far-right, now he’s far-left.

Uh, so he was on the trail to become one of the most wanted criminals in America.

Chapter 2: Taking Names and Robbing Trains

Arturo: So Kid Curry, a very liberal man of the 2010s, and his friends started their outlaw ways with a little cattle rustling.

Ben: Cattle rustling, did you say?

Arturo: Yes. Said that was—“yes sir. Rustling. I said. I said, well …” Uh, he—which I assume is stealing cows. Right? That’s what it is. I—I never really bothered to ask.

Ben: I mean, or it’s tipping.

Arturo: They—just, to be honest, I just … I just thought they liked, would tickle them. You know, I was just like, rustle them.

Ben: Come here. Get over here, you cute little cow.

Arturo: Let me rustle your little hair, your little cow. But it turns out—but stealing cows didn’t really scratch the itch for him, right? The more they got away with it, the more they wanted to try, you know?

Ben: Cows are like … they’re like Pringles. You, you can’t just—you can’t just steal one cow.

Arturo: It’s like we—we can only do about 50 a night.

Ben: Once you pop, you can’t stop.

Arturo: That’s right.

So Kid Curry heard that another outlaw—named Butch Cassidy—had pulled off an $8000 heist from a coal mine, they were super inspired. Maybe that’s because the mine company was called “Castle Gate.” So that heist became known by the badass name, “The Castle Gate Robbery.” And that, my friends, is branding baby.

Ben: Wow.

Arturo: Also then have somebody like Pike Landusky or whatever, being like, can we name it after me? Like, no f***ing Pike. No!

Ben: No! They finally got it right with some branding. Yeah.

Arturo: So for the target of his first big robbery Kid Curry and his gang picked a bank in South Dakota. They knew it well because it was a place where cattle drivers would get together to deposit their money, right? So the gang expected it would hold about $30,000, which is about $1 million in today’s money.

So three days after the reunion Kid Curry and five of his cronies rode into town ready for a heist. But things started to go kind of wrong from the start because the man that they had sent as a lookout to scout the location, he scouted his way right into a f***ing saloon, so he was totally trash drunk by the time others arrived. He was drunk. He was just like, “I’m gonna scout this, but … ”

Ben: I feel like that was a problem a lot back then. Like, I feel like the saloons got in the way of a lot of business.

Arturo: Like, how many saloons—were they just conveniently placed everywhere?

Ben: I mean, when I imagine the Old West, I just imagined saloons and like, front porches. Just everything has a—you’re just—just people shooting you from a slightly elevated porch in front of swinging doors.

Arturo: A awkwardly elevated place. It’s not like, not high enough where you have to take a big step, but it’s just like high enough–

Ben: No, just a little—just a tiny step up and then a dusty road. Yeah.

Arturo: Can you come down from there? That’s exactly what it was.

Ben: And why the swinging doors? I—I have a lot of questions for them, but that’s for another podcast.

Arturo: We will answer all of them after the show. So, um, without this guy, the robbers didn’t—they just rushed into the bank with their guns drawn, demanding money. You know, they didn’t know what to expect, so they ordered everyone to put their hands up, but then they just had no f***ing idea what to do next.

So afterwards, the bystanders said that they looked really confused, like they didn’t expect the plan to actually work. And I—I love the idea of like … just the bystanders giving them suggestions, you know, being like, “uh, I—I think you’re supposed to take some of the–”

Ben: “You probably wanna wave the gun around at all of us. It would make us feel–”

Arturo: “Yeah, I’m not feeling really threatened back here. Sorry. Can we–”

Ben: “There’s just—your voice lacks like, a confidence. You need to own the room, you know, read it and then own it.”

Arturo: “Believe in yourself. That’s right. Call me a low life. Again.”

Ben: “Exactly, like—make me feel small. You could be bigger.”

Arturo: “To the back of the room. That’s right.”

So they started collecting money from—from all the customers in the bank, but that took way too long, because bystanders started to notice them from the outside. Right? So–

Ben: Right. Wait, hold on. Sorry to stop you here. But they’re in a bank. Isn’t there a vault? Like what? They’re going around and asking each person individually?

