by Texas
'I am sorry about that.'
'And we wondered if there was some way to cut a hole . . .'
'Where the road runs, we've already put in gates. But cut a fence merely to continue an old footpath? Never. That fence cannot be touched.'
'But the teacher . . .'
When other parents began to protest the inconvenience to their teacher, Rusk and Yeager went out to study the problem, and they saw immediately that this portion of their fence had been unwisely strung, for it did cut off access to the school, but the fence had been so costly and had required so much effort to construct that it had become a virtue in itself, something that had to be protected. 'What we will do,' Yeager promised, 'is give the people lumber so they can build stiles, but cutting our fences except where roads run through, we cain't allow that.'
The next complaint was more serious. A family not connected with either the ranch or the village rode in to complain bitterly about what the fence had done to them: 'For a long time we've used the road which runs south from the tank where the soldier and his girl killed theirselves. Now your fence cuts it off, and we—'
The fence is on our land,' Yeager interrupted sternly.
'Yes, but it cuts a public road.'
The only public road is the one that runs east-west from Three Cairns. And we've put in gates to service that.'
But we've always used this road.'
'Not any longer. We've fenced our land, and that's tnat.'
'But if the county seat is going to be at Fort Garner, how can we get there?'
'You'll have to go around and catch the Three Cairns road.'
'Go around! Surely you could add one more gate.'
The fence stands,' Yeager said, terminating that conversation.
Less than a week later, one of the ranch hands rode in with sickening news: 'Come see what they done.' And when Rusk and Yeager rode out to where their new fence blocked the disputed road, they found that someone had cut it and knocked down the posts.
'I'll shoot the son-of-a-bitch who did this!' Yeager threatened, but Rusk restrained him: There'll be no shooting.'
But there was. When Jaxifer and another hand rode out to rebuild the fence across the road, someone shot at them, and they quickly retreated. Frank Yeager himself went out, well armed, to repair the fence, and when someone fired at him, he coolly waited, watched, fired back, and killed the man.
Thus began one of the ugliest episodes of Texas history, the Great Range War, in which one group of cattlemen who had been utilizing the open range suddenly found that another group with a little more money had fenced off traditional routes and, much worse, traditional water holes. One of the most severe losses of water occurred at the Larkin Ranch, where the Rusks had fenced in their tank north of town, and not with one line of fence, but three, because the outer ring delineated the perimeter of the ranch, while the double strand, with its guarded gate, protected the water from pressures by either the Rusk cattle or strays that might crowd in.
With the first big drive of the summer it became obvious that there would be conflict, because cattle had to have water prior to the long trail up to the Red River. But for some curious reason, Earnshaw Rusk, this peaceable Quaker, refused to see that his action in closing off the water hole was arbitrary, unjustified, and opposed to the public welfare. His recent years of dealing with Texans had indoctrinated him with their fundamental law: 'Private property is sacrosanct, mine in particular.' So he continued to keep other cattle away from his water; he continued to maintain his fences, even if they did cut people off from their accustomed
routes. He was neither irrational nor obdurate; he had become a Texan.
Almost daily, now, one of the hands reported at dawn: 'They cut more fence,' for if Alonzo Betz had been a genius in selling bob wahr, other salesmen had been equally ingenious in selling long-handled cutters that could lay that wire flat within seconds, so daily Rusk and Yeager were forced to ride out and repair the fences.
The war was not an unequal one, for the cutters, those men who loved freedom and the open range, could in one dark night destroy an immense reach of fence; sometimes every strand for two miles would be cut between each pair of posts, at grievous expense to the rancher. The rancher, on the other hand, could post his trigger-happy ranch hands in dark hiding places among the dips and swerves of his land, and then gunfire exploded, with the newfangled wire-cutters left dangling on the fence beside the corpses.
