Mike Cox – author of THE TEXAS RANGERS: WEARING THE CINCO PESO, 1821-1900 – spent 15 years as spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, which means he got to talk to the press about, among other things, the Texas Rangers. How cool is that? Not talking to the press – no one in his right mind wants to do that. And I don’t mean the Texas Rangers baseball team, either. We’re talking about the real deal here: the Cinco Peso.

If you’ve never seen a Texas Rangers’ badge, where have you been all your life? They’re circular, not pointy like the badges you see in Western movies. The five-pointed Texas star is in the center. The badges were originally carved out of pesos, so the first Rangers to wear them were said to be wearing the “cinco peso.”

I grew up in Texas, first in San Antonio and then on the coast near Matagorda Bay. That was in the 1950s, the golden age of Westerns on TV and during the last hurrah of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea and Audie Murphy in theatrical B+ oaters on the big screen. Just about every boy I knew was familiar to some extent with the big names of Ranger history: John Coffee Hays, Ben McCulloch, “Rip” Ford, “Big Foot” Wallace, Leander McNelly and Frank Hamer.

Now, I don’t expect those of you who had the misfortune to be born and raised somewhere else in the world – we thought that there were only two places: Texas and Somewhere Else – to know who these men were. But I can’t help but believe that you’ve felt an emptiness in your life all these years, as if there were some secret you should know but failed to discover. If that’s the case, or you’re just interested in fascinating history well told, pick up a copy of Cox’s new book.

Back in the day when the Republic of Texas Press was a leader in publishing books about the state’s history, Cox published with them a couple of volumes of Ranger anecdotes. This time out, he’s written a solid history of the organization’s first 79 years, from its quasi-founding in 1821 to the turn of the century.

The Rangers investigated their first murder in early 1823. Two men were beaten and stabbed to death, and then their bodies were dumped in the Colorado River. Rangers John Jackson Tumlinson and Moses Morrison had the case wrapped up – the culprits were two Spanish army deserters – in less than a month.

A year later, Stephen F. Austin had drawn up a set of laws for Texas, which was then a colony of Mexico. The first five articles dealt with Indians. Everyone in the colony was permitted to “arrest any Indian or Indians whose conduct justifies a belief, that their intentions are to steal, or commit hostilities or who threaten any settler, or are rude to women or children. … Offending Indians were to receive any number of lashes not to exceed twenty-five.” If a colonist were to “ill treat or abuse any Indian or Indians,” they had to pay a fine of $100 for the first offence and $200 for the second.” No wonder the Rangers have been stuck with a reputation for being less than tolerant in dealings with minorities.

Politically correct they are not, but I am fascinated by the wild-haired anecdotes that make up so much of Ranger history. In 1837, a group of Rangers set out to capture a band of 150 Taovayas, Kichais, Wacos and Kadohadachos who had raided a private fort. When the two groups met, one of the Rangers killed a Kichais. When he was reprimanded, he replied that “he would kill any Indian for a plug of tobacco. To prove his point, he held up a plug he had taken from the dead Indian.”

One of the Ranger casualties was a man known to history only as “Mr. Bostwick.” After being shot through the body, he loaded and fired his rifle three times, finally expiring during the act of withdrawing his ramrod from his gun. “Seeking comfort in gallows humor, one of the men suggested that they prop the dead Ranger up and let him go ahead and take that fourth shot,” Cox writes.

During a later fracas with Indians, an Irishman named Pat Moore sat on a bluff with a cartridgeless rifle aimed at the enemy. When challenged by his comrades with “What are you doing, Pat? Your gun is not loaded,” Moore responded, “Hush. Bejabers, they don’t know it.”

As Cox moves on in Ranger history toward the present, the documentary evidence becomes easier to find, but the tales don’t grow less interesting. The book is presented as being “volume one” of the Rangers’ saga, and here’s hoping it sells well enough to warrant publication of volume two. Cox is a good writer, with an easy touch, who is able to write serious history and still make it read as smoothly as popular history.

For all their faults, the early Texas Rangers were a colorful bunch of waddies, as tough as they had to be and a hell of a lot braver. Readers of Westerns – especially Elmer Kelton’s ongoing series about a Ranger family – will enjoy THE TEXAS RANGERS: WEARING THE CINCO PESO as much as they do fiction. And so will everyone else. –Doug Bentin

Buy it at Amazon.