Arturo: Yes, one by f***ing one, they asked them to give them their money, which doesn’t make any sense, right?

Ben: They could have gone to any—they could have gone to the saloon and done that.

Arturo: That’s right. But they were like, “why is this f***ing taking so long?” And I was like, “because you didn’t go to the f***ing vault, man.” Like you–

Ben: Start there! Yeah.

Arturo: I—I’d love to imagine somebody [being] like, “ah, no, sorry.” And they’re like, “OK, moving on. That one didn’t work, you know?”

Ben: “I only have a one. Is that OK? Or can you—can you change a 10?”

Arturo: “OK. Give, give her change and make it snappy.”

Um, so this is when the drunk lookout finally sprung into action for some reason. But, you know, he was super drunk, so he’s—when the bystanders from the outside started noticing, he just started shooting randomly at them, right—right in the street, right?

Ben: At the—at the bystanders?

Arturo: At the bystanders looking into the bank, like, “oh, what the f***’s going on in the bank?” So he’s just like, “ah, nothing to see here. Shoot, shoot, shoot at you. Bang, bang, bang”

[Gunshot + Bar crowd SFX]

Ben: “Yes. This is totally normal. You’re good. You’re OK. Don’t look here. Just move along!”

Arturo: So he started shooting randomly at them in the street, and the gunfire scared the robbers inside the bank. Uh, so they started shooting wildly out of the windows, and then they ran off before they could get into the bank safe, right? So it was just a complete confusion caused by moonshine whiskey.

So they rushed outside, they jumped on their horses and galloped out of town. They came away with less than $100 in cash, which is, uh, I don’t know, like $3000 something in today’s money.

Ben: Right. But split between them. Not a—not a big take.

Arturo: Not a big—no, no, no. So when the shooting started though, it scared the drunk lookout’s horse, which ran away.

Ben: Of course.

[Horse SFX]  

There it goes. There it goes. Bye.

Arturo: That’s the actual sound of the actual horse, actually.

Ben: And that horse’s name was Sandwich McGillicuddy.

Arturo: Yeah. That’s right. So it left him to get caught, right. Like, if you’re the drunk guy by this point, and … what—what do you—what do you think you do? Like your horse ran away, like, you’re like–

Ben: I mean, I’d go back into the saloon. I feel like I have friends in there. You know, I didn’t shoot anybody in there, right? I left.

Arturo: Yeah. But he did something similar, but way, like, less discreet. He tried to act like he wasn’t involved by running into an outhouse and throwing his gun and his knife down the hole. Right? But like, the townspeople have just watched him shoot at them, so …

Ben: They can ID his guy. Yeah.

Arturo: He took four steps to the outhouse. They’re like, “we just saw you.” So they pushed over the outhouse. They raked through the sh*t, collected his weapons, and forced him to confess to the crime and describe the outlaws’ plans.

I can imagine being like, “fine, I’ll tell you. Just stop waving that sh*tty gun in my face. That’s f***ing nasty.” You know? He’s just afraid of feces.

Ben: Yeah. And also, weren’t the outlaws’ plans clear at this point? Like why did—why are these—the townspeople asking him to explain the plan? The plan was clear.

Arturo: What did they wanna do? They did it!

Ben: “When you went into that bank with those guns, what did you want?”

Arturo: “Well, they wanted—you saw it, you were there. You gave them suggestions as to how to do it. I don’t know why you’re asking me about it.”

So the authorities across the west were on the lookout for Kid Curry, and he was recognized in Montana two months later while buying camp supplies. So soon a posse was on his trail.

The posse was heavily armed, and they caught up with Curry and the Sundance Kid while they were setting up camp. Sundance was too far from his gear to make an escape. But Kid Curry ran to his horse. He jumped on and kicked into a gallop. As he rode off, though, one of the posse fired his rifle–

[Gunshot SFX]

Ben: Oh, scared me.

Arturo: And shot a hole in Curry’s wrist, right? The bullet went straight through the horse’s neck too. So the horse collapsed into a sand dune and Curry surrendered when the posse arrived.

So just keep in mind this shot in the wrist, because it’ll be important later. That’s called—that’s called foreshadowing.

