By western author Nick Brumby

“I am a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw.”
— ‘Outlaw Queen’ Belle Starr

She was known as the ‘Bandit Queen’ and the ‘Petticoat Terror of the Plains’.

She married three different outlaws, spent time in jail for horse rustling, was friends with legendary outlaws Cole Younger and Frank and Jesse James, and was declared to be “a most desperate woman” by a newspaper at the time.

By the time Belle Starr was shot to death in 1889, she had cemented herself a place in history as an Old West legend.

Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr, was born in 1848 and grew up on a farm near Carthage, Missouri. Her father, John Shirley, raised wheat, corn, hogs and horses, while her mother, Elizabeth “Eliza” Hatfield Shirley, was a distant relative to the Hatfields of the famous family feud.

At first, Belle lived the life of a spoiled, rich girl. She attended Carthage Female Academy, becoming a better rider than most women of her time. She liked to flaunt her ‘rich girl’ status and spent many a day roaming the countryside with her older brother Bud, who taught her how to handle a gun.

Image showing Belle Starr escaping bail

During the Civil War, Bud was an active Jasper County “bushwhacker” and member of Quantrill’s Raiders, fighting for the Confederacy. Belle was rumored to have been a spy alongside her brother, although few details remain.

Bud was killed by federal troops in late June 1864. Sick over Bud’s death, Belle’s father loaded his family and household goods into two Conestoga wagons and ended up in Scyene, a small settlement ten miles southeast of Dallas, Texas.

Belle didn’t settle well, being regarded as “rather wild” by her schoolteacher Mrs. Poole. When the War ended, the remnants of Quantrill’s Raiders became outlaws, forming gangs led by the Younger brothers and by Jesse and Frank James. They occasionally sought refuge at Belle’s farm. Legend has it her first child was fathered by outlaw Thomas C. (‘Cole’) Younger.

Soon afterward Belle married Jim Reed, a former member of Quantrill’s Raiders, and then of the James Gang. Legend has it that they were married by another member of the gang while on horseback. True to form, she first met Reed during a bank robbery in 1866.

Belle Starr and her lover Blue Duck

A crack shot, Belle toted a Colt .45 pistol that she called “my baby” and rode side-saddle while wearin a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, with cartridge belts across her hips.

Reed was wanted in Arkansas for allegedly murdering a man named Shannon. Belle and Reed fled to California. In 1869 Belle, Reed, and two other outlaws rode to the North Canadian River country, where they tortured an old Creek warrior until he told them where he had hidden $30,000 in gold.

With their share of the loot, Jim and Belle returned to Texas. Reed initially tried his hand at farming, but grew restless and rode with the Starr clan, a Cherokee family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery in the Indian Territory. It wasn’t long before the outlaw life caught up with him, and in 1874, he was killed in a gunfight in Paris, Texas, by a member of his own gang. Belle reportedly refused to identify his body, to deny his killer the reward.

Reed’s death left Belle totally destitute, and she returned to her life of crime and rode the outlaw trail. In Indian Territory Belle got involved with Native American outlaw Blue Duck.

In 1880, she married a Cherokee named Sam Starr and they settled on a ranch, renamed Younger’s Bend, on the Canadian River in the Indian Territory. There, she became a “bandit queen,” attired in velvet and feathers or buckskin and moccasins, organizing, planning and concealing rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers from the law. She quickly gained the reputation of a criminal mastermind whose gang preyed on travelers, ranchers, and cowboys throughout the region.

She used her money as bribes to secure the freedom of any gang members who were captured. Failing this, she would tempt the lawmen with her womanly charms, almost always achieving her ends.

Belle told a story of how a slim man with blinking eyes once visited her and Sam at Younger’s Bend. Starr was suspicious of the cold and silent man, but Belle told him he was an “old friend from Missouri.” Sam Starr never knew the blinking blue-eyed man was Jesse James.

The nearest settlement to Belle’s ranch was Fort Smith, Arkansas. The local Magistrate was Hanging Judge Isaac Parker, who became determined to put Belle behind bars. Several times his Deputies brought Belle in to face charges of rustling or bootlegging. Yet, each time she was set free due to lack of evidence.

However, in 1882, Belle and Sam were caught red-handed stealing a neighbor’s horse. She was found guilty and served nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. They were transported from Fort Smith to Detroit on a railroad prison car, where Belle was the only woman among nineteen other convicts. Belle proved to be a model prisoner and, during her time in jail, she won the respect of the prison matron. In contrast, Sam was incorrigible and assigned to hard labor.

In 1887, Sam Starr was killed in a gunfight with his cousin Law Officer Frank West and Belle’s life as an outlaw queen abruptly ended. She was indicted three more times in the next few years—once on a charge that, disguised as a man, she took part in a post office robbery—but she was never again convicted.

For the last few years of her life, gossips and scandal sheets linked her to a series of men with colorful names, including Jack Spaniard and Jim French. She often visited Fort Smith, posed for one of her several photographs there, and told the Fort Smith Elevator, “I regard myself as a woman who has seen much of life.”

On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, Belle was riding home from a neighbor’s house when she was ambushed and killed. Her cause of death was shotgun wounds to her back, neck, shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double-barrel shotgun.

Her killer was never found. There were no witnesses to the crime no one ever was convicted of the murder. Suspects with apparent motive included her latest husband and both of her children, as well as outlaw Edgar Watson, Watson was afraid she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida with a price on his head. Watson, who was killed in 1910, was tried for her murder, but was acquitted, and the ambush has entered Western lore as “unsolved”.

Belle was buried in the front yard of her ranch at Younger’s Bend. On a stone monument was carved an image of her favorite mare, “Venus,’ as well as an inscription:

Shed not for her the bitter tear
Nor give the heart to vain regret,
‘Tis but the casket that lies here,
The gem that fills it sparkles yet.

About Nick Brumby

I like a good story. And of all stories, I love westerns the most.

As a kid, I spent far too many afternoons re-watching Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, picking up ‘Shane’ for just one more read, or saddling up beside Ben Cartwright when ‘Bonanza’ was on TV each afternoon.

I’m a former journalist and I love horses, dogs, and the occasional bourbon whiskey. I live with my wife, daughter and our ever-slumbering hound in a 1800’s-era gold mining town – our house is right on top of the last working gold mine in the area. There may not be much gold left, but there’s history wherever you look.

I hope you enjoy my westerns as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Happy trails,

Nick