The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., July 20, 1961, page 9

BICKLETON BANK ROBBERY SURVIVES, THANKS TO STORY BY ROSCOE SHELLER

     Part of Bickleton's past has been revived, thanks to Roscoe Sheller.
     In the Sunday, July 9 issue of the Spokesman-Review's Inland Empire Magazine, Sheller gave readers exciting vicarious riding and shooting when he told of the Bickleton bank robbery of December 23, 1917.
    Playing a prominent part in the apprehension of the bandit were Tone and Nora Donoho as well as Soren Matsen, all still alive. Although the bandit used a horse, the Donoho's had a Model T at the time.
     Sam Rossier, later mayor of Sunnyside, also served as a major character since he was the banker. Soren Matsen was the assistant cashier.
     The hero of the story was the Bromley boy who wounded the bank robber. Later, in a hay warehouse, the bandit was caught.
     Donohos still have an actual reminder of the incident. Their splintered porch post accidentally caught part of inexperienced Bromley's gunfire.
     Covering two pages, the article was aptly titled "The Bickleton Bank Bandit Who Bungles -- Foiled by a Raw Kid and Fake Key." Roscoe Sheller, its author, also has written the book, "Ben Snipes."
     Featuring several pictures of a "the boys" around the Bickleton Bank, the article may be viewed in one of the front office windows of the Goldendale Sentinel.

The Inland Empire Magazine, insert to the Spokesman-Review, Spokane, WA., July 9, 1961, page 10
Includes photographs

Exitin' Ridin' and Shootin'
THE BICKLETON BANK BANDIT WHO BUNGLED - FOILED BY A RAW KID AND FAKE KEY
By Roscoe Sheller

     A "GIBSON GIRL," calendar dominated one wall of the Bank of Bickleton. In bold numerals, it proclaimed the date - December 23, 1917. On the opposite wall, a big-faced clock wagged an arm-length pendulum in measured swings, chopping the day into uniform bits. Its hands showed "2 o'clock."
     A potbellied stove, with a cheery blush, drove chill to the farthest corners of the room. Its maw, deep within glowing coals, flickered wispy tongues of welcome to all who entered.
     A skiff of snow had blanketed the outside - a forerunner of depths expected soon with a year's of moisture for the thousands of "day-land" acres that would grow the half-million-bushel wheat crop, to support the little town and pile gold in the Bank of Bickleton's a vault. Most of the returns for last year's crop was there now, its safety unquestioned. Throughout the bank's 15 years, it had never been threatened. Why worry now?
     Baker Sam Rossier, busy with two customers, sat at his desk, his back toward the entrance.
     Engrossed with his customers' problems, and a slight impairment of hearing, Sam was unaware of the door being opened, quietly closed and the lock snapped, or the visitors, command, "This is a stickio,"
     BUT ASSISTANT Cashier Soren Matsen, from his cage, hadn't missed a thing. He saw a roughly dressed, bandana-masked character slip through the front door and lock it behind him. He'd looked straight into a gun barrel. He trembled at the "stickup" order, and shaking like a palsied jelly from St. Vitus, reached for the ceiling. He wanted to shout a warning to Sam, but was too paralyzed to utter a sound.
     "YOU!" The robbery yelled at Sam, "YOU AT THE DESK! GIT YOU HANDS UP! DAMN FOOL - YOU WANNA GIT SHOT! THIS IS A STICKUP!'
     Sam, with both customers, jumped to their feet and pushed all hands skyward, in one movement. Sam's eyes shifted to the door as though expecting help might happen in. "Don't count on anyone dropping in," the robber said, "I locked the door."
     "And YOU can't get out, either, without a key."
     "You'll give it to me, unless you'd rather I take it off your dead body." Sam made a move to reach in his pocket. "Keep your hands up. I'll tell you when you can lower them."
     "How do you expect me to get the key with hands in the air."
     "I'll tell you when the time comes. Now, get in the vaulted - all of you." Dutifully, the four marched ahead of the little man with a gun. "Now, where's that gold? " He asked. Sam showed him, the robber shoved the treasure into a gunnysack he produced from under his coat. "Now the key."
     "I'll have to take my hands down to get it."
