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Pistol Pete’s Payback and Other Historic Vengeances

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 31 min

World War II - Quisling — Quisling with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Cotton Boll Conspiracy

34. Frank Eaton won favor as detective after gunning down cattle thieves.

When Frank Eaton rode into the clearing where Shannon Campsey had his cabin, Campsey grabbed a rifle. Frank called out “Hello, Shan – don’t you know me?” Campsey began to take aim, but before he could draw a bead, Frank whipped out a pistol and shot him dead. He found his other target, Doc Ferber, tending cattle nearby, and killed him as well. Pistol Pete had just earned the first two notches on his pistol.

Doc Ferber and Shannon Campsey had been known cattle thieves, and gunning them down favorably impressed the local Cattleman’s Association. So they hired Frank as a detective. That gave him the perfect cover to go after the rest of his father’s killers and continue exacting payback. Within three months, he would put paid to three more of them.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.