Bad Men of Texas by Emerson Hough

Bad Men of Texas

Ben Thompson left the staid paths of life in civilized communities. He did not rob, and he did not commit theft or burglary or any highway crimes; yet toiling and spinning were not for him. He was, for the most part, a gambler, and after a while he ceased even to follow that calling as a means of livelihood. Forgetting the etiquette of his chosen profession, he insisted on winning no manner how and no matter what the game. He would go into a gambling resort in some town, and sit in at a game. If he won, very well. If he lost, he would become enraged, and usually ended by reaching out and raking in the money on the table, no matter what the decision of the cards. He bought drinks for the crowd with the money he thus took, and scattered it right and left, so that his acts found a certain sanction among those who had not been despoiled.

Military Plaza, San Antonio, Texas, 1875.

To know what nerve it required to perform these acts of audacity, one must know something of the frontier life, which at no corner of the world was wilder and touchier than in the very part of the country where Thompson held forth. There were hundreds of men quick with the gun all about him, men of nerve, but he did not hesitate to take all manner of chances in that sort of population. The madness of the bad man was upon him. He must have known what alone could be his fate at last, but he went on, defying and courting his own destruction, as the finished desperado always does, under the strange creed of self- reliance which he established as his code of life. Thus, at a banquet of stockmen in Austin, and while the dinner was in progress, Thompson, alone, stampeded every man of them, and at that time nearly all stockmen were game. The fear of Thompson's pistol was such that no one would stand for a fight with him. Once Thompson went to the worst place in Texas, the town of Luling, where Rowdy Joe was running the toughest dance house in America. He ran all the bad men out of the place, confiscated what cash he needed from the gaming tables and raised trouble generally. He showed that he was "chief."

In the early eighties, in the quiet, sleepy, bloody old town of San Antonio, there was a dance hall, gambling resort and vaudeville theater, in which the main proprietor was one Jack Harris, commonly known as Pegleg Harris. Thompson frequently patronized this place on his visits to San Antonio, and received treatment which left him with a grudge against Harris, whom he resolved to kill. He followed his man into the bar-room one day and killed Harris as he stood in the semi-darkness. It was only another case of "self-defense" for Thompson, who was well used to being cleared of criminal charges or left unaccused altogether; and no doubt Harris would have killed him if he could. After killing Harris, Thompson declared that he proposed to kill Harris' partners, Foster and Simms. He had an especial grudge against Billy Simms, then a young man not yet nineteen years of age, because, so it is stated, he fancied that Simms supplanted him in the affections of a woman in Austin; and he carried also his grudge against the gambling house, where Simms now was the manager. Every time Thompson got drunk, he declared his intention of killing Billy Simms, and as the latter was young and inexperienced, he trembled in his boots at this talk which seemed surely to spell his doom. Simms, to escape Thompson's wrath, removed to Chicago, and remained there for a time, but before long was summoned home to Austin, where his mother was very ill. Thompson knew of his presence in Austin, but with magnanimity declined to kill Simms while he was visiting his sick mother. "Wait till he goes over to Santone," he said, "then I'll step over and kill the little _______."

Alamo Plaza, San Antonio, Texas, 1909, photo by the Keystone View Co.

Simms, presently called to San Antonio to settle some debt of Jack Harris' estate, of which as friend and partner of the widow he had been appointed administrator, went to the latter city with a heavy heart, supposing that he would never leave it alive. He was told there that Thompson had been threatening him many times; and Simms received many telegrams to that effect. Some say that Thompson himself telegraphed Simms that he was coming down that day to kill him. Certainly a friend of Simms on the same day wired him warning: "Party who wants to destroy you on train this day bound for San Antonio."

Friends of Thompson deny that he made such threats, and insist that he went to San Antonio on a wholly peaceful errand. In any case, this guarded but perfectly plain message set Simms half distracted. He went to the city marshal and showed his telegram, asking the marshal for protection, but the latter told him nothing could be done until Thompson had committed some "overt act." The sheriff and all the other officers said the same thing, not caring to meet Thompson if they could avoid it.

Simms later in telling his story would sob at the memory of his feeling of helplessness at that time. The law gave him no protection. He was obliged to take matters in his own hands. He went to a judge of the court, and asked him what he should do. The judge pondered for a time, and said: "Under the circumstances, I should advise a shotgun."

Simms went to one of the faro dealers of the house, a man who was known as bad, and who never sat down to deal faro without a brace of big revolvers on the table; but this dealer advised him to go and "make friends with Thompson." He went to Foster, Harris' old partner, and laid the matter before him. Foster said, slowly, "Well, Billy, when he comes we'll do the best we can." Simms thought that he too was weakening.

There was a big policeman, a Mexican by name of Coy, who was considered a brave man and a fighter, and Simms now went to him and asked for aid, saying that he expected trouble that night, and wanted Coy to do his duty. Coy did not become enthusiastic, though as a matter of fact neither he nor Foster made any attempt to leave the place. Simms turned away, feeling that his end was near. In desperation he got a shotgun, and for a time stationed himself near the top of the stair up which Thompson would probably come when entering the place. The theater was up .one flight of stairs, and at the right was the customary bar, from which "ladies" in short skirts served drinks to the crowd during the variety performance, which was one of the attractions of the place.

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