Captain J. A. Brooks, Texas Ranger

5. Prizefight in El Paso

On March 22, 1892, Ranger Pvt. E. E. Doaty of Company E was gunned down by fleeing Garcista rebels, renewing with full force the hunt for the last of these border ruffians. Captain Brooks joined McNeel’s force as they combed the Valley. On the twenty-sixth, Private Musgrave happened onto a camp and found himself quickly outnumbered . He managed to escape and return to his company; the bandits had vanished when Company F moved in the next day.1 Two brothers, José and Pancho Ramirez, had been accused of the killing of Army Corporal Edstrom the previous December, and Brooks and Rogers came upon their trail late in March in Encinal County. Separating to cover more territory, Rogers and a volunteer named Lee Hall surprised the two brothers in their camp; in the shoot-out that followed , José was killed. Two days later, Brooks tracked and arrested Pancho Ramirez, returning him to the Starr County jail where the warrant had been issued.2 In April, four more Los Catarinos were rounded up by Company F and escorted to the jail in Corpus Christi to stand trial. U.S. Marshal P. S. Levy received the prisoners, who would appear in the federal court for violation of U.S. neutrality laws. By May the Garza trouble had seemingly come to an end in the Valley.3 79 PRIZEFIGHT IN EL PASO We’re here to protect life and property. We are not taking sides in this dispute. 5 But for Captain Brooks the hunt for the latent revolutionaries continued. In June he moved Company F to a camp near Realitos, closer to the center of activity, and where much of the company would remain for the next year. In nearby Benavides, Brooks and a local deputized citizen, J. F. Ruthge, interrogated a young black man named Ashworth who they thought had information that would lead them to suspected rebels Eusebio Martinez and Gribeno Benavides. The trail took them into an area familiar to Brooks, what he called “the gatta,” a denizen of thieves in a densely wooded area of the lower Gato Creek in northwest Zavala County; bandits often used this stretch of creek bed for hideouts. No suspects were found on this scout.4 Months later Brooks wrote his adjutant general asking permission “to look for Garza-ites and their leader.” Mabry in declining replied tersely, “Your zeal may cause you to overlook criminals against the laws of our own State.” Capt. Joe Shely, one of several peace officers from that clan, had recently reported that Brooks seemed almost obsessed with hunting the revolutionaries, and Mabry added as a postscript to Brooks: “Such reports as from the interview of Capt. Shely does not do the cause of the Ranger Force any good.”5 Although difficult to do more than read between the lines of reports and letters, there is a troubling sense that James Brooks was going through his first period of personal problems since he joined the Rangers a decade earlier, problems that may very well have been related to his excessive drinking. On July 5 Brooks asked for and was given permission to visit “the state encampment,” a retreat center where he stayed for nine days that month. Although he was active in October and made six arrests in Duval County, on November 16 Brooks took a brief leave of absence “on account of being ill.” The physician’s billing of $60 to treat Brooks seemed “too excessive” to General Mabry when he received the paperwork: Whatever medicine used was not itemized.6 On January 1, 1893, James Brooks said goodbye to his friend and trusted officer John H. Rogers who now assumed command of Company E. D. L. Musgrave was promoted to first sergeant to replace Captai n J. A. Brook s, Te xas Rang e r 80 Rogers in Company F, and W. M. Spindle was promoted to the newly instituted rank of corporal a few weeks later. Others in Brooks’s command included George Bigford, Will Evetts, Walter Ellis, John and Joe Natus, George Piland, T. H. Pool, R. C. Lewis, J. C. Thomas, Ed Rowe, John Hess, and the captain’s brother-in-law Neal Willborn. Most of the company now stationed at Realitos—there were eighteen on Brooks’s roster in January—continued to scout for border bandits, while a handful kept the camp at Cotulla. By...