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

Introduction

Introduction it’s early December 1998. My wife, Melanie, and I approach Merryville , Louisiana, from the south. We move north on Highway 27 past the turnoffs to small towns and then northwest on 110 through expanding pine flatwoods squared off in rows like the pristine cemeteries of soldiers. A few small creeks, more like large ditches, cut under the highway, but almost nothing interrupts the forest’s progression. All that breaks this view of what will be cut is what was cut a time back or what is being cut now. Up to a few years ago, someone’s cattle wandering on the highway, especially in midnight or fog, could make a drive through here dangerous. The fence law put a stop to that, but this price for safety came with some sacrificing. Now fences slice hunting grounds, and the separation of land halts hounds, hunters on foot, or ATVs. As with so many aspects of life here, progress comes with trade-offs. As the road continues and curves into town, the place shows itself. The high school ball fields, which serve as the city’s recreation fields in the summer, jut up against each other. Outfield fences of some fields curve toward outfield fences of others. Like planetary orbits around suns, the wire fences curve toward each other, almost collide, and then slope away. On the fields used by the high school, long pieces of plywood line the fences. The painted planks read “PANTHERS” or contain detailed yellow eyes staring from the plywood or bloody claws whose marks have ripped the wood. The local stadium, home of the Merryville High School Panthers, rests a little farther down the road, 1 2฀฀฀|฀฀฀introduction separated from the highway by an empty grass field used as a parking lot for Friday night home football games. Running parallel to the highway, the bleachers put their back to the road, and above them the broad sign tells the place’s name, “Keener Cagle Stadium.” Christian Keener “Red” Cagle—a football titan—began here in Merryville during the late 1920s, was an All-American at Southwestern Louisiana Institute and West Point, and spent time in the professional league as a New York Giant.1 The legacy and importance of football remains, and Merryville defies classification as this Class B school fields a football team. The school itself follows the stadium. The buildings lie on a tract of land first owned by William Marsh Rice, the founder of Rice University , which spawned the Rice Land Lumber Company. The company owns a sizable amount of nearby forests, the cutting of which funded the first buildings on the Rice campus. In 1920, the Rice Land Lumber Company donated 160 acres to the Beauregard Parish school system . From kindergarten to twelfth grade, around six hundred children fill the school. Built in 1910, the school burned on a Sunday night in January 1918. A “new” school was completed on July 17 in 1920. The school today—its classrooms, fields, gym, cafeteria, library, and other buildings—stretches over a small amount of the one hundred and sixty acres donated by Rice. Most enter the school through the circle drive that curves off Highway 110 and that arcs its way in front of the school’s main auditorium before it bends back onto the road. Resting as a marker of memory and meaning, a statue of the school’s mascot stands in the middle of the drive’s sloping curve. Painted black with a maroon that accentuates its muscles, mouth, and eyes, a panther watches as people make their way into the school’s gym. The panther stands as an emblem of the mystery and power hidden in the piney woods. The area, the town, and the school have embraced the animal, and its form and function blaze on outfield fences, the fifty-yard line, jackets, sweatshirts, cars and trucks, in yards, and even as small decorations in homes. Moreover, the popularity of panther stories rivals the popularity of the outlaw legends in the region. The creature haunts the tales of children and teenagers, and many tell stories about the animal roaming these woods. Even though many introduction฀฀฀|฀฀฀3 workers for Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and other wildlife authorities refuse to believe any panther stalks these woods, residents still have proof. On rare nights, when a person gets in earshot of a panther prowling a part of his territory, a...