Betrayal at the Border

A single powerful 1886 Winchester rifle shot reverberated off the canyon walls five miles east of the Davis Mountains and two miles north of the Rio Grande. Texas Ranger Lieutenant, Moses Mitchell, fell to the sandy ground behind a small stand of trees; obviously his little brother, Bat, had gotten much better with a long gun since he’d been on the lam.

Blood trickled down from the lawman’s temple and through the layers of dust caked on his ebony cheek; he tasted the salty fluid at the corner of his parched lips once it had navigated the obstacles of his thick black moustache and beard. Moses tightly gripped his own firearm with both hands and remained motionless as thoughts of the events leading up to this moment repeated in his throbbing head…

Moses’ kid brother seemed to have always shadowed him like a puppy biting at his heels. Wherever Moses went or whatever Moses did, Bat was always close by following his lead. In 1875, at the age of twenty-two, just two months after the tragic death of their parents at the hands of a murderous gang of banditos, Moses landed a job as the first black sergeant in the recently recommissioned Texas Rangers, and one of his first cases was to hunt down and bring to justice that very gang. The elite Texas law enforcement division was originally established just after the Mexican War of Independence but was briefly disbanded during reconstruction after the Civil War; after he was sworn in, Moses vowed that the banditos would soon come to know it by its dreaded Spanish nickname…Los Diablos Tejanos. Of course, sixteen-year-old Bat had tagged along as part of the posse.

It wasn’t long before Bat was a field ranger under Moses, and for fifteen years they worked together to arrest and bring to justice over three thousand felons. During these years, and in defense of their lives, Moses had killed twenty men and Bat had slayed eleven. It was his twelfth that was the issue.

Moses hadn’t seen his brother for the last six months, because Bat had been transferred to Company E in west Texas to assist with small bands of Apache Indians still raiding after the defeat of Geronimo in 1886. The Apache people feared the Texas Rangers “whose guns were always loaded and whose aim was unerring.”^[1] Bat was very probably part of the reason for their awe, because seven of the eleven notches on his rifle stock were Apache.

Moses had been relaxing in his favorite saloon when one of his men approached him. “Sir…uh sir…I have a writ,” he said nervously.

Moses swigged what was left in his shot glass and poured himself a fresh shot of whiskey. “Don’t ya know by now there ain’t a writ I won’t take?” he boasted.

The man only timidly handed his Lieutenant the slip of paper. He knew that although Moses could speak English, Spanish, and several Indian dialects, he couldn’t read. However, he could recognize certain words, and he most definitely could read his own last name. The court order was made out for Bartholomew Mitchell…for the murder of his superior officer.

Moses simply folded the writ and pocketed it. He left the full shot glass and whiskey bottle on the bar, and his spurs clattered on the saloon’s hardwood floor as he immediately set out to hunt down and arrest his only known kin. In three short weeks he’d tracked his brother to a hunting shack in the scrublands just east of the Davis Mountain range and only a couple of miles north of the Mexican border.

Moses had cautiously approached the cabin from downwind so as not to spook his brother’s horse that was tied to the porch rail. He’d left his own mount up the ridge near a small stream, and he stooped down behind a small grove of alligator junipers for cover about a hundred yards from the building where his brother was holed up.

The confrontation Moses had been anticipating for weeks was finally upon him. Still, it was his only brother, and he was pretty sure that he could talk him into doing the right thing. “Bat! Throw down yer guns and come out with yer hands up!”

The only answer that came was the sound of the southwest Texas wind, so he’d repeated his warning. “Bat! I mean it now! Ya know fo’sho…I always get my man! Throw down yer weapons and come outta there peaceably!”

The sound of a table being flipped and pushed up against the door was followed by Bat’s answer. “I ain’t comin’ out brother! So you best get! Go collect yer horse and let me jump the border. If not, I guess I’ll just hafta kill me another officer! In case ya don’t know it, I’m a damn good shot with a rifle nowadays!”

“Bat, it don’t matter to me why ya did it, but we got plenty of witnesses to yer deadly offense…so don’t make it any worse fo’yerself!” Moses counseled.

“That fella deserved what he got! He raped one of the dead Apache’s squaws!” Bat hollered.

Moses thought carefully about his next words, “I told ya I don’t care why ya did it…but if it is as ya say, Judge Reeves will fo’sho run a fair trial. Now…if ya just turn yerself in, I promise, I will do everything in my power to keep my kid brother from the noose.”

“No way, Moses! I ain’t gonna be hung, and I sure as hell ain’t goin’ to prison. I ain’t talkin’ no’mo, so ya better start runnin’ or I’m gonna start shootin’!”

Moses was torn; how could he betray his own blood? Maybe he’d just leave the writ for other lawmen to serve; maybe his little brother would be the one that got away, but deep down he knew that he couldn’t let his quarry go without a fight. Kin or no kin, it just wouldn’t be right. Fatefully, his hesitation made the choice for him. Just as the Lone Star State’s evening sun tucked itself behind the perfidious shack, Moses caught a glimpse of the muzzle flash from his brother’s rifle through its open front window.

Perhaps that was all the advantage Moses needed, but somehow he’d managed to flinch enough to make his brother miss. The bullet skipped off his skull just under the brim of his dusty black cowboy hat and he’d gone down hard, but he wasn’t dead yet.

…Moses remained still as a cornered possum. He heard the table scrape on the floor of the shack, immediately followed by the creak of the cabin’s front door, and he kept his eyes closed while he counted his brother’s footsteps. Bat had taken exactly one hundred and ten steps before stopping to survey his handiwork.

Moses didn’t see it, but Bat pointed his rifle at him with his finger on the trigger. Bat couldn’t miss the gore on his brother’s face and the small pool of blood on the ground beneath his chin. “Moses…you dead? Why couldn’t ya just leave well enough alone, brother? I told ya I was a crack shot!” Bat couldn’t help but brag; he’d just shot one of the best Texas Rangers west of the Colorado River, but before he could pull his trigger a second time…

A single devastating 1887 Winchester ten-gauge shotgun blast echoed off the canyon walls five miles east of the Davis Mountains and two miles north of the Rio Grande. Bartholomew “Bat” Mitchell lay dead at the hands of his big brother. Moses Mitchell stood up and slung his shotgun; he never failed to serve a writ, but this time it felt like maybe he had.

FOOTNOTE [1]: Lehmann, H., 1927, Nine Years Among the Native Americans, 1870–1879, p. 115.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This short western was inspired by the same real life lawman that very likely spawned the Legend of the Lone Ranger. His name was Bass Reeves, and he was the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River. The true story of his life is quite amazing and worth a longer read. Regrettably, the Texas Rangers didn’t hire a black officer until 1988; his name was Lee Roy Young.