Indian Territory passed into tragic history in 1907 but left the new state of Oklahoma a legacy of frontier violence, particularly virulent in the last corner of the Territory, including Pontotoc County. Two years of statehood brought no improvement to Pontotoc County and community leaders struggled and then decided they would have to bring "justice" -- if there was to be any justice--to four Texans in their jail accused of assassinating one of their own, Gus Bobbitt, a former U. S. Deputy Marshal.

In the dark early hours of the day the Texans' court trial was to start -- April 19, 1909 -- a mob of 35 masked men took the prisoners from the Ada jail and hanged them in a livery barn near the Frisco railroad tracks. It was a sensational story, headlined across the nation. Gov. C. N. Haskell empanelled a blue ribbon grand jury to identify, indict and bring to justice members of the mob. The grand jury failed. Every effort in the last 96 years, even to identify one mob member, has failed. It has become both a mystery and a remarkable, iron-clad conspiracy.

The Pontotoc Conspiracy takes up the quest for answers as a novel, though the history in it has received strong reviews. The book is even for sale in the gift shop of the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City.

I first came across this extraordinary story in 1944 when I received a post card at my air base in England showing four men hanging in the old barn. It was sent by my future wife whose hometown was Ada, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma. She explained later Ada had only three post cards and the hanging scene was by far the best one, much better than the picture of a petrified log or the college administration building.

After our marriage, we returned to Ada periodically with our children and I began an intermittent search for answers to the mystery. I had become a newspaper reporter and thought I could bring my investigative skills to bear. However, I had no better luck than anyone else who has tried through the years, including Governor Haskell's grand jury. I gathered information throughout the region, filled up a half dozen notebooks and probably had more detailed knowledge about the episode than anyone else.

Even with full notebooks, I still didn't have the story I wanted and finally realized I had to have the characters, whom I got to know very well through research, talk to one another. That became The Pontotoc Conspiracy. One break I did have: the highly fictionalized narrator is patterned after my late father-in-law, a real Oklahoma pioneer.