In September, the men were taken to Deadwood, South Dakota, where they were held in the jail to stand trial. This is exactly when Kid Curry made his first jail break. One night when the jailer was coming back from a date with his wife—aww, good that they were keeping the marriage alive.

Ben: You think they went to the saloon too? Or there were restaurants.

Arturo: They went to the saloon and then they went to rob a bank real quick and then they–

Ben: Right. That’s literally it. They went to buy new swinging doors.

Arturo: “Honey, what did—do we like these doors? They’re kind of swingy.”

Ben: “I feel like our doors don’t swing like they used to.”

Arturo: “Uh, fine. I’ll get you, uh, some swinging doors, Jesus Christ.”

[Saloon door SFX]

Ben: Oh, there they are.

Arturo: So, uh, after the day, they checked in on the prisoners and he saw that they were still locked in the building, but they had somehow gotten out of their cells. When he ordered them back inside so he could lock them in, they said that their cells were closed and that they were locked out. So, confused, the jailer—God bless him—the jailer opened the prison to check the locks on the cell doors, and the prisoners jumped him, which was not anticipated by anybody in history, obviously.

Ben: These people are so dumb.

Arturo: What the f***? It’s like, “Hey, get back in there.” “Sorry, we’re locked down.” He’s like, “OK, I’ll come in and lock you here.”

Ben: “Ah ah ah, honor system. You get back in there.”

Arturo: They’re like, “I’ll—I’ll come and figure it out for you this once, but next time if it happens again, you do it by yourself.”

So they beat his ass and they locked him and his wife in the cell. Thankfully they didn’t want–

Ben: Oh no. But they went on the date. They got to go on the date–

Arturo: They got in the date and like afterwards they’re like, “are you as exhilarated as I am?”

Ben: “Yeah. This is like an escape room.”

Arturo: He was like, “I totally planned it all. I’m sorry I didn’t get you the swingy doors, but, uh, you said you wanted some excitement in your life.”

So more than 60 men joined the search for the escapees over the next few days. But false sightings had the authorities running in circles as Kid Curry and the Sundance Kid stole horses and made their escape.

Chapter 3: Kids & Pinkertons

Arturo: So we’re gonna get some really cool music cause we’re gonna introduce chapter three.

Ben: Ooh, OK.

[Guitar]

Arturo: There we go. There we go.

Ben: Very cool. Very Cool.

Arturo: Thank you.

So the fact that Kid Curry’s first bank heist didn’t go very well didn’t keep him from planning more robberies, right? So him and the Sundance Kid retreated to Utah where they were welcomed by a new partner in crime, their bandit hero, Butch Cassidy.

Ben: All right. Butchy!

Arturo: Right. There we go. We’re getting famous people here. Butchy! What’s going on? He’s like, “guys, I just met a guy called Salvatoré Peninsula. I don’t know.”

Ben: Peninsula!

Arturo:  Um, so when Curry’s gang arrived at Butch Cassidy’s hideout, it was the first official meeting of the group that would become the Wild Bunch. And for the next four years, Kid Curry, Butch, and the Sundance Kid would carry out a string of the biggest, most balls-out heists in American history.

It started in July in 1898 with a train robbery in Nevada. Two robbers on the train forced the engineer and the brakeman to stop at a mile marker where Kid Curry was waiting with the horses. There, they used explosives to blow open the safe, demolishing an entire train car in the process, which seems excessive. I’m just gonna say that.

Ben: So there’s a safe on the train?

Arturo: There’s a safe on the train.

Ben: And that’s the money that the people paid to get on the train?

Arturo: I’m sure it’s like, they’re transporting money.

Ben: They’re transporting money.

Arturo: To be honest it’s not clear.

Ben: This must be money that’s going from one place to another. Yeah, they must—this is a specific train.

Arturo: A specific train.

Ben: They didn’t just wanna rob—they weren’t like, “trains have a lot of money. Let’s go rob a train. I’m tired of these banks.”

Arturo: “Man, these trains, they’re just known for–”

Ben: “–these banks are so predictably lucrative. Let’s go–”

Arturo: “Let me make it—let me work for it. Let me work for it.”

