Outlaws and Peace Officers Read online

  The civil war left Texas under changed conditions. That and the Mexican wars had determined its boundaries, however, and it rapidly filled up with new elements of population. Broken soldiers, outlaws, poor immigrants living in bull-wagons, poured in. “Gone to Texas” had a sinister significance in the late sixties. When the railroad got to Abilene, Kansas, the cow-men of Texas found a market for their stock, and began trailing their herds up through the Indian country.

  Bands of outlaws organized under the leadership of desperadoes like Wes Hardin and King Fisher. They rounded up cattle regardless of their owners’ rights, and resisted interference with force. The poor man pointed to his brand in the stolen herd and protested. He was shot. The big owners were unable to protect themselves from loss. The property right was established by the six-shooter, and honest men were forced to the wall. In 1876 the property-holding classes went to the Legislature, got it to appropriate a hundred thousand dollars a year for two years, and the Ranger force was reorganized to carry the law into the chaparral. At this time many judges were in league with bandits; sheriffs were elected by the outlaws, and the electors were cattle-stealers.

  The Rangers were sworn to uphold the laws of Texas and the United States. They were deputy sheriffs, United States marshals—in fact, were often vested with any and every power, even to the extent of ignoring disreputable sheriffs. At times they were judge, jury, and executioner when the difficulties demanded extremes. When a band of outlaws was located, detectives or spies were sent among them, who openly joined the desperadoes, and gathered evidence to put the Rangers on their trail. Then, in the wilderness, with only the soaring buzzard or prowling coyote to look on, the Ranger and the outlaw met to fight with tigerish ferocity to the death. Shot, and lying prone, they fired until the palsied arm could no longer raise the six-shooter, and justice was satisfied as their bullets sped. The captains had the selection of their men, and the right to dishonorably discharge at will. Only men of irreproachable character, who were fine riders and dead-shots, were taken. The spirit of adventure filled the ranks with the most prominent young men in the State, and to have been a Ranger is a badge of distinction in Texas to this day. The display of anything but a perfect willingness to die under any and all circumstances was fatal to a Ranger, and in course of time they got the moral on the bad man. Each one furnished his own horse and arms, while the State gave him ammunition, “grub,” one dollar a day, and extra expenses. The enlistment was for twelve months. A list of fugitive Texas criminals was placed in his hands, with which he was expected to familiarize himself. Then, in small parties, they packed the bedding on their mule, they hung the handcuffs and leather thongs about its neck, saddled their riding-ponies, and threaded their way into the chaparral.

  On an evening I had the pleasure of meeting two more distinguished Ranger officers—more modern types—Captains Lea Hall and Joseph Shely; both of them big, forceful men, and loath to talk about themselves. It was difficult to associate the quiet gentlemen who sat smoking in the Deacon’s rooms with what men say; for the tales of their prowess in Texas always ends, “and that don’t count Mexicans, either.” The bandit never laid down his gun but with his life; so the “la ley de huga” [Mexican law of shooting escaped or resisting prisoners] was in force in the chaparral, and the good people of Texas were satisfied with a very short account of a Ranger’s fight.

  The most distinguished predecessor of these two men was a Captain McNally, who was so bent on carrying his raids to an issue that he paid no heed to national boundary-lines. He followed a band of Mexican bandits to the town of La Cueva, below Ringgold, once, and, surrounding it, demanded the surrender of the cattle which they had stolen. He had but ten men, and yet this redoubtable warrior surrounded a town full of bandits and Mexican soldiers. The Mexican soldiers attacked the Rangers, and forced them back under the river-banks, but during the fight the jefe politico was killed. The Rangers were in a fair way to be overcome by the Mexicans, when Lieutenant Clendenin turned a Gatling loose from the American side and covered their position. A parley ensued, but McNally refused to go back without the cattle, which the Mexicans had finally to surrender.