In this warfare the advantage now began to swing to the fence-cutters, for the hardened men trailing their cattle north hired professional gunslingers to ride along, so that when a battle erupted, the firepower was apt to be on the side of the trail drivers. Frank Yeager learned these facts the hard way when one of his new hands was killed while trying to stop a wire-cutting. He retaliated with fiendish cleverness.
Originally opposed to fencing, he was now its primary defender, for in the act of building a fence he identified with it, and any attack upon it was an attack on him. So when his man was killed he announced: 'No more watching at night. We'll find other ways.' He did. Utilizing his imperfect knowledge of explosives, he devised a number of sensitive bombs which would be placed along the wires and activated if the tension on any wire was released by cutting. Each bomb contained so many fragmentations that the cutter did not have to be close when it went off; the shards would fly a long distance to kill or seriously maim.
Now the hands at Fort Garner slept in their beds, rode out at dawn, and counted the corpses. The trail drivers in retaliation began shooting cattle inside the fences and setting fire to pastures, while settled citizens whose modes of travel had been disrupted by the fences began cutting them with hurtful frequency. So more deaths ensued. On all fronts it was now open warfare.
One hateful aspect of the battle at Fort Garner was that Earnshaw Rusk, contrary to every principle of his upbringing, found himself acting as a kind of general defending his fort. Unwilling to handle a gun himself, he directed the strategies of those who did. Even worse, he also served as leader of those other ranchers
in the area who had fenced their properties. He became General Rusk, defender of the bob-wahr fence.
The Range War was resolved in a manner peculiar to this state. No police were sent into the area, no state militia, no army units. In August, when the prolonged drought increased the number of killings, a medium-sized man in his early thirties rode quietly into town, Texas Ranger Clyde Rossiter, slit-eyed and with his hands never far from his holsters. His assigned job was to terminate the Larkin County Range War. He moved soberly, made no arrests, no threats. He was out on the range a good deal, inspecting fences and intercepting herds as they moved north, and wherever he went he made it clear that the fence war was over.
He was successful in halting the carnage, but as the people of the region watched in admiration while he took charge, it became obvious that he always sided with the big ranchers and opposed the little man no matter what the issue, so one night a group of citizens asked if they could meet with him to present what they held to be their just grievances. He refused to listen to their whining, telling them: 'It's my job to establish peace, not to correct old injustices.'
He explained his basic attitude one night when taking supper with the Rusks: 'From what I've seen of Texas, the good things in our society are always done by people with money, the bad things by people without. So I find it practical to work with people who own large ranches, because they know what's best, and against those with nothing, because they never know anything.'
'Do most of the Rangers feel that way?' Earnshaw asked.
'Our experience teaches us.'
'Does thee own a ranch?'
'I do, and I'd not want trespassers cutting my fences.'
'What should I do about the people who protest about our cutting their road?'
'It's your land, isn't it?'
'But how should I respond?'
'I'm not here to pass laws. I'm here to stop the shootin', and I think it's st
opped.' But he did, as a careful Ranger, want to inspect all angles of this war, so he left Fort Garner for several days to range the countryside between that town and Jacksborough, and was absent when R. J. Poteet came north with two thousand seven hundred head bound for Dodge City. When Poteet reached the area he found a distressing situation. Not only were the Brazos and Bear Creek bone-dry, but the permanent water hole on the Larkin Ranch had been fenced off. Methodically, but with minimum damage, he proceeded to cut the outer fence that his cattle must
penetrate before they could approach the tank, whose double fences would also have to be cut if the cattle were to drink.
Rusk's watchmen were amazed at the boldness with which this determined stranger was cutting their fence, and when they rode back to inform Rusk, they could find only Yeager, who grabbed a rifle and rode breathlessly to the scene, only to discover that it was Poteet who was doing it.
'Hey there! Poteet! What're you up to?'
'Watering my cattle, as always.'
'That's fenced.'
'It shouldn't be. This is open range, time out of mind.'
'No longer. Times have changed.'
'They shouldn't.'
'Poteet, if your men touch that fence, my men will shoot.'
