Hookey Miller: And the Last Days of the Old West

9780595461981

0595461980

George Miller was born the year his home state entered the Civil War. He grew up hearing stories from his father about the exploits of a Texas Ranger captain who fought in the Red River clashes with the Union forces. So when he left home at the age of thirteen, he quite naturally worked his way across west Texas to El Paso, where he joined, at the age of nineteen, the most famous law enforcement organization in the States. This book follows his story as closely as possible, as he leaves the Rangers, trails cattle north across Oklahoma Territory, falls in with rustlers, joins Bill Doolins' Wild Bunch, and becomes a bartender at the infamous Corner Saloon in Oklahoma Territory. He was likable, true to his word, and a trusted friend; but sometimes the cards dealt him were not good ones. He lived hard and did the best he could, and when he died he was wearing a deputy sheriff's badge.