BASS
REEVES
The Manhunter
Photo Courtesy of Western History
Collections, University of Oklahoma
In the late Nineteenth Century, the Indian Territory’s troubles were festering and totally out of control. Every bandit under the sun fled for the Nations, and no one area in the United States became such a refuge for criminals. They all knew they could probably escape justice, as the only jurisdiction in the whole area was the United States Court for Western Arkansas, located at Fort Smith. The court was the largest federal court in the Union, covering more than 75,000 square miles. With outlaw gangs ruling supreme and dealing depredations of the worst sort, President Ulysses Grant took drastic action. In 1875, he ordered Judge Isaac Charles Parker the job of cleaning up the Territory of the desperadoes. One of Judge Parker’s first appointments to the long arm of the law was undoubtedly the greatest, most courageous lawman to ever journey into Hell’s Fringe…Bass Reeves.
The early life of Bass Reeves remains a mystery. Writer/historian Art Burton uncovered most of what is known today, and Burton's research is still on-going. It is known that Reeves was born a slave, and slave records did not contain names, places, or dates. Slaves were generally not even allowed to learn to read and write. Family history had to be passed down through the generations by word of mouth, providing that the slave family was allowed to remain together, which did not always happen. About the only way for descendants today to trace their slave genealogies is to follow the paper trail of the slave owners, who often left specific slaves to family members in their estate records. After the Civil War, even this crude method of documentation ceased. All that is really known about Bass Reeves birth is that he was born a slave.
His obituary notice in 1910 stated that his mother survived him, and she gave her age as eighty-seven when he died, which places her birth year as 1823. He gave his age as sixty-nine when he retired from the United States Marshal’s service, which would place his birth year at about 1838. The 1900 Federal Census gave his birth date as July 1840, Texas.
Bass was owned by Colonel George Reeves, an interesting character in his own right. Colonel George had a total of seven slaves, and they all lived in the main house. During his lifetime, he was a farmer, sheriff of Grayson County, Texas, tax collector, state legislator before and after the Civil War, and a Colonel in the Confederate Army. He organized the Texas 11th Cavalry Unit for Grayson County, was Speaker of the House of Representatives for the State of Texas, and master of the George R. Reeves Masonic Lodge of Pottsboro in Grayson County, which was named in his honor. Reeves County in West Texas is also named for him.
George Reeves hailed from Tennessee, where he was born 3 January 1826 in Hickman County. It’s not known exactly when he moved to Texas, but it’s probably true that Bass’ ancestors were already part of the Reeves family in Tennessee. George died 5 September 1882 at Pottsboro of rabies after being bitten by his dog, and he’s buried in Georgetown Cemetery at Pottsboro. It is writer Art Burton’s surmise that Bass was born in Paris, Lamar County, Texas in July 1838.
Like all slaves, Bass took the surname of his owner. As a child, he worked alongside his parents as a water boy on Colonel Reeves’ farm near Pottsboro, until he was old enough to become a field hand. His mother said he liked to sing, and his work was usually accompanied by songs he made up of guns, rifles, butcher knives, robberies, and killings. It was enough to make her believe he would turn out to be a criminal.
As Bass became older, the Colonel made him a companion and body servant. George Reeves liked Bass. The youth was big and strong, with a quick mind, good manners, and good humor. He had a zest for life which made him a good companion, and he possessed the uncanny ability to accurately evaluate people, something which would serve him well later in life. He was probably happy with his life as a companion and body servant, but the Civil War set him on a different path.
Texas sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and George Reeves went into battle. Most likely, Bass Reeves accompanied his master. He probably heard tales of freeing the slaves, and maybe it set him to thinking. In any event, it has been speculated that it was sometime during these war years that the two men parted company.
There are two different versions associated with the parting of the ways for Bass and his master. Art Burton tells the family story that the two men were off alone somewhere playing cards when a heated argument broke out. Young Reeves gave the elder Reeves a beating, laying "him out cold with his fist and then made a run for the Indian Territory with the hue and cry of ‘run away nigger’ hounding him up until the Emancipation." Attacking one’s master was punishable by death, and he took up refuge with and fighting Civil War battles for the Seminoles and the Creek Indians, eventually becoming close friends with the Creek Chief Opothleyaholo.
Bass, himself, said that he accompanied Colonel Reeves into battle, seeing action at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. At Pea Ridge in Arkansas, he witnessed the death of famed Texas Ranger Ben McCulloch from a Union sniper’s bullet. There is no way to verify any of this since records were not kept of body servants of Confederate officers, but it may have been at this point that he parted ways with his master. Since he would have been in Confederate territory and considered a run away slave, he may have fled across the border to the Indian Nations for safety. However it came about, everyone who knew the exact details or might have been involved refused to talk about the incident or events leading to it.
It is known that during this time, Reeves perfected his mastery of firearms. His speed with a pistol was legendary. He was fast and sure with no wasted or unnecessary motion. He could draw and shoot with great speed and accuracy from the hip, but he preferred the more accurate method of taking his time, planting himself, and drawing "a bead as fine as a spider’s web on a frosty morning." People said that he could shoot the "left hind leg off a contented fly sitting on a mule’s ear at a hundred yards and never ruffle a hair."