Ben: “Yeah, let’s, let’s take a chance. Maybe this train will have money.”

Arturo: So newspapers said that they made off with anything from $9000 to $26,000, which in today’s world would be almost $1 million. So that’s not bad.

Ben: And there’s three of them, right?

Arturo: Yes. Well listen, listen, if this show was named “The Greatest Heists,” we might go into detail about them, but I’m just gonna quickly name you what they were, OK?

So we have the Wilcox train robbery. [Ding SFX] There you go. The Fulsom train robbery. [Ding SFX] The Tipton Train robbery. [Ding SFX]. The Exeter Creek train robbery. [Ding SFX]. And all the other train robberies.

OK, so listen—over the next couple years, Kid Curry and the gang used the same method to pull off a string of infamous train robberies. After each one, he would lie low and chill for a few months and enjoy himself.

I mean, in today’s money they were each getting, like, $400,000 a pop. If you had that much money drop into your lap all at once, how would you spend it?

Ben: I would’ve paid Phish to come play in my backyard and do that whole thing all over again. Y2K and everything.

Arturo: So listen, so between jobs, the gang would split—would split up, right. Kid Curry would travel from town to town playing cool, drinking apricot brandy, and telling people that he met, that he was a railroad man.

And we—what can we assume that a dude who drinks apricot brandy? Like, I don’t know.

Ben: That’s very—I would imagine that was pretty sophisticated. Uh, I mean, it’s sophisticated now.

Arturo: I mean, it’s like, “I’m a railroad man and I love railroad things.”

Ben: He’s like, twirling his mustache and, and you know, in like, a bowtie.

Arturo: Which is actually accurate. He really had a sick-ass mustache.

Ben: I mean, didn’t—I guess everybody had a mustache back then, though, didn’t they?

Arturo: Yeah. You know, they—they had different trademarks and that was one of his.

Ben: Why are they—why are they both “Kid,” by the way? What’s the deal? Like, how old are these guys? Do you know?

Arturo: Seventy-two, each of ’em are 72.

Ben: They’re a geriatric kid.

Arturo: Kid Curry actually partied the hardest. He was the kind of a bad boy, uh, of the wild bunch. And he got a reputation both as the infamous killer of the crew, but also as the most frequent lover.

[“Sexy” music]

Yes. Women acro–

Ben: Really?

Arturo: Yeah. Women across the west claimed that he was the father of their children. And if all the stories were true, he would’ve had like, 85 kids.

Ben: Wow.

[Baby SFX]

Arturo: Oh my god.

Ben: Listen to them. There’s one of them now.

Arturo: Ben Chugg. If that f***ing thing plays in my head, or if it play—like, if somehow I leave the computer on and I hear that in the middle of the night, I will die of a heart attack. Um, you know how they say that there’s no more beautiful sound than that of a baby’s laughter? Unless you live by yourself and there is no baby. You know?

[More baby SFX]

Ben: By the way, I have two children and I—I can’t stand babies and I hate—and that sound is—is trauma. It’s triggering for me, too.

Arturo: Oh man.

Ben: So this guy’s, this guy’s going around. He’s banging left and right.

Arturo: He’s—he’s having sex. He’s, he’s—uh, a railroad man. He’s drinking apricot brandy.

Ben: He’s got the mustache. He’s got the apricot brandy–

Arturo: Yeah. See—yeah.

Ben: Wait, is he the one with the apricot brandy?

Arturo: He—he loves the apricot brandy.

So every now and then the Wild Bunch would get back together for some harmless fun. Right? Like in December of 1900, Kid Curry, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid all got together with a few of the other friends for a wedding where they took the now very famous picture. So it shows them in perfectly tailored suits with showy watch chains, ties and waistcoats. And apparently they’d all gotten new bowler hats and they tossed them on their heads at jaunty angles cause they’re like, “oh, are you doing—are you doing jaunty angle? I’m doing jaunty angle.”

Ben: These guys are adorable.

Arturo: They’re so cute. Good for them.

So the string of successful robberies by the Wild Bunch was of course drawing a lot of attention, and that included the attention of the railroad’s favorite protection service, the Pinkerton Detective Agency—which, I don’t know they spoke like that, but that’s historically accurate.

When the photographer gave his negatives to the Pinkertons, that famous photograph became the wanted poster for the Wild Bunch. It was printed all across America.

You know, I heard some people started to send their loved ones the pics that they want to be used if they ever go missing, you know? But I’m wondering, like—is there one you would NOT want to be stuck with ever?

Ben: Yeah. I mean, if you—if you Google image me pre-2000, let’s say, nine—any of those pictures, I was just a huge D-bag.

Arturo: Yes, you can smell the Axe Body Spray.

Ben: Exactly. It was—I mean, everybody was a disaster back then, but I—I was not the exception.

Arturo: Once everyone started to recognize their faces, members of the Wild Bunch started to get picked off. Some were killed. Others got caught and locked up for their crimes. And eventually Butch and the Sundance Kid decided to take their money and leave the country. They thought if they could make it to South America, they could become like, legitimate farmers there. So in March of 1901, they boarded a ship for Argentina carrying $12,000 in gold.

Ben: Which I imagine is heavy.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s right. They probably had a bunch of chests. And I love that people in the steamer being like, “I don’t know, they seem perfectly normal to have 12 chests of, uh, heavy sh*t.”

Ben: “They don’t—they don’t—they don’t seem to change into a lot of different clothes, but they—they packed a lot. I don’t know what’s in there.”

Arturo: “And they keep striking that pose of that—of those wild bunch guys.”

Ben: “Yeah, they keep taking pictures. They keep–”

Arturo: “And what’s with the apricot brandy?”

Ben: “Guys, picture, another picture.” They did not learn.

Arturo: “Another picture, again, again.” Yeah. Um, so Kid Curry on the other hand–

Ben: “Oh my god, a sunset.”

Arturo: –he believed—yeah “this one at sunset.” “Yeah. This one—this one in moonlight.”

Ben: “[These] guys are adorable.”

Arturo: Um, so—so Kid Curry, on the other hand, believed that there were still places in the United States where he could hide out living under a false identity. And he might even try to pull off another heist or two. Things had gone according to plan so far. So he thought he was untouchable.

But he was wrong.

Chapter 4: Spotted

Arturo: So with Butch and the Sundance Kid off the scene, Kid Curry became the biggest name of the Wild Bunch still at large in the U.S.A. In September 1901, Kid Curry was traveling across the south and he was staying in luxury hotels and entertaining himself at brothels and pool halls.

Ben: By the way, you asked me what I would do if someone just dumped a bunch of money into my lap. I—I think Kid Curry and I would be—we’d be pretty similar. I mean, the fancy hotels–

Arturo: Yeah. Also, also, I’m—I’m noticing that 1901 now has pool halls, so we, we moved on from saloons and that was—there’s brothels, pool halls … They’re diversifying.

Ben: Yeah. It’s a—it’s just sort of a—an old Vegas, it’s just sounds like everything. It’s just—just fun.

Arturo: Just—everything goes.

But Kid Curry… ran into some trouble. Dun dun dun!

He was traveling with a girlfriend when she was arrested at a Nashville bank trying to exchange some of the money that they had stolen from a train.

The Pinkertons and the police, they had kept a strict account of the numbered bills that they were missing, right? So now, they knew someone connected with the train robberies was attempting to spend money in Nashville. So they closed in.

So when his girlfriend didn’t come back from the bank, Kid Curry got spooked. He was sure that the detectives had nabbed her. So he hiked into the Tennessee mountains to hide out. But you know, Kid Curry isn’t really cut out for the quiet life. And after a few weeks he started to get restless.

So you’re Kid Curry, you’re chilling in the Tennessee mountains, you’re bored outta your mind. How do you cook up a little excitement? What do you do? How do you fill your time?

Ben: Maybe write a—a musical? Is that what he did? Did he write a–

Arturo: Yes, yes, yes. That’s what he did.

Ben: –choreographed and wrote a whole musical, I would imagine.

Arturo: A one man show. “Hey, hey, hey. Welcome everybody to the Honky Tonk Hour with Kid Curry.”

Ben: “Smokey Mountain!”

Arturo: “Yeah! Wooey!”

Ben: And this is how Oklahoma started—the musical. Yeah, that’s–

Arturo: Hugh Jackman starred in that in 1901.

Um, so he waited until he thought that the investigation had blown over, and he decided to go for another round of good times in Knoxville. On Friday, December the 13, Curry was at the Knoxville Central Bar when he had some bad luck.

Ben: Oh.

Arturo: For Kid Curry, he made the trouble himself. So he was playing cards with other regulars when something set him off and he attacked two of the other players, choking and hitting them, and they just started–

[Angry crowd SFX + punching SFX]

Yup—there, there you go. There’s a bar stand—bystanders. They started brawling and the noise of the fight brought in two police officers who were walking by on the street.

When they got close, they tried to ask him questions. Kid Curry pulled out a gun from his jacket and started shooting.

Ben: No.

Arturo: Yep. Yeah. The two officers were close enough to club him with their sticks.

Ben: Then what terrible aim he has. If they’re close enough to club him, he can’t shoot these guys?

Arturo: Yeah. Also, like, why are you getting—well, the apricot brandy, I think, is—is to blame, too.

Ben: Yeah, it was too much apricot brandy.

Arturo: Yeah. So one even splintered his club over Curry’s head, but both men ended the fight with bullet wounds from Curry.

Ben: Of course.

Arturo: So Kid Curry ran out into the dark night trailing blood. The local sheriff brought in dogs and tracked him through the night and police combed the area.

Kid Curry was finally caught 30 miles north walking the railroad tracks. And once he was in custody, they worked to identify him. Remember how they would’ve identified him?

Ben: The wrist!

Arturo: The gunshot wound in his wrist! Give him a round of applause everybody.

[Applause SFX]

Ben: Wow.

Arturo: Yeah.

Ben: Guy should have worn gloves.

Arturo: So they realized that he was, he had been captured in Montana and they were super ecstatic, right? The prisoner was Kid Curry, the wildest of the wild bunch.

So when he was finally brought to Knox County Jail, word had already spread. He was met by a crowd of hundreds, just there to watch him get thrown in jail. It took almost like, a year and a half for Kid Curry’s case to go through the courts. The local sheriff had to fend off visitors and intercept packages of escape tools like hacksaws, etc. Now, clearly, Curry had friends on the outside who were trying to get him out. However, nobody actually like him in the courtroom, because in November, Kid Curry was sentenced to 130 years of hard labor in a federal penitentiary.

So Kid Curry decided to take his freedom into his own hands.

Chapter 5: Outfoxed

Arturo: A few days later, as the jailer was making his rounds to check in on the prisoner, Kid Curry called him to look out the window, but when he did, the jailer found a loop of wire whipped over his head, dropped down over his neck, and Kid Curry pulled it tight.

With the wire cutting into his throat the guard was forced to put his hands through the bars where at Kid Curry tied him in place. Now, once the guard was bound, Kid Curry pulled a long makeshift grappling hook from its hiding place in the prison bathroom, and from the jail hallway, he was able to reach through the bars and hook the shoebox that held the guard’s weapons.

Like this is like some cartoon sh*t, right?

Ben: I’m so silly cause I’m expecting this sort of Andy Dufrain kind of like—like smart Shawshank, you know, escape and, no. This is my man Kid. He’s gonna be—it’s gonna be blunt force.

Arturo: He’s not gonna be bothered by, yeah, mathematics or physics.

Ben: No, no math, no. Yeah, none of that. No crawling through sewers.

Arturo: No sir. “I’m gonna reach for that shoe.” Also, police station. You have your sh*t in like a shoebox like thing, you know, like ... it’s in visibility for—of the prisoners. Probably not the best idea.

So he pulled it over and now he had a Colt .45. And then he waited…

A second guard had the prison keys. So at 4:30 that afternoon, the man arrived and Kid Curry was held on the second floor. And as soon as the jailer reached the top of the steps, he was looking down the barrel of a pistol. The choice was clear: Open the prison door immediately or die.

Ben: Oh yeah.