'They'd be damned fools if they did. I've got some powerful gunmen ridin' with me.'
At this point Earnshaw Rusk rode up, and he was preparing to issue orders to his troops when Poteet spoke: 'Friend Earnshaw, I don't want your men to do anything foolish. You see my chuck wagon? Why do you think the sides are up?'
When the Rusk men looked at the ominous wagon, they could see that it had been placed in an advantageous position, with its flexible sides closed. 'Friend Earnshaw, one of my good men in there has his rifle pointed directly at you. Another has you in his sights, Mr. Yeager. Now I propose to water my stock as usual, and I shall have to cut your fences to do it.'
Rusk took a deep breath, then said firmly: 'Poteet, my men will shoot if thee touches that fence.'
For a long time no one spoke, no one moved. R. J. Poteet, born in Virginia fifty-six years ago, had acquired certain characteristics in the cattle-herding business which he was powerless to alter, and one was that his animals must be tended daily, honestly and with maximum care. This included regular watering. Since the close of the War Between the States, he had trailed one large consignment north each year and sometimes two, for a total of twenty-one herds, some of huge dimension, and he had never lost even two percent, not to Indians, or bandits, or drought, or stampede, or shifty buyers, and it was unthinkable that he should vary his procedures now. He was going to water his steers.
Earnshaw Rusk believed profoundly in whatever he dedicated himself to. When he saw that a new day was opening upon the once-free range, he spurred its arrival. And perhaps most subtle of all, he had become infected with the Texas doctrine that a man's land was not only his castle, but also his salvation.
In the long wait no one fired, but all stood ready. Then the two leaders spoke. Rusk, still playing the role of general, said: 'Did thee know, Poteet, that Ranger Rossiter is here to end this fighting? If thee shoots me, he'll hound thee to the ends of the earth,' and Poteet snapped: 'Rangers always side with the rich. I'm surprised a man of your principles would want their help. Friend Eamshaw, what would you do if you had twenty-seven hundred head of cattle within smelling distance of water? And none elsewhere to be found?'
There was silence, when life and the values men fought for hung in the balance; it was prolonged, and in it Eamshaw Rusk dropped his pose of being a general and acknowledged that what he and Frank Yeager had been doing was wrong. It might represent the wave of the future, and perhaps it would prevail before the decade faded, but as things stood now, it was wrong. It was wrong to fence in a water hole which had been used, as Poteet said, 'time out of mind.' It was wrong to cut off public roads as if schoolteachers and children were of no concern. It was wrong to impose arbitrary new rules merely because one was strong enough to get a loan at the bank, and it was terribly wrong to abolish a neighbor's inherited rights simply because thee had bob wahr and he didn't.
'What would you do if the cattle were yours?' Poteet repeated, emphasizing the pronoun.
Rusk had been trained to respect the moral implications of any problem, and since he had already conceded that his fencing in the water hole was wrong, he must now correct that error. In a very low voice, as if speaking philosophically on a matter which did not involve him personally, he said: 'If they were my cattle, I'd have to water them.' And with a motion of his right arm he indicated that Yeager and his men should withdraw.
'We'll replace your fences,' Poteet said as his hands started cutting. 'But if I were you, I'd leave them down.'
Rusk could never turn aside from a moral debate: 'For a few years, Poteet, thee wins. But thee must know the old ways are dead. Soon we'll have fences everywhere.'
'More's the pity.'
'Thee will carry my wife's cattle on to Dodge?'
'As always.'
'I'll go count them.'
'I'll do the countin'.'
Like many a politician, Senator Cobb, abetted by Petty Prue, was an outstanding success in Washington but something less when he returned home to explain his behavior to his constitu-
ents. On his latest visit to Jefferson he had barely reached his plantation when a group of irate voters drove up, headed by a jut-jawed Mr. Colquitt.
'Senator,' the man demanded, 'why did you let 'em blast our Red River Raft?'
