Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten: Enforcing Law on the Texas Frontier (review)

Bob Alexander, well-known historical writer on outlaws and lawmen, has put together a biography of one of the noted sergeants of the Texas Rangers—Austin Ira Aten. The most striking aspect of the format is that Alexander can write like a scholarly researcher, yet he still has the ability to appeal to the common folk. His prose is celebratory in tone with colorful slangy language, many clichés, apt quotations, and facts galore. At one point the author has the Ranger horses galloping and "burning the wind," with their "nostrils flaring and sides heaving" (75).

Ira Aten (1862-1953) was not a Texan by birth. He grew up in the Midwest and migrated to the Texas Hill Country in the 1870s. At the beginning of the next decade, Aten joined Company D of the Frontier Battalion. After years in the Ranger service, he became a sheriff in two different counties, worked as a divisional manager for the XIT ranch, and moved to California to farm and ranch.

A Texas Ranger noncommissioned officer in the late 1800s had to carry out administrative duties and participate in criminal investigations. For Aten the former meant running encampments and making sure that mules were transported to another company. The latter meant examining evidence, carrying out manhunts, and making arrests. Early in 1884 Private Aten made his first single-handed arrest. He took into custody a horse thief in Williamson County. By then Ira's personal qualities impressed his superiors: few vices, articulate and polite, a taste for mobility, and the ability to work independently from other law officers.

For Wild West devotees the smell of gun smoke made a Ranger. In the words of the author: "Ira Aten was a man of genuine gunfighting ability. When the fat was in the fire, Ira Aten would step to the mark—alone or with teammates" (119). The Ranger showed this knack for handling his weapons in shootouts with fence cutters, in the killing of Wes Collier, and in his courageous stand in the Jaybird-Woodpecker feud.

By the opening of the twentieth century the word "detective" had two meanings: doing undercover work and handling evidence found at the scene of a crime. The former meant that Aten used disguises, told untruths, and even took part in criminal enterprises in order to collect information and identify lawbreakers. This especially happened in fence-cutting cases in various counties. Aten disliked taking part in these covert activities and Adjutant General Wilburn H. King believed that undercover assignments were on a "strictly volunteer basis" (108). In his most famous detective case, in 1889 Aten investigated the multiple murder of a white male and three females whose bodies were sunk with ropes and rocks in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. In time, Sergeant Aten traced the movements of the victims back to San Saba, Texas. The Rangers then questioned witnesses and used dental identification, rope evidence, and the murder weapon to bring the killers to justice. Dick Duncan went to the gallows.

In recent years, Ranger books have been published and sold at an astonishing rate. This work should be no exception. Yet researchers can still pursue some questions about the life and times of Aten. Why, for example, did Aten remain a sergeant and not gain promotion to lieutenant or captain? The author notes his desire to be a captain but it did not happen. In addition, the author tries to compare the doings of Aten to the more celebrated western lawman—Wyatt Earp. More to the point, however, would be the question: How does Aten's career compare with other noted Ranger sergeants, like James B. "Jim" Gillett and W. J. L. Sullivan? They did not become Texas Ranger captains either.