     "Get it." The robber's gun was but inches from Sam head while Sam fumbled among his keys and selected one he handed to the robber - but not the one to fit the front door.
     The robber snatched it away and backed out. He closed the vault door on his prisoners and turned the locking lever. Sam chuckled in glee as he told his cellmates of the substitution.
     IT WOULD Seem a lot of funnier to me if we stood a chance of getting out of this vault," one of the customers grumbled." With the only man who knows the combination, inside, we ain't got a chance."
     "We'll all be dead before anyone can knock a hole through the concrete," said the other, "if they ever find us."
     "Yeah, How's anyone going to know we're in here? What we gonna do, Sam?"
     Total darkness hid Sam's expression, but he was glowing with satisfaction at the far-sighted preparation he'd made years before, for such emergencies - precautionary traits that made him a good banker. He fumbled, among dusty, old records in the rear of the vault for the matches, candles and tools for the removal of lock, he'd hidden so long before that he'd forgotten exactly where.
     Sounds of violent cursing and front door rattling, told the vault prisoners that their captor had discovered the key he had taken from Sam didn't fit the lock. He was irate at being "out-smarted," and panicked at the delayed get-away it caused.
     Inside the vault, Soren and the men held lighted candles and matches as Sam worked frantically with the many bolts that would remove their confining lock, overjoyed at the promise of the release, but fearful lest it be before the robber left.
     Then a loud "crash" punctuated with the clatter of splintered glass, made a sound picture of the robber swinging a chair through a window. Not much later, the last lock was out and Sam, with baker's caution, inched the vault door open a crack to survey the room, just as the robber pulled his foot through the broken window. He rushed over in time to see him mount his cayuse and race down at the road toward Mabton and the valley. The gunnysack of gold was between him and the saddle-horn.
     YOU FELLOWS get a posse together, and after him -- fast as you can," Sam ordered. "I'll phone Donoho. Maybe he can stop the fellow before he gets a chance to hide the money." The Donoho ranch house stood beside the road the robber had taken.
     Sam cranked "one ring" on his "hand-winder" phone, for "central." "Get me Donoho's quick, Gertie," he told her. "MY BANK'S BEEN ROBBED!."
     Through the window, he saw men rushing from the store across the street, armed with shotguns and rifles, some evidently grabbed from the merchant's stock. He watched them mount and join the chase. Soren was making motions, still unable to utter a word.
     "Hello." A woman's voice came weekly over the receiver.
     "Nora, let me talk to Tone - QUICK."
     "Tone's in Mabton. So's his brother."
     "You alone."
     "Except for the Bromley boy."
     "Listen, Nora, my bank's been robbed and the robber's headed your way. Young Bromley can handle it gun. Get him out on your porch ready to shoot the robber when he comes by. He ought to be very in - " there was a click, and the line went dead.
     GERTIE CUT in, ""It's the line, Sam. Sounds to me like it's been cut."
     "Keep trying to get Nora back, Gertie, and tell her what you heard. I'm rushing over to Blue Light and get word down to Mabton." Blue Light was a settlement 11 miles east. For the first few miles out of Bickleton, to the "Y," where the Mabton road branched to pass the Donoho Ranch, the routes were the same.
     Sam had traveled less than a mile when he saw the reason his phone conversation had stopped so suddenly. The line had been cut and wire ends dangled out of reach.
     At the "Y" the only tracks in the snow turned toward Donoho, confirming Sam's supposition. If only Tone had been home he could be sure the robber would never get past his ranch. But the boy - Besides, there was no way to know how much of the story Nora had heard before the line went dead. There was nothing he could do about that now, and he hurried on to Blue Light.
     Nora's repeated, unsuccessful attempts to get an answering voice from the telephone threatened panic, as she pictured a pursued criminal breaking down her door and leaving the gory bodies of a helpless woman and 15-year-old boy for Tone and his brother to find upon their return. Then, realizing she dare not give in to fear, she called to the boy, "Load the shotgun," and felt strong again.
     WHAT'S the matter? "Young Bromley came running. "Load Tone's shotgun. You're about to shoot a man."
     "ME?"
     "You can, you know, if you have to. And this is one time you must."
     "Where is he? Who? Why?"
     Nora told him the little she knew, using the same urgency she'd heard in Sam's voice. "Now listen carefully. This is probably the most important thing will ever face. You must do it right. We'll only have one chance. You understand that?"