With a rifle, Reeves claimed to be "only fair," but he was barred regularly from competition in turkey shoots, which were common to the local fairs and picnics of the territory. Art Burton recounts the time that a posse was on the trail of an outlaw near Gibson Station. As the day progressed, the posse was unable to subdue the outlaw and by late afternoon, they had expended a large amount of ammunition. The leader of the posse was Bud Ledbetter, and Ledbetter became very frustrated, finally sending for Bass Reeves. When Reeves arrived at the scene, the posse was still shooting at the outlaw. Daylight faded, and the outlaw decided to make a run for it on foot. Ledbetter hollered, "Get ‘em Bass." Bass replied, "I’ll break his neck." At a distance of a quarter-mile, Reeves, with one shot from his Winchester rifle, broke the outlaw’s neck.
Reeves knew all about the Indian Nations. During the Civil War, he lived in the Creek Nation, learned to speak Creek fluently, and could converse well in the languages of the other Five Civilized Tribes. There’s even the story that he had held a sergeant’s rank in the Union army in the latter days of the Civil War.
After the War, Reeves married a pretty girl named Jennie, who was also from Texas. They settled down on a farm he bought outside Van Buren, Arkansas, and proceeded to raise ten children, five boys and five girls. He was a successful farmer and stockman and content with his life, and he probably would have gone down in history as another faceless nobody if Fate hadn’t intervened. In 1875, when outlaws were robbing banks, trains, stores, post offices, Indian and homesteader alike in the Indian Territory, dealing death and destruction on a wide scale, Reeves became a Deputy United States Marshal under Judge Isaac Parker, the "Hanging Judge" of Fort Smith.
Bass Reeves was a big man. At a time when the average height for a man was around five feet eight inches tall, he stood six feet two inches and weighed around 180 pounds. His long muscular arms, long powerful legs, and trim narrow waist were perfect for sitting a horse, and the horses he chose were huge creatures at around nineteen hands high. Those who knew him said he could cup a Colt pistol in the palm of one hand the way a less ordinary man could cup a small derringer. He could whip "most any two men with his fist," and his knuckles were knotty and scarred to prove it.
His strength was legendary. Once, riding in the southern regions of the Chickasaw Nation, he came upon a group of cowboys attempting to pull a full-grown steer from one of the bogs along Mud Creek. The cowboys had roped the steer and were trying to drag it to solid ground. Reeves could see broken ropes dangling from the poor creatures neck, and its eyes were already rolled back into its head, sure signs that it was on the verge of strangulation. With a disgusted grunt, Reeves dismounted from his horse, stripped off his clothes, and without a word, stepped into the bog.
He worked his way out to the trapped animal, where he removed the remaining ropes strangling it. Then, grabbing the steer by the horns, he began to lift and pull, all the while talking low and steady to the poor creature. After several minutes, the animal had its breath back and was in a position to somewhat help. Reeves sank under the strain until he was in the mud up to his waist, but he never stopped pulling and heaving and lifting the animal.
Ever so slowly, the animal began to pull free from the lethal suction of the mud bog. When the forequarters were pulled loose, Reeves moved to the steer’s flank and began the torturous process again. By moving back and forth from the head to the flank, he was able to send the animal lunging toward solid ground under its own power. When it was free, Reeves waded out of the mud, scraped himself as clean as he could with his bare hands, stuffed his clothes into his saddlebags, mounted his horse, and rode off stark naked, mumbling something about "damn dumb cowboys." He had been there almost an hour and had not said one word to the astonished men watching him, but they all knew who he was.
Bass liked people, and it showed. He smiled easily and often, taking great pleasures in the simple joys of life. When he laughed, he threw back his head, and his roar boomed loud and clear across the landscape. He spoke with the warm drawl of the South, and his voice was pleasant, deep and resonant. But there was no mistaking that he was true Son of Nature. When he moved, he had all the easy grace and sureness of the natural hunter with the confidence and poise of a man whose strength has been tested and proven many times. When Reeves went to work for Judge Parker, he did so with the same sureness and devotion to duty that he gave everything else in his life.
Judge Parker was not an unusual man, although his reputation as the "Hanging Judge" of Fort Smith would seem to indicate that he was. Born Isaac Charles Parker in Ohio in 1838, he had a normal upbringing with nothing in particular to mark him as spectacular later in life. He graduated from law school in 1859, and he set up his law practice in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he later married. He served as city attorney and then as a presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln. In 1868, he was appointed judge, and two years later, he was elected to Congress. He only ended his political career when he asked President Grant to appoint him Federal Judge for the Western District of Arkansas. At the time he asked for the appointment, he was a member of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, and he was deeply concerned with the Indians’ plight. He was so involved in the Indian issue that his colleagues in Congress had dubbed him "the Indians’ best friend."
