Sometimes the lines blur, no doubt; so easy to cross em, when you're not paying attention, lost in some fever or shrunk inside the blinders of yourself.
When they hang ol' Jake, it knocks the hell out of me, every time. I get a little weepy, just thinking about it.
The Texas Rangers (not the goddamn baseball team—the Rangers, you dig?) are 175 years old today.
My ancestors Milt, Joe, Jake, and old-man Jack all rode with the Rangers, in their day, out of San Saba county, Cherokee village. Joe was with em the day they rode to the top of Baby Head Mountain, and found the infant's head affixed to a Comanche spear. Milt was with em when they rode south to the Pecos, searching for poor Alice Todd.
Adios Boys. You won't hold it against me. I never meant no harm. Yeah, I got tears streaming down my face now, watching poor Jake dangling from that tree. That's some tough country, you know? Watch the video, and see for yourself:
I saw something on the Military Channel once talking about the history of "Rangers" before the Texas ones, the Army Rangers and the Marines--it was essentially tracing a history of tracking, guerilla & scouting units back to Western European history--saying that techniques were added from other cultures (including Native American), but essentially were using more or less the same tactics going back many centuries--like the use of hand signals in the field, track recognition, living off the land.
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