     "Yes, Marm."
     "Stand there on the porch. The post will partly hide you. Get the man you see coming from that direction on a hard-running horse, in your sights the first minute he comes over the hill. Keep your aim sure and steady, till he reaches the gate. Then - shoot him."
     "I never shot a man. Is it all right?"
     "Don't miss this one. You won't kill him at that distance with a shotgun, you know that. I'll get a rifle and be ready if he gets nasty" Before she found the shells, the clatter of racing hooves brought Nora running. Through the door and she saw young Bromley following lathered horse and crouched rider with his cocked gun. They were nearing the closest spot the road would bring them, by the jump, "I'm on him now," mumbled the boy.
     "What'll I do?"
     "SHOOT HIM!"
     "WHAM-WHAM!" One shot followed the other in split-second succession. Splinters flew from the porch post that caught part of the charge. The surprised horse reared and squealed, and the rider spit out a string of oaths that should have melted the snow all the way back to the Donoho porch. Releasing his grip on his gunnysack of gold, but robber grabbed his shot-peppered neck and shoulder, the sack fell to the road. Obsessed with pain and urgency of flight, he seemed to have lost interest in the lost loot.
     Run out and see what it was the man dropped," Nora told the boy, when the fugitive had disappeared over the hill. She watched young Bromley struggle with a heavy sack, set it down again and turn to pick scattered articles from the snow and shove them into his pocket. He repeated the routine several times before getting his load to the porch.
     "GOLD," Nora shouted, opening the sack. "Its Sam's gold, that thief stole. Look at all these fives -- ten and twenties. Sonny, your shot stopped the loot, even if it didn't the robber."
     "There's some more that leaked out," young Bromley said, digging a handful of fives from his pocket.
     Sam reached Blue Light, totally unaware of what was happening about the same time, at the Donoho's. In answer to his phone call, Mabton authorities agreed to have a "head-off " posse on the road at once. He also phones the sheriff at North Yakima. "I'll be heading down the track road with a carload of deputies inside of two minutes," came his answer. Confidant that the three posses, converging on a lone bandit aboard a raced-out cayuse, held little promise of a bright future for the bandit, Sam rode back home. A chuckle escaped him as he remembered the key episode. He hoped the phone line had been repaired, so he could keep in touch with robber's capture or escape, as the gods directed.
     Tone Donoho and his brother had left Mabton for home before Sam's phone calls, so knew nothing about the excitement involving Nora. Buzzing their wheezy Model T uphill in low gear, they met a bloody-necked rider, full-speeding his foaming mount down, and wondered why he'd be in such a hurry.
     Their curiosity was appeased at the top, when they met the Bickleton pursuing posse, and a brief exchange of information had both on their separate ways.
     Several miles later, the posse came upon the bandit's spent horse with bridal and saddle intact. Blood specks dotted his forequarter and neck. Sweat-soaked and exhausted beyond another step, he shook and trembled in the cold. But where was the elusive fugitive?
     Dusk was drawing a curtain, but there was a promise of a moon, and the snow skiff made tracks unhideable. The robber's chaps were recovered a few rods from his abandoned horse, discarded while on the run, and in favor of more speed. There was little trouble following such a recently made a trail.
     A MILE ahead hay warehouses pushed their dark forms above the horizon to mark the little town of Alfalfa. From the pattern left in the snow, Alfalfa was the fugitive's destination. Light's winked as the posse approached and the moon, taking the cue, glistened the snow to more prominently mark the robber's trail when it veered sharply and climbed to the railroad track. Passing trains had left them snow free and the trial blank.
     No sign was found that he had turned off till the warehouse was reached. Then, opposite one door, footprints hinted that someone might have entered. Like hunters with their prey cornered, eager men rolled open the door to face a wall of baled hay stacked to within a foot of the eaves.
     "He can't be in here," said one, "No room."
     "He's gotta be. See how those bales are piled? A scared man could climb to the tops and squeeze through."
      Further speculation was interrupted by a bobbing pair of head lambs approaching along the track road. Minutes later a car stopped opposite. "Something the matter here?" A voice called.
     "Who are you?"