Arturo: Curry gathered his things holding the man at gunpoint, and when he was ready, he put the gun in the guard’s back and walked him downstairs and out to the stable. Kid Curry forced the guard to prepare him a horse, and he chose the one belonging to the local sheriff, James Fox. Why? That’s insult to injury, isn’t it? Like why take the sheriff’s horse?

Ben: Prepare him a—a horse?

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, a horse.

Ben: Oh, I thought you said “a course.” And I was like “this—this dude’s my style.” Like he wanted–

Arturo: He needed to take a quick course on how to properly drink.

Ben: I thought you meant like, a course, like, a part of a meal, you know, like—the guy had to prepare him. Before–

Arturo: He wanted a masterclass–

Ben: I leave, you’re gonna make me a bouillabaisse.

Arturo: Yes, that’s right. He wanted a course on musical theater writing skills.

So once the horse was ready, Kid Curry jumped into the saddle and trotted out of town. He was seen by people all along the road. Some of them didn’t recognize him, but since he was riding slowly, he didn’t raise suspicions. There’s some accounts that a few Knoxville residents did know who he was and called their friends to come and see as the infamous Kid Curry rode out of town.

As usual, a posse gathered, but they weren’t able to track him down for more than 15 miles before they lost his trail. Kid Curry vanished into legend.

You ready for the last bit of this?

Ben: I sure am.

Arturo: Riding off into the sunset. Yes, yes! Sunset!

Ben: Sunset!

Arturo: Thank you.

Chapter 6: Riding Off Into the Sunset?

Arturo: So what happened next for Kid Curry’s a mystery, right? All through 1904 stories and legends from across the west placed him in unsolved train robberies and shootouts where the gunman wasn’t identified and among the thieves when horses went missing.

Other papers reported that he was in Wyoming or Montana. A letter actually arrived at the Knoxville jail that said, “tell the boys not to follow my footsteps and keep outta trouble.” It had a California mailing address and sent the Pinkertons on a cross-country wild goose chase.

Ben: Hmm.

Arturo: Yeah—after one, uh, Colorado train robbery in 1904, sheriff deputies arrived quickly on the scene. More than a hundred men with horses and bloodhounds hunted down the bandits and rainfall made their tracks easy to follow in the mud.

With the posse close after them, the bandits stopped at a ranch to steal fresh horses, but the owners somehow didn’t like that, weird! The men exchanged gunfire with the bandits, and one of the robbers was hit in the chest.

Before his buddies could stop him, he raised his gun to his temple, and he shouted “don’t wait for me!” and he fired.

When the body was brought to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, it was actually identified by locals as a man named J.H. Ross, and buried in a poor man’s grave. Except there were two things that raised some questions about the real identity of the body.

Number one, the fact that the real J.H. Ross arrived in town a few days later to prove that he wasn’t dead. Like, he was like, “What the f***, guys! And why is my wife with somebody—it’s been two days!”

Ben: “Guys!”

Arturo: And the second is that the body had the scar of a bullet wound on his right wrist, motherf***as!

Ben: Oh my goodness.

Arturo: But people just didn’t want to believe that Kid Curry was dead. They wanted to believe he made it through the firefight—and that he lived on … in secret. A lot of denial, you know?

So one story says that Kid Curry actually died in an asylum in 1937.

Another says, no, no, actually, he settled down in Spokane, Washington, and lived until the late 1950s.

Another one says no, he moved to Guatemala, became an actor, got dimples, and is still living a life—wait … what the f***? Uh. But there is one last twist—I was referring to myself, OK? But there’s one last twist to these myths.

Ben: OK.

Arturo: Some of Kid Curry’s descendants have wanted to dig up the body in Colorado to do some genetic testing to verify where he’s buried.

But when they arrived … the body … could not be found.

Ben: Ah, I knew it.

Arturo: The records of the burial plot were lost. And that’s a story of Kid Curry, everybody! Pow pow pow pow powwww!

Ben: Wow.

Outro

Ben: Well, OK. I’m still stuck on, how old is—how old is Kid? Because he’s—he’s doing all these robberies and everything in at the turn of the century. And then some accounts have him living until mid-century, 1950.

Arturo: So let’s say he was doing the robberies—robberies in his, uh, late teens to early twenties.

Ben: I mean, yeah, teens, I guess he had to be a teenager.

Arturo: Well—but you’re right though, because if he was ranching for 10 years, he must have been older than that. So let’s say like, from 25 to 35, and then if he died in the ’50s, uh, he must’ve been…

Ben: So what if he’s a bunch of people, you know? Like what if he’s not just one guy, he’s an amalgamation?

Arturo: That’s right, like Dr. Strange!

Ben: Dr. Strange … or Shakespeare.

Arturo: [laughs] But isn’t that fascinating?

Ben: That is—that’s pretty—that’s pretty crazy. And his buddies, who I know—who I’ve heard of way more, are just off in South America ranching.

Arturo: And they just have accents now, and they talk like this and they like–

Ben: They—they immediately adopted the accents.

Arturo: Immediately–

Ben: What do you think, what are—what are ridiculous Latin names that you think they chose as their alias?

Arturo: Ernesto Gavilio Sundance.

Ben: Sundance! They didn’t do—they didn’t change much.

Arturo: Butchardo Casidoso. You know, like they really, they–

Ben: They added maybe one more syllable. That was about it.

Arturo: Ben, how can people find you?

Ben: Do you want my address?

Arturo: Yes, how can, how can people find you.

Ben: Alright so, coming from the 101–

Arturo: Is there anything you’d like people to check out or—or be aware of?

Ben: Uh, no. I mean there’s the things that I’ve done, there’s things I’ve got coming up that I—that aren’t talk-about-able yet. I mean, I’ve got a—I’ve got an animated show, called Monsters At Work on Disney. That’s super, that’s the Monsters universe, Monsters, Inc. and all those people.

Arturo: That’s awesome. I remember. Yeah. I love the monsters.

Ben: So it’s me and—and it’s all the, you know, it’s like—uh, Billy Crystal and John Goodman and–

Arturo: No way. Imagine.

Ben: Mindy Kaling and I, um, Henry Winkler. It’s such a–

Arturo: Henry Winkler, sweetest guy in the world.

Ben: He is the best.

Arturo: Listen, I always believed that like old-timey Western country songs are just kind of describing what you’re doing at that present moment. You know? This is like, a—a comedian said this joke before, but like, what— what I’ve noticed is that they’re just running outta sh*t to say about their day. So they’re now, it’s getting way even more mundane.

So as an outro, we would like to have Ben [Chugg] play some music and us to make up some really stupid lyrics to that. Would you be up for that?

Ben: Yeah, it’s just stuff we’re doing right now?

Arturo: Stuff we’re doing right now and what we think about the episode. F*** it. Whatever. Let’s—whatever goes. If it doesn’t work, we’ll totally cut it out.

No, we won’t.

Um, OK, Ben, give us some–

Ben Chugg: So this is like old-timey country, but it’s like Neil Young, kind of easy, soft.

Ben: There’s a—there’s heart to it.

Ben Chugg: Yeah.

[Country song instrumental]

Arturo: “Yeah. Argentina in the distance. Can you see it, Butch?”

Ben: Oh, are we the characters from the story?

Arturo: Yes. “Butch, can you see what I see?”

Ben: “I see the hole in your wrist.”

Arturo: “It’s getting deeper and deeper by the day.”

Ben: “You should put a Band-Aid on it.”

Arturo: “Or apricot whiskey!”

Ben: “I love apricot whiskey. I’ve had all the fruits …”

Arturo: “I’ve tried with cranberry and it didn’t work.”

Ben: “That brandy tastes nice.”

Arturo: “Apricot brandy for life.”

[Song out]

Man. God, this has been such a pleasure, Ben. Thank you so much, brother, and we’ll, we’ll give you the rights of the music once we play it–

Ben: Oh, that song’s gonna be huge. That’s gonna be … I’m gonna have to—I’m gonna have to come, come up with like a music—like, I’m Kid Feldman now.

Arturo: Yeah, you’re Kid Feldman. Kid Curry who likes curry.

Ben: Massaman Feldman.

Credits

Arturo Castro: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.