Other Work in East Texas
DISTRICTS WHICH EVEN A RANGER FINDS HOPELESS. THE TOUCHSTONE MURDER. THE CONFESSION OF AB ANGLE
It was only a short distance—as distances go in Texas (only a hundred miles or so, in a southeasterly direction)—from the Trans-cedar country, made celebrated by the Humphrey lynching, to certain sections of Walker, Houston, Madison and Trinity counties, where similar social conditions have developed.
In Kittrell's Cut-off, for instance, and around Groveton, there has developed a special talent for assassination. Men walking along the road in daylight are sometimes shot from behind. When it is nightfall the assassin may lie in wait by the roadside. If he gets the wrong man by mistake, it is no difference—it keeps him in practice. Sometimes the victim is called to his door at night and shot down from the dark. These are a few of the methods for removing individuals not favorably regarded by the active set, and many other forms of murder are adopted or invented for particular cases. Even Captain Bill McDonald found these districts hopeless as fields for reform, he said.
"If a whole community has no use for law and order it's not worth while to try to enforce such things. You've got to stand over a place like that with a gun to make it behave, and when you catch a man, no matter what the evidence is against him, they'll turn him loose. In Groveton, for instance, when I was there they had only two law-respecting officers—the district clerk and the county attorney, and the county attorney they killed. Good citizens were so completely in the minority that they were helpless. Kittrell's Cut-off was probably one of the most lawless places you could find anywhere, though it was named after a judge. It's a strip cut off of Houston and Trinity counties and added to Walker, and its name is the only thing about it that ever had anything to do with the law. Many murders have been committed there and no one ever convicted for them, so far as I know."
Captain Bill was ordered to investigate a Kittrell's Cut-off murder during December, 1903. A man had been assassinated from ambush, in the fashion of that section, and such attempts as had been made by the local authorities to uncover the murderers had been without result. But such murders had become so common there that the few respectable citizens of the locality had decided to appeal to Governor Lanham for aid, and their plea asked especially for Captain McDonald.
McDonald went down; looked over the ground and sent for one of his men, Blaze Delling, to assist in handling the situation—the community being simply infested with men of low, desperate natures. Already the Ranger Captain had taken up the trail and had arrested three men, and these were brought for trial.
What was the use? Before the final trial, the three principal witnesses suddenly sickened and died; the District Attorney found himself without a case; the prisoners were discharged.