  At another time McNally received word through spies of an intended raid of Mexican cattle-thieves under the leadership of Cammelo Lerma. At Resaca de la Palma, McNally struck the depredators with but sixteen men. They had seventeen men and five hundred head of stolen cattle. In a running fight for miles McNally’s men killed sixteen bandits, while only one escaped. A young Ranger by the name of Smith was shot dead by Cammelo Lerma as he dismounted to look at the dying bandit. The dead bodies were piled in ox-carts and dumped in the public square at Brownsville. McNally also captured King Fisher’s band in an old log house in Dimmit County, but they were not convicted.

  Showing the nature of Ranger work, an incident which occurred to my acquaintance, Captain Lea Hall, will illustrate. In De Witt County there was a feud. One dark night sixteen masked men took a sick man, one Dr. Brazel, and two of his boys, from their beds, and, despite the imploring mother and daughter, hanged the doctor and one son to a tree. The other boy escaped in the green corn. Nothing was done to punish the crime, as the lynchers were men of property and influence in the country. No man dared speak above his breath about the affair.

  Captain Hall, by secret-service men, discovered the perpetrators, and also that they were to be gathered at a wedding on a certain night. He surrounded the house and demanded their surrender, at the same time saying that he did not want to kill the women and children. Word returned that they would kill him and all his Rangers. Hall told them to allow their women and children to depart, which was done; then, springing on the gallery of the house, he shouted, “Now, gentlemen, you can go to killing Rangers; but if you don’t surrender, the Rangers will go to killing you.” This was too frank a willingness for midnight assassins, and they gave up.

  Spies had informed him that robbers intended sacking Campbell’s store in Wolfe City. Hall and his men lay behind the counters to receive them on the designated night. They were allowed to enter, when Hall’s men, rising, opened fire—the robbers replying. Smoke filled the room, which was fairly illuminated by the flashes of the guns—but the robbers were all killed, much to the disgust of the lawyers, no doubt, though I could never hear that honest people mourned.

  The man Hall was himself a gentleman of the romantic Southern soldier type, and he entertained the highest ideals, with which it would be extremely unsafe to trifle, if I may judge. Captain Shely, our other visitor, was a herculean, black-eyed man, fairly fizzing with nervous energy. He is also exceedingly shrewd, as befits the greater concreteness of the modern Texas law, albeit he too has trailed bandits in the chaparral, and rushed in on their camp-fires at night, as two big bullet-holes in his skin will attest. He it was who arrested Polk, the defaulting treasurer of Tennessee. He rode a Spanish pony sixty-two miles in six hours, and arrested Polk, his guide, and two private detectives, whom Polk had bribed to set him over the Rio Grande. When the land of Texas was bought up and fenced with wire, the old settlers who had used the land did not readily recognize the new regime. They raised the rallying-cry of “free grass and free water”—said they had fought the Indians off, and the land belonged to them. Taking nippers, they rode by night and cut down miles of fencing. Shely took the keys of a county jail from the frightened sheriff, made arrests by the score, and lodged them in the big new jail. The country-side rose in arms, surrounded the building, and threatened to tear it down. The big Ranger was not deterred by this outburst, but quietly went out into the mob, and with mock politeness delivered himself as follows:

  “Do not tear down the jail, gentlemen—you have been taxed for years to build this fine structure—it is yours—do not tear it down. I will open the doors wide—you can all come in—do not tear down the jail; but there are twelve Rangers in there, with orders to kill as long as they can see. Come right in, gentlemen—but come fixed.”

  The mob was overcome by his civility.


  Texas is today the only State in the Union where pistol-carrying is attended with great chances of arrest and fine. The law is supreme even in the lonely jacails out in the rolling waste of chaparral, and it was made so by the tireless riding, the deadly shooting, and the indomitable courage of the Texas Rangers.

  CHAPTER VI.

  BILLY, THE KID

  Adapted from The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid

  By Pat Garrett

  William H. Bonney was born in the city of New York, November 23, 1859. But little is known of his father, as he died when Billy was very young, and he had little recollection of him. In 1862 the family, consisting of the father, mother, and two boys, of whom Billy was the eldest, emigrated to Coffeyville, Kansas. Soon after settling there the father died, and the mother with her two boys removed to Colorado, where she married a man named Antrim, who removed to Santa Fe, New Mexico, shortly after the marriage. Billy was then four or five years of age. Antrim remained at and near Santa Fe for some years, or until Billy was about eight years of age.

