Ghosts and Legends of Nevada's Highway 50 by Janice Oberding

Author:Janice Oberding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Lander County’s Old Courthouse in Austin. Photo by Bill Oberding.

Finally Slocum spoke. “Didn’t I work for Zottman?” he asked.

Mrs. Zottman admitted it was so, but times were hard and she needed the cash. “Surely, you don’t mean to turn your bill in like that,” she gasped.

“Oh, yes I do.” Slocum said, looking her straight in the eye.

Rufus jumped up and stood between his mother and Slocum. “If you intend to treat my mother like this, Slocum, you are not a gentleman,” he snarled.

Mrs. Zottman gently shoved her son aside. “Rufe, I will speak for myself.” She turned to Slocum and said, “My husband did not support me, as you well know. I need that money.” He silently nodded agreement, but he would not pay her. Young Rufus was infuriated by what he saw as a slight to his mother.

“Mr. Slocum! You are not a gentleman and have not the principles of a gentleman about you, if you would treat my mother that way,” he bellowed.

Slocum moved closer to Rufus. Shaking his finger in the younger man’s face, he said, “By God, don’t talk to me that way, Rufe.”

Anderson stared coldly at Slocum. “Keep your hands off me.”

The lines had been drawn. Eyeing each other angrily, the two men headed for the front door. Slocum lashed out at Anderson, who screamed, “Keep your hands off me…keep your hands off me.”

No one wanted this trouble, especially Mr. Eggleston, who jumped in the middle of Slocum and Anderson. “I won’t have any fuss here,” he said.

It was too late. There would be no more talk. Rufus Anderson’s temper was raging. Without a word, he pulled out his new pistol and fired twice at the unsuspecting Slocum. Hearing the shots, Mrs. Zottman came running to the door, “Oh my God! You will kill me.”

Slocum dropped to the floor, dead. As his friends grabbed and disarmed him, Anderson stepped over to Slocum’s lifeless body and kicked it. “Goddamn him!”

Rufus Anderson was taken to jail and would be tried for the murder of Slocum. Once the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision, finding no errors, the new date was set for the execution. Anderson would hang at one o’clock in the afternoon on October 30, 1868. The night before the execution, a small scaffold was assembled and erected.

According to the Daily Reese River Reveille on October 31, 1868, “The scaffold was brought onto the ground after sunset Thursday evening and was put up at 7 o’clock yesterday morning. The spot selected was about five paces from the door of the jail, and was a small yard nearly 20 feet square, bounded by the jail, one end and side of the court house and a low bank.”

Rufus Anderson had not been much of a religious man in his short life. But he was taking no chances with the hereafter; he asked to be baptized as a Roman Catholic just hours before his date with the rope. As the appointed hour drew near, Anderson quickly dressed in a new black suit.

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