by Tom Goodman
Before the Texas Rangers became legends on lunch boxes and highway signs, they were often sent into places where local law had either failed or joined the wrong side.
San Saba, Texas, in the 1890s was one of those places.
Today, San Saba is better known as the birthplace of Academy Award-winning actor and filmmaker Tommy Lee Jones--and, of course, the Pecan Capital of the World. But in the 1890s, its name carried a darker association.
If you remember a young Michael Douglas in The Star Chamber, the story out of San Saba sounds like a frontier version of the same temptation: secret men deciding who deserved punishment.
For years, a secretive vigilante organization held parts of the county in fear. It was known as the San Saba Murder Society, the San Saba Mob, or, more colorfully, the Buzzard’s Water Hole Gang, after one of its alleged meeting places.
The group seems to have justified itself as frontier order-keeping, the sort of extralegal force that claimed to deal with thieves, rustlers, and men it defined as threats to the community. But over time, the gang became dominated by men who just had a private grudge against a neighbor, or wanted another's property, or just had a taste for violence under a thin veneer of justification.
The historical marker in San Saba County says the group operated with secrecy, ritual, signs, and gestures, and that by the 1880s it had killed numerous area settlers. Some accounts claim the gang included local officials and even religious leaders.
In 1896, Texas sent Rangers into the county, and breaking up the San Saba Murder Society eventually fell to Captain William Jesse “Bill” McDonald.
One of the most famous Ranger captains in Texas history, McDonald was not a subtle man in the way he handled conflict.
Not that he never had his private doubts about his personal safety. In a 1909 biography of McDonald, Albert Bigelow Paine noted that Captain Bill had brought his wife to San Saba while he worked the case, and one morning he appeared before her with an anonymous letter.
"Well, I've got to leave San Saba,"he said.
“Why?” she asked. “Has the governor ordered you away?”
"No, the governor hasn't, but read this."
He handed her the letter which informed him that if he did not leave San Saba in two days he would be filled so full of lead that it would require a freight train to haul him to the graveyard.
After reading the note, Rhoda McDonald said, "Bill Jess, if you leave here on account of a thing like that, I'll leave you."
"Well," said Captain Bill, "I seem to be in a mighty bad fix. If I stay I'll be filled with bullets, and if I go I'll lose my wife. I s'pose I'll have to stay."
Working with the district attorney, McDonald helped expose the San Saba Mob’s network and push cases beyond the reach of local interference. Some trials were moved to Austin and Llano.
By 1900, the gang’s grip on San Saba County had been broken, though justice came imperfectly. Few members paid fully for what they had done.
Still, McDonald’s reputation grew from exploits like this. In 1905, when President Theodore Roosevelt visited Texas, the governor appointed McDonald as the president’s special bodyguard through the state.
Captain Bill McDonald gets a cameo in my forthcoming novel. I couldn’t resist letting Texas’s most famous Ranger step into the frame.
It's inspired by the remarkable true story of a man who faced down a violent bootlegging syndicate and became known as the pistol-packing preacher.
I'm giving away free copies of the ebook to a select team of Advance Readers. Join the Pistol-Packing Preacher's Posse by clicking here!
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