At the age of thirty-six, Judge Parker went to Arkansas, where there was a black mark on the judicial court there. The previous judge, William Story, appointed in 1872, was a corrupt, incompetent official. After slightly more than one hundred murders in two years, he had to resign in the Autumn of 1874 to avoid impeachment for bribery. The following judge did what he could to restore order, but after six months, he also left. The court was in such scandalous disarray that it was on the verge of abolishment. Not only was Isaac Parker as honest and as capable as they come, he was actually distinguished, already well-known in government circles. If anyone could bring respect back to the courtroom, it was deemed that Judge Parker could.
The Western District was located in Fort Smith by the time Judge Parker arrived. It had originally been located in Van Buren, but in 1871, it had moved to Fort Smith to meet the deepening crisis in the Indian Territory. The Nations had the wildest rampage of outlawry ever to happen on horseback throughout the entire Southwest. In 1870, the population of Indian Territory was approximately 68,152. Included were 16,000 Cherokees, 15,000 Choctaws, 14,000 Creeks, 4,800 Chickasaws, 2,160 Seminoles, 7,407 other Indians, 6,378 blacks, and 2,407 whites. Nothing worked in favor of any kind of firm and uniform law. There were no white man’s towns at all. The Five Civilized Tribes --- Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole --- were not recognized by the U. S. government as self-governing nations within their own allotted lands, and each tribe had its own laws, courts, and police force.
The Indian police were called "Lighthorse" because they were a mounted police, but the Indian courts had no jurisdiction whatsoever over white invaders, no power to exert even minimal restraints on fugitives from other parts. Furthermore, they had no jurisdiction over any Indian who committed any crime against, or in company with, any white man. The only jurisdiction in these cases fell to the United States Court for the Western District of Arkansas, whose sole judge and small group of marshals were somehow expected to enforce the law and order for the 75,000 square miles of outlaw-infested terrain. It was ludicrous.
With cries of alarm rising from the Indians in the territory and from bordering communities, a newspaper in Fort Smith prophesized that "if crime continues to increase there so fast, a regiment of deputy marshals cannot arrest all the murderers." With his mind set on bringing law and order to the area, Judge Parker told U. S. Marshal James F. Fagan to hire two hundred deputies to bring in all the robbers, murderers and thieves they could find. Between 10 May 1875, when the Judge took office, and 1 September 1896, when a Congressional Act established three federal courts inside the Indian Territory, Judge Parker tried 13,490 cases and won better than 8,400 convictions. More than eighty-five percent of the cases were for offenses committed in Indian Territory.
It was Judge Parker’s theory that certainty of punishment rather than punishment itself was the only deterrent to crime. His "equal and exact justice" for all parties was his motto. Putting this into practice, he inaugurated the greatest outlaw hunt in history. From 1875 until 1889, there was no appeal from his decision on the bench. His court was in session six days a week, from 7:30 A. M. to noon and from 1:00 to 6:00 P. M. He sentenced one hundred sixty-eight men and four women to hang by the neck until they were "dead, dead, dead," but only seventy-nine ever came to the gallows. Some sources say he only sentenced eighty-eight men to be hanged. He’s been dubbed the "equal opportunity Hanging Judge," as the men executed during his tenure were thirty white, twenty-six Indian, and twenty-three black.
It was Marshal D. R. Upham who originally advised Judge Parker to hire several hundred deputy marshals and send them out with John Doe warrants, which could be served on anyone the marshals believed to be engaged in a criminal activity. By the time the deputies could be found and sworn to duty, Judge Parker’s orders would become "Bring them in alive --- or dead!" It was a big order. The outlaws knew every inch of the territory, and the deputies had little in the way of protection. .
From the outset, Bass Reeves was the ideal choice for deputy marshal. Not only did he also know every inch of the Territory from his days of living with the Indians, he could also converse in the native languages wherever he went. Although he could not read or write, it never stopped him from going through Indian country to gather up the criminals. He carried a batch of warrants in his pocket, often totaling $900 or more in fees, of which he would net somewhere in the vicinity of $400 after he paid his expenses. Before heading out, he would have someone read the warrants to him, and he’d memorize the characters on the warrants which associated with the names of the people he tracked. When asked to produce the proper warrant for the suspect, he "would run through them and never fail to pick out the one desired." He never made a mistake. Often, he would be gone on trips lasting for months, before he would herd into Fort Smith, often single-handed, bands of men charged with crimes from bootlegging to murder. At different times, his belt was shot in two, a button shot off his coat, his hat brim shot off, and the bridle reins, which he held in his hands, cut by a bullet.
Lawmen who rode with him said he always sang softly to himself before he went into a gunfight. Adam Grayson, an early resident of the Creek Nation, said that Reeves only missed one time in capturing his man, and ‘that was a man named Hellubee Sammy, who lived at that time in what is now the Boley vicinity. Hellubee Sammy owned a large black horse that was a swift runner, and that was the only reason why he was not captured --- Sammy’s horse outran the U. S. marshal’s horse.’
