Bad Company and Burnt Powder: Justice and Injustice in the Old Southwest (Volume 13)

by Bob Alexander

Bad Company and Burnt Powder is a collection of twelve stories of when things turned "Western" in the nineteenth-century Southwest.  Each chapter deals with a different character or episode in the Wild West involving various lawmen, Texas Rangers, outlaws, feudists, vigilantes, lawyers, and judges. Covered herein are the stories of Cal Aten, John Hittson, the Millican boys, Gid Taylor and Jim and Tom Murphy, Alf Rushing, Bob Meldrum and Noah Wilkerson, P. C. Baird, Gus Chenowth, Jim Dunaway, John Kinney, Elbert Hanks and Boyd White, and Eddie Aten.

Within these pages the reader will meet a nineteen-year-old Texas Ranger figuratively dying to shoot his gun. He does get to shoot at people, but soon realizes what he thought was a bargain exacted a steep price. Another tale is of an old-school cowman who shut down illicit traffic in stolen livestock that had existed for years on the Llano Estacado. He was tough, salty, and had no quarter for cow-thieves or sympathy for any mealy-mouthed politicians. He cleaned house, maybe not too nicely, but unarguably successful he was. Then there is the tale of an accomplished and unbeaten fugitive, well known and identified for murder of a Texas peace officer. But the Texas Rangers couldn't find him. County sheriffs wouldn't hold him. Slipping away from bounty hunters, he hit Owlhoot Trail.

512 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2014

Reviews

[Doug Hocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historians who enjoy True West and Wild West will enjoy Bad Company and Burnt Powder. Bob Alexander writes as both historian and storyteller providing the footnotes lacking in many periodicals as well as an extensive catalog of old photographs. Without introduction the author takes us to tales presented for their own intrinsic value with the occasional profanity included for emphasis. Alexander touches on numerous criminal justice issues while laying a groundwork for more penetrating research. He is an excellent teller of tales combining stories linked only by the presence of bad company and the smell of burnt powder. If he seldom reaches out for primary sources, which in fairness may not exist, he does present all versions of a tale that are available. At first glance he only introduces us to a wilder west, but his legends hint at deeper significance and are a starting place for further research. He asks if Texas Rangers often assassinated suspected outlaws who may have been no more than ranchers on the wrong side of a dispute. The victim was believed to be a dangerous man with a gun. Mr. Alexander paints a picture of the Comancheros at odds with popular imagination showing them to be “composed of the indigent and rude classes of the frontier villages, who, , , launch upon the plains with a few trinkets ,. . . which they barter away to the savages for horses and mules.” He tells us that a Texas expedition launched by cattlemen who’d lost stock decimated them though the details of who participated and how many were killed, ranging from a few to quite many, are sketchy. There is a beginning here to a better understanding of Comancheros and what became of them. Two brothers slay an official for no particular reason. The brother who held the gun is acquitted and the innocent brother convicted on the same evidence causing an outcry for a gubernatorial pardon. The workings of Texas justice are strange indeed. Gus Chenowth was a tough teamster and rancher. In Galeyville he killed a man in a bar fight and next morning preached his funeral sermon. Brandishing bible in one hand and buffalo gun in the other, praying like the devil, he fended off marauding Apaches. It’s unclear how either of these is an issue of law or justice, unless you think one shouldn’t be allowed to pray over a man you’ve killed. Nonetheless, Gus would make a great subject for a biography. Meanwhile, John Kinney, the most feared gangster of the time, was running crime and politics from his bar in ‘Hell’ Paso, answering the question: was there organized crime in the wild west? The book touches on and introduces numerous issues of law and order, the men who tried to enforce it, and the techniques they employed. It is a sweeping primer on law in the Southwest.

[Ronald L Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well researched book.

The genealogy aspect was a bit overdone for me but the stories were well told and the criminal justice approach was fresh.