While he fumbled for an explanation, they dragged him from the parlor and down to the Lammermoor wharf, and what he saw came close to bringing tears to his eyes, for the stout wharf which he and Cousin Reuben had built with such care back in 1850 now wasted away some fifty feet removed from the sparse water in which no boat of any size could function.
'You allowed 'em to destroy the value of your land,' Colquitt said. 'And in town it's the same way. Our beautiful harbor where the big boats came from New Orleans. All vanished.'
Another man cried in anguished protest: 'Why didn't you stop em?
Seeing the anger of his constituents, Cobb knew that their questions were vital and that if he wanted to continue as a senator, he must give them a sensible answer, but he was not the man to hide behind platitudes or fatuous promises that could never be kept. He would give them an honest, harsh answer: 'Gentlemen, no one in Jefferson has lost more by the destruction of the Raft than 1 have. Look at this dry hole. A way of life gone. But on the day that fellow in Sweden made TNT possible, he doomed our Raft. For a hundred years people had been talking about removing the Raft, and they accomplished nothing. TNT comes along and there goes our livelihood.'
'It should of stayed that way,' Colquitt said, and Cobb replied: 'With TNT many valuable things are going to be changed.'
'Well, what are you going to do about it?'
'Do? About the Raft? Nothing. Do you think Louisiana is going to let us rebuild it so that our Jefferson, population eight hundred thirty-one, can have a seaport?'
As soon as he had given this sharp answer he knew he must become conciliatory, so he invited the men back into the parlor, where Petty Prue served tea and molasses cookies: 'Gentlemen, you asked me what I am going to do. Plenty, believe me. First, I'm going to surrender to TNT. It blew our Raft right out of the Red River, and nothing will ever restore it. Second, I will lead the battle to get a railroad into this town, because once we do that, we'll get our cotton to New Orleans faster and better than before. Third, I'm going to make every improvement possible at Lammermoor, because even though we've lost our dock, we'll discover new ways to prosper. In Texas that always happens.'
Mr. Colquitt, jaw still outthrust, growled: 'Cain't you make Washington give us a railroad?'
'I've tried to nudge them, but Washington says: "We have to consider the whole nation, not just little Texas." '
'Senator, I've learned one thing in life,' Colquitt conceded. 'Whenever the United States government meddl
es in Texas affairs, Texas gets swindled.'
Cobb laughed, as did his wife, who said: 'Our experience has been the same, Mr. Colquitt. Texas is so big, it has imperial problems. Congress is used to handling the little troubles of states like Vermont and Iowa. Texas staggers them. They have no comprehension of our needs.'
'But how do you two people feel about the drop in value of your plantation? Who would buy it now, with no dock?' Colquitt asked.
It was Petty Prue who answered, vigorously: 'Of course the value has dropped. And sharply. But you watch! It'll grow back for some reason we can't even imagine right now. That's the rule in Texas. Change and adjustment and sorrow. But always the value of our land increases.'
'Why don't we just leave the Union?' Mr. Colquitt asked; he had grown up in South Carolina.
'That's been settled.'
'But we can still divide into five separate states, that I'm sure of.' Mr. Colquitt had been in Texas only three years but already it was we; two more and he would be a passionate devotee of all things Texan.
'We could divide,' Senator Cobb granted, 'but I doubt we ever would.'
'Why not?'
'Which state would get the Alamo?' he asked with a smile.
If Texas had been powerless to halt the dynamiting of the Red River Raft, it did finally end the Great Range War. A number of bills were proposed and enacted, putting an end to the killing; they worked this way, as a small farmer near Fort Gamer, where the fighting had been heaviest, saw it:
'Anyone who cuts a fence, anywhere, any time, he's to be arrested, fined, and thrown in jail for a long spell. Anyone found with a pair of cutters—on his person, in his house, in his wagon—he gets similar punishment. Any trail driver like R. J. Poteet who forces his cattle onto land which has been fenced is sent to jail for one to five.