  It was here that the boy exhibited a spirit of reckless daring, yet generous and tender feeling, which rendered him the darling of his young companions in his gentler moods, and their terror when the angry fit was on him. It was here that he became adept at cards and noted among his comrades as successfully aping the genteel vices of his elders.

  It has been said that at this tender age he was convicted of larceny in Santa Fe, but as a careful examination of the court records of that city fail to support the rumor, and as Billy, during all his after life, was never charged with a little meanness or petty crime, the statement is to be doubted.

  About the year 1868, when Billy was eight or nine years of age, Antrim again removed and took up his residence at Silver City, in Grant County, New Mexico. From this date to 1871, or until Billy was twelve years old, he exhibited no characteristics prophesying his desperate and disastrous future. Bold, daring, and reckless, he was open-handed, generous-hearted, frank, and manly. He was a favorite with all classes and ages, especially was he loved and admired by the old and decrepit, and the young and helpless. To such he was a champion, a defender, a benefactor, a right arm. He was never seen to accost a lady, especially an elderly one, but with his hat in his hand, and did her attire or appearance evidence poverty, it was a poem to see the eager, sympathetic, deprecating look in Billy’s sunny face, as he proffered assistance or afforded information. A little child never lacked a lift across a gutter, or the assistance of a strong arm to carry a heavy burden when Billy was in sight.

  To those who knew his mother, his courteous, kindly, and benevolent spirit was no mystery. She was evidently of Irish descent. Her husband called her Kathleen. She was about the medium height, straight, and graceful in form, with regular features, light blue eyes, and luxuriant golden hair. She was not a beauty, but what the world calls a fine-looking woman. She kept boarders in Silver City, and her charity and goodness of heart were proverbial. Many a hungry “tenderfoot” has had cause to bless the fortune which led him to her door.

  Billy loved his mother. He loved and honored her more than anything else on earth. Yet his home was not a happy one to him. He has often declared that the tyranny and cruelty of his stepfather drove him from home and a mother’s influence, and that Antrim was responsible for his going to the bad. However this may be, after the death of his mother, some four years since, the stepfather would have been unfortunate had he come in contact with his eldest stepson.

  Billy’s educational advantages were limited, as were those of all of the youth of this border country. He attended public school, but acquired more information at his mother’s knee than from the village pedagogue. With great natural intelligence and an active brain, he became a fair scholar. He wrote a fair letter, was a tolerable arithmetician, but beyond this he did not aspire.

  The best and brightest side of Billy’s character has been portrayed above. The shield had another side never exhibited to his best friends—the weak and helpless. His temper was fearful, and in his angry moods he was dangerous. He was not loud or swaggering, or boisterous. He never threatened. He had no bark, or, if he did, the bite came first. He never took advantage of an antagonist, but barring size and weight, would, when aggrieved, fight any man in Silver City. His misfortune was, he could not and would not stay whipped. When oversized and worsted in a fight, he sought such arms as he could buy, borrow, beg, or steal, and used them, upon more than one occasion, with murderous intent.

  During the latter portion of Billy’s residence in Silver City, he was the constant companion of Jesse Evans, a mere boy, but as daring and dangerous as many an older and more experienced desperado. He was older than Billy and constituted himself a sort of preceptor to our hero. These two were destined to jointly participate in many dangerous adventures, many narrow escapes, and several bloody affrays in the next few years, and, fast friends as they now were, the time was soon to come when they would be arrayed in opposition to one another, each thirsting for the other’s blood, and neither shrinking from the conflict. They parted at Silver City, but only to meet again many times during Billy’s short and bloody career.

  When young Bonney was about twelve years of age, he first imbrued his hand in human blood. This affair, it may be said, was the turning point in his life, outlawed him, and gave him over a victim of his worser impulses and passions.

