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

Chapter 4: Shot a Chicken’s Head Clean Off

59 Chapter Four shot฀a฀chicKen’s฀head฀cLean฀oFF when my wife and I heard the news, we talked softly about the good times we had with her and what we remembered most. My wife knew her far better than I did, but we both had plenty to smile and laugh about. Still, when we heard that Ocelean Fuller had died, we mostly talked about our amazement. By all accounts, Ocelean Fuller walked the Earth a remarkable woman. She slapped down dominos with the best of them. She fished up a storm. She was a better shot than a great many folks and could keep up with her brother whose reputation as a hunter spread a good ways. She paddled out at midnight to trap and kill alligators. She tended a little garden. She worked many a full-time job. She raised her boy alone after her husband died. She lived in a little house on the bank of the Sabine River nearly her whole married life, and she knew nearly every way to get along in those waters. She was tough and sweet, quiet but not timid. The Sabine River must miss Ocelean the same way my wife and I do. So familiar to the landscape, they both seem indispensible parts of Merryville. Melanie’s aunt called to tell us about the funeral arrangements. On the day of the funeral, we started the drive from Lake Charles to Bon Weir, Texas, a town just across the Sabine from Merryville. We left Lake Charles and headed north, driving 60฀฀฀|฀฀฀aLways฀For฀the฀underdoG up Highway 171 through Moss Bluff, past Topsy and Gillis, across Highway 190, through Longville, past the Oakdale turnoff, until we reached DeRidder. We drove by the Woodlawn Cemetery, a Dairy Queen, nurseries, and a few antique shops and flea markets. We reached the edge of downtown DeRidder and crossed the railroad tracks to hit DeRidder’s center. Like so many places in this area, DeRidder arose from the intersection between timber and railroad. The landscape, the rich game, the tall pines, and thick stands of hardwoods drew settlers long before the railroad came through the area and long before this place became a town; however, a dream changed the woods into a town. Arthur Edward Stilwell possessed that dream, a railroad man’s dream to build a railroad from Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico. The idea came to be known as the Port Arthur Route, the shortest line connecting a vast storage of exportable American meat to the open waters of the Gulf. This line, a mere extension of some of the existing lines, would promote trade, spur progress, and guarantee prosperity. Cattle, corn, coal, oats, rye, cotton: these and many more products, essentials of the American economy, could ease over land to the great engine of the ocean, the very shores of enterprise. From Kansas City to Joplin, from Joplin to Stilwell, from Stilwell to Mena, from Mena to Texarkana, from Texarkana to Shreveport, from Shreveport to DeRidder, from DeRidder to Port Arthur, and from Port Arthur to the Gulf of Mexico—the Port Arthur Route meant business.1 The cup of Arthur Stilwell overflowed with passion and dreams, but that cup ran short of money. In 1893, Stilwell’s dream met the dry throat of a financial crisis, a crisis sweeping through the whole country. People began cursing the year, hacking and spitting as they spoke its name, The Panic of 1893. First, the money flowed a little slower and those in the know figured it best to save a little here or there. Jobs dried up. The next project waited a while, openings delayed. Bosses let people go, wages fell. With less in their pocket, if they had anything at all, people paid less, bought less. In town, no work meant buying no food. On farms, no demand meant no need to move the food. Too much rotted away and no money was to be made shipping it, so it rotted . No money meant buying no more seed, no fertilizer, no fuel, and shot฀a฀chicKen’s฀head฀cLean฀oFF฀฀฀|฀฀฀61 it meant no need in planting more food. Prizes rose to squeeze out every penny. People made less and products cost more. Then workers mobilized. Coal miners, gold miners, dockworkers, stockyard workers, even railroad workers decided to strike. Demonstrations, marches, and speeches popped up around the country...