Reeves loved horses, and his favorite was a big red stallion with a white blaze, and animal easily recognized by anyone who knew horseflesh. He also liked to dress neatly and was known for his politeness and courteous manner. Being a tall man, he sat tall in the saddle. His accouterments always included a gourd dipper tied to his saddlebag, which he used when he stopped at farmhouses for water. With his large black hat, big horse, and natty clothes, he was easily recognized coming over the prairie, and as his fame spread, he had to come up with more and more elaborate methods of disguise for getting his man.
One of his favorite ploys when chasing outlaws was to study the outlaw and the terrain and then determine the best method of catching the bandit. No one excelled at this better than he did. He dressed as a cowboy, a tramp, a gunslinger and outlaw, and he also used many aliases. One time on the trail of a two train robbers who carried a reward of $5,000 for their capture, which Bass was determined to get, he took an old pair of boots, lopped off the heels, selected a cane, and then proceeded to shoot three bullet holes in a very floppy old hat he carried with him. He then left his horse and posse at camp and walked twenty-eight miles to the robbers’ cabin, where he asked the mother of the two bandits if he could rest a spell. His disguise as a tramp was so effective that he was invited to join the family group for dinner and a good night’s sleep. By morning, he had the two robbers handcuffed, and without horses, they all walked the twenty-eight miles back to the posse.
Another time, he trailed a band of dangerous outlaws to an abandoned log cabin about a mile east of Keokuk Falls in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Territory. The Wewoka Trading Post had been robbed, which was owned by the chief of the Seminole Nation, and when Reeves went to investigate, he discovered that the trail led to Keokuk Falls. The Indian Nations were dry, and if residents wanted whiskey, they had to go across the border into Oklahoma Territory, where saloons were legal. Keokuk Falls was a saloon town on the edge of the Seminole Nation, and as a saloon town, it was a dangerous border town. Reeves was one of the very few marshals who ever dared to venture into the saloon towns. It wasn’t long before he learned that the robbers had ridden east into the Creek Nation. He followed their trail to an abandoned cabin, and while studying the situation, he finally decided to disguise himself as a tenant farmer.
Living in the vicinity was a farmer who agreed to rent him a yoke of aged oxen hitched to a ramshackle old wagon of questionable vintage and usage. Driving close to the cabin, he deliberately hung the wagon on a large tree stump. When the bandits came out to help, Reeves let them do all the work of lifting the wagon free of the stump. Just as they completed the job, he reached into his faded and patched coveralls and produced two big Colt revolvers. There was no attempt at resistance. He was able to recover the stolen loot from the cabin and march the four desperadoes, on foot, more than thirty miles to the county seat at Tecumseh, where they were jailed awaiting trial.
As successful as Reeves was, he also had his stumbling blocks. The Indians were a highly superstitious peoples. They believed totally in the powers of the spirit world. This was also in Reeves’ heritage, and one day, it was put to the test. He had gone into the Creek Nation to arrest a large group of men for horse theft, and he was returning for home with two wagon loads of prisoners. Two of the prisoners were Indians who had asked the medicine man Yah-kee for special powers to make them invisible should anyone attempt to serve a warrant on them. Since Reeves also had a warrant for Yah-kee, he promptly rode back into the hills and arrested the medicine man.
At camp that night, Reeves felt stiff and sore, and when he started for Fort Smith the next morning, he could barely move. Although he rode a saddle horse, he was unable to keep up with the wagons. By the time he reached the noon camp, everyone was done with their meal and dozing. Bass explained it thus: "With the greatest difficulty, I dismounted and fell forward against a tree, aching in every limb, and my eyes were so swollen that I could scarcely see. I could eat nothing and seemed possessed of a consuming thirst. Believing that old Yah-kee had bewitched me, I felt that all hope was gone. My knees refused to bear the weight of my body, and feeling that my last hour had come, I thought to take a last look upon the man whom I felt was responsible for my present condition. He was lying on his back asleep, and his coat had turned partly over so that a concealed inner pocket was in view. I saw a string dangling from it and made up my mind that it was attached to his ‘conjur-bag.’ Gently, I dragged myself to his side, and with a jerk, I drew from his pocket a mole-skin bag, filled with bits of roots, pebbles, and tiny rolls of short hair, tied with blue and red strings. I tossed it as far as I could, and saw it float away on the bosom of a creek that flowed alongside the camp." The old man awoke and pleaded for Reeves to return the conjur bag, offering him all sorts of pay. Reeves refused. "From the moment the bag touched the water, I began to feel relieved. I later mounted my horse, and when I caught up with the party in the evening, I felt as well as ever." Yah-kee said afterwards that if he had not lost his conjur bag, Reeves would have been dead before they reached Fort Smith. Bass Reeves believed it. It was the last time Yah-kee ever tried to use evil magic on anyone.
The high point of Reeves’ career was catching up with outlaw Bob Dozier. Many lawmen before him had tried and failed. Reeves himself had been on the trail of Dozier for several years, but had never once come close to capturing the bandit. Dozier was clever, a criminal by choice. It made him dangerous in the eyes of the law. He had been a prosperous farmer for years, but the criminal life just appealed to him. Once he made the decision to turn bad, he was as successful at banditry as he had been at farming.
