Your father was shot?

My dad, I saw him get shot. Right above the store they robbed one night. Dad had a dog, a well trained dog. We put him in a room back there. He was trained not to mess up things. We put him in there one night and went home. About one o'clock, the dog scratched on the door. You know he had come home. I got up and run to our dog. Dad said someone is in the store. Dad got his shot gun and went off down across the park to the store. I was about 50 or 60 feet behind him. And we went down to the park and come out on the side walk and came out like that. Further down the street there was a guy on a bench, down in front of one of the buildings. Dad though it was safe to go on down a little farther. About that time they step out and said "that's him let him have it" and boy it looked to me that blade it wouldn't that long, it just looked like, it was dark you know, there wasn't no light just a street light on each end of the street down there. That was back, way back. They shot my dad and he fell and crawled in between two buildings. I turned around and run of course. I was fourteen, I think, I run through the park and when I did there was a big oak tree there and a guy with a shot gun or some kind of gun run out and like to have run over me and he went off down in the alley by the hotel there to the depot. And they all met down there at the depot them guys that shot my dad. There were four of them but never did find out who the other one was. They took the operator out of the depot and left him at the track. Afraid he might call someone or something.

So my brother, older than me got into the pickup and went out west of town to tell the law. Our law was scarce back them, they had one of them at Duncan, he went out there and told them.

The law said these fellows had escaped from McAlester. He had spied this hid out they had west of town and came in to rob the store. He told them and he had two men there from McAlester there with blood hounds. So the law told them I know just exactly were the hid out is and how they are going to cross the field on my place here now. Sure enough at day brake they come though there and they hollered for them to halt and when they did they went to shoot in at the law and the law went to shoot in at them and they killed one of them and the other two got away.

They went to the river and that's as far as the blood hounds could go. They went up on 33 highway, that's is what it was back them. They got in the pen out in Salem, OR. Well, the sheriff come up, well it was two year after that. They just got in for something and were in the pen for two years. The sheriff told us there going to release those boys and if you are interested we will see if we can get them back. So dad went to Oklahoma City and talk to Farland, governor Farland. He said well ya they have to come back and they did go back to the pen in McAlester.

But, the one they killed was raised out west of town and we knew his folks and everything, he had gotten out of the pen. Bill Waldroop ask, he was the Borst boy wasn't him? Ya, he got shot there once, he and his brother goin up the street like old western times, they had pistols stuck right down in their stomachs and the law ran out of a store and told them to halt you are under arrest and he shot both of them. He shot one in the side and the other one was shot in the shoulder. The one in the side of course they got him it didn't kill him. He was the one that shot my dad later.

Lynn Evans, ask Earl how long it took his dad to recover?

Well he was in the hospital, it seemed to me about two weeks. They operated on him, he was only about five foot eight and two hundred twenty-seven pounds. The doctors said that was the only thing that saved him. The shells they used was old shells too. I've still got three or four of those shells, over there, the guy that got killed had them in his pocket. They are kind of a white lookin, they have faded out so much. They brought those shells in and later the law must have given them to me and I have kept them, why I kept them don't know.

Story told by Earl Waldroop, 2002 in Watts, OK