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

Chapter 2: Meanness, Just across the River

25 Chapter Two meanness,฀Just฀across฀the฀river a few days later, Melanie and I found ourselves with plans for another trip scheduled for the days between Christmas and New Year’s. Grand decided taking a trip to Newton, Texas, to see the Christmas lights was in order. During any typical Christmas season, some people in Merryville will decide to cross the Louisiana-Texas border, “the River” as they say, to see the town lights of Newton, the county seat of Newton County, Texas. This trip exists as somewhat of a local Christmas tradition and seemed to be my initiation rite. My acceptance of chili as a holiday meal no doubt won her favor. Hearing of my interest in Leather Britches Smith, Grand also decided I should talk to a few people in town versed in “all about the history of Merryville” and bound to know some of the details surrounding the outlaw. We drove for a while, and then we came to the border. We crossed the Sabine to head over to Newton. Even at night, we could feel ourselves crossing and could see the thickets of growth teeming off its banks. Many places right off the river are swamps or thickets with a fair amount of vegetative diversity: black willow, river birch, others from the beech family, swamp black gum, red oak, white oak, red gum, swamp red maple, cypress before most of it was cut, and pine (the indigenous varieties of longleaf and loblolly and the fairly recently intro- 26฀฀฀|฀฀฀aLways฀For฀the฀underdoG duced variety of slash pine).1 Especially in the section of river running through No Man’s Land, swamp vegetation or dense brush flourishes on much of the riverbank and provides plenty of game for hunting, choice opportunity for hiding, and impressive natural defenses.2 These special sections of woods close to the river remain, and in them, growth has somehow held on to the past or convinced the people around them to preserve the past there. The Sabine River, especially because it still holds parts like these, may be even more important to the region’s cultural landscape than the timber or the pinewoods. The river basin runs about three hundred miles. It stretches southeasterly through Texas, and turns at Logansport, Louisiana, to head south to the Gulf of Mexico.3 Currently, the Sabine River acts as Louisiana ’s and the region’s current western border.4 The river, however, has been a prominent landmark before its official status as a boundary and even before European settlement helped shape the area’s distinct contemporary folk culture.5 Geographic borders may stand as legal markers , but they often function more prominently as mental markers, as powerful delineations of identity.6 Often, people living on the “fringe of society” (I hesitate using the phrase) develop an identity from this experience.7 They see themselves as isolated, sometimes even forgotten or excluded, but they also see themselves as independent, sometimes even adventurous and resourceful.8 More importantly, they see themselves as split in two, as members of two communities, or as people who can operate in two worlds.9 Equally civilized and untamed, simultaneously community members and isolationists, people here often move in and out of personal definitions.10 Since borders are often hostile, rugged, violent places, the people who cross them are often dangerous, rugged, and violent people.11 The border the Sabine River creates is punctuated by danger and strife.12 Violent tales of feuds and outlaws use it as a backdrop, and horrific stories of drowning and murder employ it as a setting.13 Personal narratives have loved ones crossing it to escape a bad marriage or find a new start. As a rite of passage to mark a person’s crossing into a time of independence, a teenager sometimes will make his or her first unchaperoned trip into Texas. The river, as a result, becomes a crucial part of these residents’ lives. meanness,฀Just฀across฀the฀river฀฀฀|฀฀฀27 The Sabine’s long-standing and symbolic role as a line in the sand— one side ensuring punishment and the other promising freedom—tied Smith to its banks. In the past, when facing a crime, outlaws crossed the Sabine from one jurisdiction to another as a sure way to avoid capture. The river offered a similar safe haven for Leather Britches Smith. Many claim Leather Britches to have been a Texas...