One of the main reasons no one had caught Dozier was that he did not specialize. Train robbers usually stayed train robbers, and cattle rustlers usually remained cattle rustlers, depredations which would eventually prompt angry citizens to speak out. But Dozier was a jack of all trades on the outlaw trail. He stole cattle, robbed stores and banks, became a road agent, held up stagecoaches, ambushed travelers , acted as a fence for stolen jewels, robbed big money poker games, delved into land swindles, and was the leader of a stolen horse ring. Nothing and no one was safe from his devious schemes, but since he was so diversified, often giving to the poor, he actually made friends in a lot of places. He did kill several people in the performance of his activities, and it was rumored that he tortured to achieve the desired results, but with his friends to shield him, he was as crafty and as cagey as they came. Bass Reeves wanted him badly.
Reeves knew a great deal about Dozier. He knew what Dozier looked like, and he understood how Dozier operated to escape capture. He theorized that a lone-wolf pursuit, with perhaps one other deputy to assist, would work where the others had failed. Reeves headed out. For months, he and his companion tracked Dozier, and as they got closer and closer, Dozier learned who was hunting him. In the upper Cherokee Nation, Reeves found fresh tracks, but as the lawmen trailed Dozier deeper and deeper into the thickets, it began to rain. The trail disappeared.
At sunset, with lightning and rain all around, the lawmen sought shelter. They rode down into a heavily timbered ravine, and the instant they reached the bottom, a shot rang out. The bullet just missed Reeves’ head. Bass thought he saw a dim shadow of a man slipping from tree to tree, and he took careful aim, firing off two shots. The shadow fell, but the shots had alerted a partner, and a second man opened fire. Reeves jerked upright, took a reeling step, and fell face forward to the ground.
For several minutes, Reeves remained motionless on the ground, his pistol cocked and ready. Finally, a man stepped from behind a tree, convinced that Reeves was dead and the other lawman scared away. The bandit strode to the marshal, and stopped in astonishment as Reeves ordered him to drop his gun. As lightning flashed, the outlaw went to shoot, but Reeves was faster. His bullet hit Bob Dozier in the neck, killing the outlaw instantly.
The time Reeves went after badman Jim Webb turned into one of the most dangerous rifle duels in Indian Territory history and nearly cost Reeves his life. Jim Webb was a rarity among cowboys in that he was smart. He had drifted into the Chickasaw Nation to work for the Washington-McLish Ranch under rancher Billy Washington, who was in partnership with Dick McLish, a prominent Chickasaw Indian. Originally hired as another ranch hand, Webb quickly advanced to position as foreman of the ranch with forty-five cowboys under his supervision. He ran the ranch with an iron hand. It was claimed that the men he couldn’t whip with his fist, he fired, and his gun was always primed and ready to settle any differences if anyone was foolish enough to stand up to him.
On the neighboring ranch lived a black preacher named William Steward. In the spring of 1883, Steward started a grass fire to clear off some of the dead brush accumulated over the winter, and it got out of control, spilling over onto the Washington-McLish range. This infuriated Jim Webb, and he rode over to the Steward ranch to belittle the preacher. A quarrel soon erupted, and Webb shot Steward dead. This brought in Reeves, and he was soon riding to arrest Jim Webb for murder.
Reeves took with him a man named Floyd Wilson. They rode up to the ranch house early one morning and only three men were present: Webb, a trusted hireling named Frank Smith, and the cook. Acting like passing cowboys, Reeves asked for breakfast. Webb was suspicious, but he complied. As Reeves and Wilson ate breakfast, Reeves could tell that Webb didn’t trust the two strangers. It was going to be difficult to make an arrest without somebody getting killed.
After breakfast, Reeves played his hand. Moseying out to a bench, he sat on one end while Wilson sat on the other. Standing before both lawmen were Webb and Smith, with guns drawn, but down at their sides. About that time, something in the yard caused Webb to look away from Reeves, and Reeves pounced like a cat on prey. He grabbed Webb by the throat, shoved his Colt in Webb’s face, and hollered for Wilson to get Smith, which the other deputy failed to do because of the suddenness of Reeves’ actions. As Reeves grabbed onto Webb, Smith whirled and fired off two rounds, neither of which hit the lawman. Reeves then turned and shot Smith in the stomach. It was over in an instant. Smith threw up his hands and fell to the floor. Reeves then ordered Wilson to cuff Webb, and the foursome set out in a wagon for Fort Smith.
This should have been the end of it, only Webb and Reeves were destined to meet again later. After spending almost a year in jail, two of Webb’s friends managed to secure his release on a $17,000 bond. When the time came for trial, Webb was nowhere to be found. Reeves found himself once again headed back to the Chickasaw Nation after Jim Webb. This time, he took John Cantrell along to help.
One of the men who had helped secure Jim Webb’s release was named Jim Bywaters, and Bywaters had a general store at Woodford, Oklahoma. Before reaching the store, Reeves sent Cantrell ahead to determine if Webb was there. Discovering Webb sitting peacefully inside, near the door, Cantrell motioned for Reeves to ride up.