     "The sheriff. The banker at Bickleton phoned me he'd been robbed this afternoon, and ___"
     "We tracked him here," Buzz, who'd assumed leadership of the posse, interrupted and with help from several of the party, gave a running account of the story from stick-up to warehouse.
     "I'll take over," the Sheriff announced. He turned to his deputies. "Bring the lanterns, boys," and the four men-of-law climbed the bale pile and squeezed through to the top.
     MEN below surrounded the building to forestall escape, should the sheriff flush their quarry, and followed the sheriff and his men covering the bale pile, by their lights blinking through many cracks. In a short time, they were back. "Nobody in there." The sheriff said, "A snake couldn't hide in any crack we saw."
     "He's GOTTA be there," Buzz insisted. "His tracks led here, and none led away."
     "Well, he's not there now." The sheriff doused his lantern. "Come on boys, let's go home. No use looking any more tonight. Will try again in the morning."
     "Wait a minute with a lantern, sheriff," Buzz pleaded, "I'd like to take a look up there."
     "Well - all right, if you're fool enough to waste your time. Guess I can wait a few minutes longer to prove it."
     "Run over to the lumber yard and bring a long 2x2," Buzz told one of the men -- an 18-footer will do."
     Buzz led three men with lanterns and one which a long stick back to the top of piled bales. Systematically, they probed every crack open enough to take the stick. "Guess the sheriff was right," said one, as they neared the end of the last opening between the bales.
     Three jabs later, their probe struck something. It was softer than the floor. Buzz lifted his stick higher for a harder jab - "
     "STOP THAT DAMN PUNCHIN," exploded from the crack like a bursting bomb, followed by a string of oath-garnished epitaphs hot enough to set fire to the place.
     "Come out, you thieving drunk, or I'll jab this stick clear through your rotten carcass."
     I CAN'T. All your running around up there shoved these bales agin me so tight I can't move."
     "Maybe another jab will change your mind."
     "NO, DON'T DO THAT AGAIN! Drop me a rope."
     "We've got no rope. Wish we did. We'd have it around your neck. Hang onto this stick, and we'll pull."
     "HEY! NOT SO FAST! TAKE IT EASY! Damn slivers. YOU WANNA KILL ME?"
     "Not a bad idea."
     By slow, painful and be-slivered hitches, the robber was inched to the surface, where he was relieved of his gun, besides several thousand dollars in currency, found crammed into every pocket.
     "Why - it's HARRY! Buzz held a lantern closer. "HARRY JONES - YOU A BANK ROBBER!"
     "Ah, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" Jones had worked the whole year for a Bickleton wheat farmer, but no one had suspected he'd taken the job as a convenient means to "case" the bank. "Seems like a nice guy," Bickletonites said.
     "That BLOOD -- caked all over a neck, Harry?" Buzz asked.
     "I been SHOT! SHOT FROM AMBUSH!"
     "Yeah, and by a smooth-faced kid! You want to know you couldn't get away with robbing a bank. To bad he didn't knock you off the horse."
     "I'd have gotten away clean if it hadn't been for that damned Sam and his fake key stunt. It held up my get-away so I didn't get the phone wire cut soon enough."
     The sheriff looked like he swallowed "crow," feathers and all, when Buzz turned the man he couldn't find, over for safe-keeping, but said nothing. He snapped a pair of handcuffs on Harry loaded him in with his deputies, and drove away.
     "Duped by a banker's key, and shot by a kid! Humiliatin', I calls it. I won't get caught that way again," were Harry's parting words.
     "Not for a long time, anyway," the sheriff assured him. "Nobody will hand you any kind of key, where you're going."
     HARRY was taken before the judge the following morning. He plead guilty, waived trial and was sentenced to serve ten years in the state penitentiary at Walla Walla. He was given his freedom after serving seven, and died shortly after. Although it had nothing to do with his passing, he still carried some of the shot in his neck to remind him of his bungled banditry.
     Throughout the five years following a robbery, five-dollar gold pieces continued to be found along the Donoho Road, till a hard-surfaced road entombed and sealed permanently the remaining part of the stolen loot.
     But there is one mark that has endured through the forty-odd years to revive the story, when the "Old Timers" visit the Donoho Ranch - the splintered porch post that caught a part of young Bromley's blast.

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer