Prairie Gothic: The Story of a West Texas Family

Chapter Nineteen: Milt Good

148 Chapter Nineteen: Milt Good Decades after Tom Ross died, people in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico still had strong feelings about him. They liked him, they hated him; he was kind and he was cruel, a good man and a thief, a friend but an enemy, a devoted family man but also a cold-blooded killer. His personality expressed such a fascinating mixture of power and charm that those who shared his company, even at a distance, never forgot the experience. That was not the case with Milt Good. My mother said little about him. Neither did Uncles Roy and Burt, and neither did Grandmother Curry. They talked only of Tom Ross, mentioning Good only in passing, even though Good ranched around Brownfield, only thirty miles from Seminole, and was surely acquainted with the Shermans and Currys. History has little to say about Milt Good, even though he was charged with being an active, equal partner in the most gruesome murder in Seminole’s history. Juries in Lubbock and Abilene found both men guilty of murder and gave them the same sentence—although, in an odd twist, the Lubbock jury deleted nine years from Good’s sentence, one year each for the wife and eight children he would be leaving behind. We would have to conclude that Milt Good was a moon that reflected the light of Tom Ross’ sun, and like the moon, he spent much of his time in half-light and darkness. So who was he? In August of 2004 I was working in the archives of the Panhandle 149 Milt Good Plains Historical Museum (PPHM) in Canyon, looking for photographs to use as illustrations in this book. I had never seen a photograph of Tom Ross, and on the slim chance that one might exist, I checked the card catalog under “Ross.” Sure enough, they had one. When the reference librarian brought me the folder, I opened it up and studied the picture of this man about whom I had heard so many stories. It appeared to be a prison mug shot, showing only the right side of his face: a man with a bull neck, rough skin, thinning black hair, and menacing black eyes. No wonder my mother had nightmares about him. This was a scary man. Curious to know the source of the photograph, I returned to the card file and looked it up again. The notation at the bottom of the card said, “Good, Milt. Twelve Years In a Texas Prison.” This was the book J. Evetts Haley had told me about thirty-one years ago, and the museum had a copy of it! In 1935, after he was released from prison, Milt Good hired a man named W. E. Lockhart to write his story and Good published it himself “to make enough money . . . to buy me a little home and settle down with what is left of my family to the life of a good American citizen.” (Good 1935: 5) I don’t know how many copies he sold, but it probably fell short of the number that would have paid for a nice little home. The book is rare enough today so that the PPHM keeps it under lock and key, and readers are issued a pair of white cotton gloves before they touch it. I had never seen the book or even known anyone one who had seen it, with the single exception of J. Evetts Haley. At last, I would have a chance to hear Milt Good’s side of the story. It is a strange little book, a disjointed scrapbook of reflections on a variety of subjects. Good begins by giving us a glimpse of his past. As a young man, he cowboyed in West Texas, ranched in New Mexico, and went broke after blizzards and droughts wiped him out. In 1919 he turned to professional roping, or “roping for prizes,” as he called it. In 1920 he won the world’s championship steer roping at Shreveport, Louisiana. He attributed his success as a roper to the fact that “I never drank any liquor of any kind, never dissipated, and was always in good physical condition.” (11) He also trained polo ponies for G. H. Coyle of Midland. (17) 150 Chapter Nineteen He lists the best calf- and steer-roping horses he ever saw, and describes one of his prison jobs...