Webb, however, was not idle in the store. He always kept a watchful eye on the horizon, and when he spied the tall figure of Reeves riding up, he immediately leaped through the open window, armed with both revolver and Winchester rifle, and made a mad dash for his horse.
Reeves cut Webb off before the bandit could reach his horse, but the outlaw refused to surrender. He turned and raced into the brush with Reeves, still on horseback, in pursuit, calling for the outlaw to "give it up." It was not Webb’s intention to surrender. After about 600 yards, realizing that escape on foot was impossible, he turned and faced his pursuer. Chambering bullet after bullet into his rifle, he aimed to kill.
Webb was an excellent shot. His first bullet grazed the saddle horn on Reeves’ saddle; his second cut a button off Reeves’ coat; and the third shot cut the bridle reins. By this time, Reeves’ horse was completely spooked, and with the loss of the reins, Bass dove to the ground. Just as he rolled to his feet, Webb’s fourth shot clipped the brim of Reeves’ hat.
Reeves said later that after Webb shot that fourth shot, "I shifted my six-shooter and grabbed my Winchester and shot twice. He dropped, and when I picked him up, I found that my two bullets had struck within a half-inch of each other. He shot four times, and every time he shot, he kept running up closer to me. He was 500 yards away from me when I killed him."
Reeves had his difficulties with the law, too, same as the outlaws he hunted. In January 1886, he was arrested for murder. A popular version of the story claims that the incident happened in August 1884 when Reeves, making his circuit through the Chickasaw Nation, got into a serious argument with his black cook, William Leach. The story claimed that Leach threw hot grease on Reeves’ favorite dog, at which point the lawman pulled his gun and killed Leach, who proceeded to fall forward into the fire. The story maintains that Reeves left the man to roast in the fire, which Reeves hotly denied.
Bail was set at $3,000, a lot of money in those days. Reeves posted the bond, and while free, he set about to hire his own set of lawyers to act as defense counsel. His lawyers were able to prove that the killing of Leach was an accident, that Reeves had been cleaning his Winchester, and a bullet became lodged in the barrel. In the course of trying to remove the bullet, the rifle misfired, striking Leach in the neck. Leach did not die immediately. A doctor was called, but it was no use. The murder trial took place in October 1887, and later that month, after being found not guilty, he returned to work as deputy marshal. Up until this time, it was rumored that he was of considerable wealth, but after the trial, most of his life savings had been depleted.. Financially, he never recovered from this ordeal.
Reeves headed back out for more outlaws. Over the next few years, he brought in wagon load after wagon load, and there are various newspaper articles detailing his exploits. He said there were three principal classes of outlaws in the Territory: murderers, horse thieves, and whiskey bootleggers. At the time of his patrols, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (MK&T or "Katy") Railroad ran across the territory, which marked the western fringe of civilization. Eighty miles west of Fort Smith was known as "the dead line" or "Hell’s Fringe," and whenever a deputy marshal from Fort Smith or Paris, Texas crossed the "dead line," they would most likely be killed. This was Reeves’ territory, and it was a dangerous challenge.
Reeves knew and was known by practically everyone in the Indian Nations. In 1888, he counted bandit queen Belle Starr among his friends, once stopping by her home near Eufaula, when she had company, to warn her that he was trailing Bob and Grat Dalton. "Bass Reeves is one of the few Deputy Marshals I trust," Belle remarked to Dr. Jesse Mooney, her personal physician, who was among those visiting her at the time and who was introduced to the marshal. "He’s been a friend of mine for several years." Later, when Reeves was given a warrant for her arrest, it was the one time in history that she turned herself in to the Fort Smith Court.
Reeves’ magic worked on gangs, too. In 1889, he went after a group of horse thieves operating in the Indian Nations. From 1884 until Reeves disbanded them, the Tom Story Gang had made their home along the Red River in the Chickasaw Nation, but had made their range the entire Indian country. Reeves was working out of the Paris, Texas office at the time, when a rancher named George Delaney, who lived in the area, reported that his herd had been stolen and driven across the river into Indian Territory. The thieves had sold most of the stolen herd in the Nations, and by tracking them, Delaney had learned they were on their way back to Texas with two of his mules they were unable to sell. He wanted Reeves to rush out and arrest the gang members.
Thinking that they would cross the Red River at the Delaware Bend Crossing, Bass decided to let the gang come to him. He laid his trap well and had about four days to wait before Tom Story rode into view leading Delaney’s two prized mules. Reeves stepped from the brush, demanded the outlaw’s immediate surrender, and when the surprised thief went for his gun, Bass dropped him from his saddle. With the death of their leader, and knowing who was on their trail, the remaining members of the Story Gang scattered.
A year later, Reeves became part of the posse that went after the infamous Ned Christie, the most feared Indian outlaw in the whole of the Indian Territory. Christie was born 14 December 1852, the son of a full-blood Cherokee called Uncle Watt Christie. Ned could speak broken English, and he understood the language well, but after he was put on the "wanted list," he preferred to communicate only in Cherokee, a language Reeves understood well.
