Always for the Underdog: Leather Britches Smith and the Grabow War

Chapter 7: They Didn’t Give the Man a Chance

118 Chapter Seven they฀didn’t฀Give฀the฀man฀a฀chance isuppose some might call the situation ironic. It was December 1997, a few days after Christmas, and I was planning my first real interview about Leather Britches Smith. Up to that point, I had heard only a few brief conversations and some talk around the dinner table, but I hadn’t discussed Smith with a person outside my wife’s family. My thoughts turned to the conversation planned for the next day. I was slated for interviewing Mrs. Catherine Stark, Granny Cat. Granny Cat had a reputation for knowing a good bit of historical information, and I envisioned hearing details about the outlaw’s real name, his exploits, and other facts about his life. I wondered if she would describe Smith roaming through the woods and his connection to the union. I wondered if she knew about the Grabow War and about Smith’s role in the fight. I speculated what she might say about how this river, these trees, the landscape itself exists as integral parts of the story. Despite all my speculations about how her story would reveal the juiciest and rarest tidbits about the outlaw’s infamous life, Granny Cat’s story centered, ironically, on the outlaw’s death. I suppose I should not have been too surprised about Catherine Stark’s account. An outlaw’s death comprises a crucial part of the story, and I suspect many people consider how that sort of man meets his they฀didn’t฀Give฀the฀man฀a฀chance฀฀฀|฀฀฀119 end as the most interesting portion of any outlaw legend.1 Perhaps, the times that the outlaw cheats death accumulate to make that final encounter so captivating. The famous outlaws developed their infamous reputations in part for their ability to escape capture.2 Pretty Boy Floyd broke roadblocks, Jesse James avoided one posse after another, and Billy the Kid survived shootout after shootout. Ordinary forces of the law seemed insufficient, inappropriate for these heroic criminals, and this experience is quite typical of outlaw-heroes. It makes sense. Nothing common should ruin the dramatic high point of an outlaw-hero’s capture. If the oppressor captured the heroic criminal by the typical means of the law, these details would reduce the “good outlaw’s” lure and power. Invariably, these outlaws—who seem almost immortal and like trickster figures in the process—cannot be captured in the customary fashion. Instead, the people must purge themselves of this poison, a painful but necessary act. The outlaw-hero must enter, exist, and exit by the actions of the people , not by the actions of some outside force, especially agents of the oppressive system. Just as no town, region, or civilization can do without the outlaw figure’s momentary existence at some point in its history, it cannot endure his perpetual existence. The outlaw is too wild and chaotic for that. Instead, the civilizing entity must possess the power to remove these sorts of figures when necessary. Exerting this control over the outlaw’s capture and death also typifies the frontier sensibility and the folk system of justice that developed in these frontier regions. The people of the frontier needed to govern and police themselves. The common people, especially those on the frontier, must direct their own fate, but bringing an outlaw to justice is not all that easy. A defiant doer, an outlaw exists beyond the ordinary; therefore, to bring about his end, the extraordinary often becomes necessary. The outlaw is notorious for a reason. Since the law can’t capture him through conventional means and the common folk may also have trouble bringing him to justice, the outlaw often comes to an end through trickery or treachery. As a result, in several legends, and in the Leather Britches story, people capture the outlaw because of a compatriot’s betrayal.3 Leather Britches lived beyond the ordinary. In the Smith legend, 120฀฀฀|฀฀฀aLways฀For฀the฀underdoG “No one dared to try to outdraw him,” no one dared to oppose him, and no one could stop him. People thought only Em Sapp, that noted U.S. Deputy Marshal of Beaumont, could match him in a gunfight, but Sapp never got a chance. During the span of time between Grabow and Smith’s death, other local authorities seemed helpless, completely unable to nab the outlaw. The sheriff’s deputies who arrested the many men...