Customer Reviews

Texas Ranger Tales: Stories That Need Telling (Pt. 1)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mike Cox has written a fun, fact filled essay that is a quick and easy read. Each chapter is a separate story related to some past instance of Texas Ranger history. This book does not contain popular stories, in fact, most of the chapters cover obscure events, which makes it very interesting for true fans of this elite agency. I am afraid, however, that most people will not get much interest out of some of the chapters. I would have to disagree with Mr. Cox, and say that some of these stories really don't "need telling".

Stephen F Austin once wrote during the early days of the Anglo settlement in Texas that he would "employ ten men to act as 'rangers' for the common defense." Thus were the famous Texas Rangers born. The Rangers are an important part of the history of Texas. About them have endured and evolved numerous myths and traditions. One of which is that the Texas Rangers could not be stampeded according to the late Colonel Homer Garrison.

Mike Cox tells folksy tales, the kind that we would all enjoy around a campfire. In the early 1870's Ranger Tedford and several other Rangers were scouting the headwaters of the Llano River. They were under strict orders not to shoot unless they came upon Indians. The order was mildly irritating to the Rangers until they crossed a hill and came upon a bear. What would they do? One Ranger suggested roping it. One can imagine what could have happened.

Even the chapter where Cox tells about eating coyote is folksy. Comanches had attacked settlers in Coleman County in West Texas. The Rangers trailed the Indians across Runnels and Coke Counties into
Nolan County. At that point the Rangers were running out of supplies and there was no game around except ... a coyote. Years later a Ranger named Rogers recalled that another Ranger named Elkins was so hungry he ate a half-quarter of the coyote. "Pass the coyote, please."

Texas Ranger Tales by Mike Cox does not live up to its subtitle, "Stories That Need Telling." The book is a compilation of after notes and leftovers from history and laboriously expounded upon. Each chapter is a stand-alone story, and each ended with me hoping the next might hold my interest through the book. It didn't.
For instance, the chapter "Pass The Coyote, Please!" documents a hungry group of Rangers traveling during the winter. Game is so scarce, they kill and eat a coyote. That's it. The author drags the incident out into a full chapter by adding historical documentation about civilizations that did or did not eat coyote.
"Corporal Wilson's Ride" is a detailed account of a group of Texas Rangers that road through the night to intercept a would-be bank robbery and were too late. The following chapter, "The Killing of `Caige' Grimes" is a continuation of the previous boring chapter, documenting the early life of the person killed in the gunfight of the would-be robbery the Rangers missed.
Each chapter left me wishing I had the book that these insignificant details were left out of. I can only speak for the first half of the book, because I gave up half the way through it and move on to my next book.

If you enjoy Texas history or just history in general, this book is for you. If the author does not know the true facts, he will tell you so. You will find yourself looking forward to the next story. I enjoyed the book

From the personalities of pack mules like Old Monk that Rangers used on the scout to celloid cowboy Tom Mix's fraudulent claim to have been a Ranger, Mike Cox does a very entertaining job on these 27 stories of the legendary lawmen. We learn, for instance, why it often took only a few of them to arrest scores of armed men: "Saw our guns cocked, I reckon," said Ranger Capt. Roy Aldrich, and that their famous star-in-a-wheel badge is still cut from the soft silver of a Mexican cinco peso coin. Cox's reviews in the appendix of ten classic Ranger narratives, published between 1847 and 1928, alone are worth the price of the book. But the stories that need telling are also worth the telling, and worth the buying.

I bought this book as a birthday gift for my husband. He absolutely loved the book. Only three stars because it arrived in bad condition even though the packaging looked okay.