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146 Chapter 9 “Walked into his own trap” As the new year of 1880 kicked off, it may be reported that since the Frontier Battalion’s formation in 1874 several rangers had made the ultimate sacrifice. Five had been killed by Indians; two more by rioting Mexicanos during the recklessly wasteful El Paso Salt War; and one by former members of the Seminole/Negro Indian scouts by some accounts, or Tenth Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers in other versions. Anglo adversaries, Kiowas, and south of the border bandits, and the Company D rangers, of course, had locked up in ticklish situations, too. But, thus far those ranks had come through the maelstroms sans any funerals. Such could not be said for many of their brothers of the badge, the city and county officers. For that same time period the good folks of Texas lost a total of sixteen lawmen killed in the line of duty, fellows from municipal police agencies, sheriffs’ departments , and the precinct constables’ offices.1 Texas had more than her fair share of rough and ready rascals, badmen and wanna-be badmen who had cut their teeth on blue-steeled six-shooters and soothed their bleeding gums with sour-mash. They didn’t all come from the headwaters of Bitter Creek—but they could have. A quick comparative glance at the Company D Muster Rolls is also enlightening. One of Captain Dan Roberts’ 1880 rosters contains names of twenty-two Texas Rangers. Only three of those fellows are listed on Company D’s initial 1874 enlistment index of seventy-five.2 Legislators’ monetary appropriations were consistently inadequate, sometimes miserly. The company’s attrition rate was dreadful, a deadfall tangle of explanations, some sound and justified, others excuses lame and discreditable—and dishonorable. The high turnover rate throughout the Frontier Battalion was not solely restricted to enlisted ranks. Many were the commissioned officers that quit the service and settled into a less far-flung scheme for finding job satisfaction.3 Peeking in on Company D’s placement during January 1880 would find them camped on the San Saba River, Menard County, “Walked into his own trap” 147 not too far from Fort McKavett. Undergoing its ever shifting manpower fluctuations the company was staffed with one captain, two sergeants, two corporals and twenty Texas Ranger privates, all living under state-furnished canvas canopies when not sleeping beneath a blanket of stars.4 Merriment associated with welcoming the new year was short lived for Texas Rangers. On the fourth day of January, a daring “jailhouse delivery” set the reading public and the men of Company D agog. Reuben Hornsby “Rube” Boyce, four days shy of his twentyseventh birthday, one of the suspected and incarcerated Pegleg stagecoach robbers, flew the coop. Love is sometimes blind, but in this case it had shown enough daylight for Rube to make his play. His wife, Adeline, during a Sunday lockup visit (a tryst in one version) at the Travis County jail had carried a wicker basket containing grooming articles and fresh underwear for Rube. Conscientiously jailer Albert Nichols carefully inspected the basket, but understandably did not frisk the delicate person of a young and pretty Mrs. Boyce. Tucked somewhere in Adeline’s underclothing was Rube’s key to freedom— a loaded Colt’s .45 six-shooter. At the opportune moment—after the short-barreled surprise had been passed to her husband—jailer Nichols, at gunpoint, traded places with Rube. Cautioning Nichols to keep quiet, Rube rushed outside to a strategically positioned saddle horse and made his getaway down Austin’s Congress Avenue. As a newsmaker the escape was a humdinger: There are few women, indeed, who have the nerve that Mrs. Boyce showed, and fewer still who would manifest that faithfulness she did for the man she loved. Her ventures would serve as the text for a most thrilling sensational drama or a novel of absorbing interest that would be read with amazement by thousands all over the world.5 For the Texas Rangers of several companies the escape of Rube Boyce was a nightmarish portent of misery on a platter: long days in the saddle under adverse conditions on a dead end manhunt. The men of Company D knew caution had best be in the wind—or they might come up dead. Rube had already killed his brother-in-law Robert Anderson, and possibly another man by the name of Johnson. Anecdotally it is reported that when an illiterate Rube Boyce was asked why he...

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