Christie stood six feet four inches tall, was an excellent marksman, and served as a bodyguard to Principal Chief Dennis Bushyhead. By trade, he was a blacksmith, the same as his father. Since many blacksmiths were also gunsmiths, he was an expert at making and repairing guns of all kinds. While on the run, he took two .44-caliber Colts his father had carried during the Civil War, studied the technique used by the Colt factory to convert cylinders from muzzle-loading to breech-loading, and before the day was out, the Model 1860 army revolvers would fire the modern metallic cartridges.
The trouble with Christie began in May 1887. Deputy Marshal Dan Maples had journeyed to Tahlequah in the Cherokee Nation with an arrest warrant for noted desperado Bill Pigeon, who was wanted for the slaying of Deputy Jim Richardson. Since just about any outside lawman was considered an intruder, the citizens banded together to prevent those officers from performing their duties. Maples and another member of his posse, George Jefferson, went into town for business, and on their way back to camp, they were ambushed. Maples was shot, and he died the next day.
Although Chief Bushyhead made an arrest of a man suspected as being the killer, Deputy Marshal Andrew Henry "Heck" Thomas was still sent to capture Charley Bobtail, who had been a constant companion of John Parris, the man suspected of killing Maples. Thomas learned that there were four men suspected of the killing, and after the third man, Bud Trainor, was finally captured and brought to Fort Smith, Parris confessed that Bobtail wasn’t there and that "the man who killed Maples is Ned Christie."
After the warrant was sworn out for him, Christie refused to speak another word of English. He went into hiding, and every lawman who approached him got assaulted with bullets from his rifle and pistol. This heaped charge upon charge on his head. He became a fugitive from the law, and his skill with firearms kept the law at bay for many years. By the time Heck Thomas trailed him to ground in 1889, he had a veritable grapevine of Indian helpers all bent on seeing him escape justice. Even though he sustained a horrible wound which shattered the bridge of his nose and put out his right eye, the bullet lodging itself just above the temple, he managed to elude capture.
By now, the word was to "quit trying to take him alive." On 27 November 1890, Reeves and his posse made their attempt to capture the outlaw. They discovered Christie holed up in a makeshift fort near Vinita in northeast Oklahoma. Christie had managed to obtain a steam-driven sawmill and had built a two-story structure from logs, making the walls two logs thick and lined with oaken two-by-fours. There were few openings. It had a door on the ground floor and several small slits on the second for rifle barrels. During the shoot-out, Christie’s house caught fire and burned to the ground. It was thought that he had been killed and consumed in the fire, and word went out that he had died. But again, Christie had somehow managed to escape, and soon news circulated that he was going to kill Bass Reeves. For the better part of a year, rumors that Reeves had been killed by Christie surfaced all over the Indian Nations.
Ned Christie gave the deputies the longest and most determined battle they ever fought. He was finally killed on 2 November 1892 when Deputy Paden Tolbert led a sixteen-man posse on Christie’s new fortress with dynamite and a three-pounder cannon. It was the first and only time that a cannon was used against a civilian in American law enforcement history. After more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition and a cannon blast proved futile against Christie’s newest stronghold, the dynamite worked. It blew the fort completely apart. Christie made a dash for the trees and was shot in the back of the head.
In 1922, new information came to light that Ned Christie had not killed Deputy Dan Maples. An eyewitness came forward who said Christie had been lying drunk in the grass at the time, that it had been Bud Trainor who had killed the marshal. The only reason the eyewitness gave for not coming forward sooner was that he feared for his life from Trainor’s friends, who would surely have come after him and killed him if he had fingered Trainor as the murderer. Those friends were all dead by 1922.
Ironically, the man Dan Maples had sought to arrest, Bob Pigeon, escaped to the hills and was never heard from again.
On 17 November 1896, Judge Isaac Parker died in Fort Smith of a heart attack. He was buried with honors in the National Cemetery there. Throughout his tenure, he was known for his gentleness and human compassion. Many people praised him as the greatest judge in history. The most touching tribute was paid by Principal Chief Pleasant Porter of the Creeks, who sent a simple garland of wild flowers to be placed upon the grave. It was from all the tribes of the Nations. Judge Parker had always said that Bass Reeves was one of his favorite, most dependable deputies.
On 28 June 1898, the federal court system revamped. It had already changed once in 1889 when a congressional act established other courts for the Indian Territory, besides the one in Fort Smith, and again in 1895, when three district courts were created in the Nations. Bass Reeves went to work under Marshal Leo Bennett for the federal court in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
By now, the white population had grown over 200,000, and many of the whites resented a black marshal arresting white outlaws. They didn’t mind voicing that opinion loud and long to the press. It got to the point that a reporter for the Muskogee Phoenix, who happened to approve of black marshals and especially Bass Reeves, suggested that people might try "the plan of sending a politely worded note to the malefactor, requesting him to come to jail."
Reeves avoided all the racial conflict by going after the black and Indian lawbreakers as much as possible. Being a former slave, he understood white reasoning all too well, but being a marshal, it was his duty to uphold the law. When a white mob went after a black man living with a white woman, killing them both, it was Reeves who wasn’t afraid to investigate, bringing the perpetrators to justice.