  As Billy’s mother was passing a knot of idlers on the street, a filthy loafer in the crowd made an insulting remark about her. Billy heard it and quick as thought, with blazing eyes, he planted a stinging blow on the blackguard’s mouth, then springing to the street, stooped for a rock. The brute made a rush for him, but as he passed Ed. Moulton, a well-known citizen of Silver City, he received a stunning blow on the ear which felled him, whilst Billy was caught and restrained. However, the punishment inflicted on the offender by no means satisfied Billy. Burning for revenge, he visited a miner’s cabin, procured a Sharp’s rifle, and started in search of his intended victim. By good fortune, Moulton saw him with the gun, and, with some difficulty, persuaded him to return it.

  Some three weeks subsequent to this adventure, Moulton, who was a wonderfully powerful and active man, skilled in the art of self-defense, and with something of the prize-fighter in his composition, became involved in a rough-and-tumble barroom fight, at Joe Dyer’s saloon. He had two shoulder-strikers to contend with and was getting the best of both of them, when Billy’s “antipathy”—the man who had been the recipient of one of Moulton’s “lifters,” standing by, thought he saw an opportunity to take cowardly revenge on Moulton, and rushed upon him with a heavy barroom chair upraised. Billy saw the motion, and like lightning darted beneath the chair—once, twice, thrice, his arm rose and fell—then, rushing through the crowd, his right hand above his head, grasping a pocket-knife, its blade dripping with gore, he went out into the night, an outcast and a wanderer, a murderer, self-baptized in human blood. He went out like banished Cain, yet less fortunate than the first murderer, there was no curse pronounced against his slayer. His hand was now against every man, and every man’s hand against him. Alas! for Billy.

  * * *

  And now we trace our fugitive to Arizona. His deeds of desperate crime in that Territory are familiar to old residents there but it is impossible to follow them in detail, or to give exact dates. It is probable that many of his lawless achievements have escaped both written history and tradition. Records of the courts, at the Indian agency and military posts, and reports from officers and citizens give all the information which can be obtained and cover his most prominent exploits. These reports tally correctly with Billy’s disconnected recitals, as given to his companions, in after years, to pass away an idle hour.

  After the fateful night when Billy first imbrued his hands in blood and fled his home, he wandered for three days and nights without meeting a human being except one Mexican sheepherder. He talked Spanish as fluently as any Mexican of them all, and secured from this boy a small
stock of provisions, consisting of tortillas and mutton. He was on foot, and trying to make his way to the Arizona line. Becoming bewildered, he made a circuit and returned to the vicinity of McKnight’s ranch, where he took his initiatory in horse-stealing.

  The next we hear of Billy, some three weeks after his departure from Silver City, he arrived at Fort (then Camp) Bowie, Arizona, with a companion, both mounted on one sore-backed pony, equipped with a pack-saddle and rope bridle, without a quarter of a dollar between them, nor a mouthful of provision in the commissary.

  Billy’s partner doubtless had a name, but he was so given to changing it that it was impossible to fix on the right one. Billy always called him “Alias.”

  With a fellow of Billy’s energy and peculiar ideas as to the rights of property, this condition of impoverishment could not continue. After recuperating his enervated physique at the Fort, he and his companion, on foot (having disposed of their pony), with one condemned rifle and one pistol, borrowed from soldiers, started out on Billy’s first unlawful raid.

  As is generally known, Fort Bowie is in Pima County, Arizona, and on the Chiracahua Apache Indian Reservation. These Indians were peaceable and quiet at this time, and there was no danger in trusting one’s self amongst them. Billy and his companion fell in with a party of three of these Indians, some eight or ten miles southwest of Fort Bowie in the passes of the mountains. A majority of the different tribes of Apaches speak Spanish, and Billy was immediately at home with these. His object was to procure a mount for himself and his companion. He tried arguments, wheedling, promises to pay, and every other plan his prolific brain could suggest—all in vain. These Indians’ confidence in white man’s reliability had been severely shaken in the person of Indian Agent Clum.