By 1901, Reeves had arrested more than three thousand men and women, a staggering record by any standard, which amounted to more than 100 warrants served each year. He had been a lawman since 1875, or twenty-six years, nearly all of it when he was middle-aged and older, an age at when his contemporaries were either retiring or dead. He always maintained that the worst criminals and the hardest to catch were the Seminole Indians and the Negroes. These people stuck together better than others, he would say, and they fought better and quicker with intent to kill. He explained that a Seminole on scout was always on horseback. The Indian never slept until after midnight, and he got up with the sun. Every minute the Seminole was not asleep, he was on his horse. He did not even dismount to eat, but sat in his saddle, watching all the time for an expected foe. It made Reeves’ work extremely dangerous.
Sometime late in his career, he served a warrant on a member of his own family. In all the years that he worked as a deputy marshal, it was the hardest writ he ever had to serve. He had five sons and five daughters, and by the time he moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, he had remarried to a woman named Winnie, having three of his sons and one of Winnie’s daughters living with him. One of his sons was Benjamin, and Benny had married a beautiful girl, who had grown up in the Indian Territory. The newly married couple set up house in Muskogee and were apparently a happy couple, until Benny’s work kept him away from home a lot.
Over time, with Benny away at work, his wife became disillusioned. He returned home unexpectedly one day and caught her with another man. Although hurt and mad, he didn’t do anything. He made arrangements to take another job which would allow him to remain home more often, and presently the young couple reconciled.
On one of their frequent long talks, Benny confessed the problem in his marriage to his father, asking what his father would do in a similar situation. "I’d have shot the hell out of the man and whipped the living God out of her," was Bass’ reply. It must have made a deep impression on Benny, because shortly afterwards, he found his wife again with another man. He promptly proceeded to whip the daylights out of the man. Although the man finally managed to escape, Benny, in his rage, killed his wife. Realizing what he had done, he fled to the hills of the Indian Territory.
A warrant was duly issued, and Marshal Leo Bennett was at a loss on how to serve it. Benny Reeves needed to be brought to justice for the murder of his wife, but none of the deputies wanted to go after him because he was the son of their respected friend and fellow deputy, Bass Reeves. Furthermore, everyone concerned wanted the younger Reeves brought in alive, and there was no guarantee of that. All the deputies lived in fear that he would be the one to serve the warrant.
It was Bass Reeves who solved the problem. He asked for the warrant, explaining the Benny was his son and his problem. He struck out after his son. Several weeks later, he returned with Benny, and the younger Reeves was bound over for trial. Benny was found guilty and sentenced to time in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. Oklahoma was not a State at the time, and all crimes in Indian Territory resulted in federal prosecution. Benny’s father stood by him, right up to the moment he boarded the train for Leavenworth.
Sometime after the death of his father, Benny returned home. Several influential people in Muskogee learned the circumstances which led to the murder, and they felt that Benny had not been treated fairly. Also, he was a model prisoner, establishing a perfect record unmarred by any prison demerits. A citizens’ petition was drafted, and the result was that Benny was given a full pardon and released from prison. He returned to Muskogee and became one of the town’s most popular barbers.
Oklahoma became a State on 16 November 1907. It was the last day Bass Reeves served as a U. S. deputy marshal. The new state worked quickly to pass legislation which would separate blacks and whites. There were laws prohibiting marriages between black and whites, laws requiring separate railway cars for black and white passengers, even laws requiring separate schools. It was not the same land that Bass Reeves knew and loved so well. In his sixty-ninth year, and after thirty-two years as a U. S. deputy marshal, he accepted a position with the municipal police force of Muskogee. He was given a "beat," patrolling the area of the Ritz Theater, north to Fourth Street between the courthouse to the "Katy" Railroad tracks. For the nearly two years that he patrolled this area, there was not even a minor crime committed. He walked his beat with a cane and was courteous to all he encountered, but he took along a sidekick who carried a satchel full of pistols.
In November 1909, Bass Reeves took to his sick bed. Two months later, on 12 January 1910, he died. He was buried in the old Union Agency Cemetery with great ceremony, attended by literally hundreds of his old friends and admirers. Today, his grave site has been lost, although efforts are underway to locate it.
In the thirty-five years that Bass Reeves worked as a lawman, he killed only fourteen men, all of them in self-defense. It’s not known how many gunfights he was in. He had many narrow escapes and many conflicts, but he was never wounded. He was known throughout the territory for his ability to catch outlaws that other deputies could not. The Indian Territory where he worked, later to include the Oklahoma Territory in 1890, was the most dangerous and savage for federal peace officers in the Old West. More than one hundred twenty lost their lives. Reeves escaped hundreds of assassination attempts, living to become the most feared deputy marshal to work the Indian Territory. He is the only deputy on record who started working in Judge Parker’s court in 1875 and worked up to statehood in 1907.
In 1992, Bass Reeves was inducted to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, located in Oklahoma City. He was the epitome of dedication to duty, and Judge Parker’s most trusted deputy. Bass Reeves was a legend in his own time.