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Sam Sixkiller: Cherokee Frontier Lawman
Sheriff John Culp and Constable Rush Meadows of Chick County, Texas, raced their foam-flecked horses into a dense stand of trees leading to the Arbuckle Mountains, several miles north of Muskogee. The seasoned riders guided their mounts around centuries-old pines and oaks, rotting with age, and massive boulders keeping company with the crowded forest.
The lawmen were in pursuit of outlaw Dick Glass. Glass rode hard, maneuvering his horse in and out of downed timbers. An insane rage possessed him, and he could not allow himself to be caught. He dug his heels into his ride and steered the animal toward an embankment. A wind that seemed to blow from the outer spaces of eternity swept his hat off. He didn’t even glance after it.1
The $1,000 reward for Glass’s captured spurred the officers on.2 Glass was a Creek Freedman, half Indian, half black man and one time farmer in the Creek Nation. When the Civil War ended in 1865, all the slaves of Indians became free and equal. Generations of Creek Freedmen had been raised on the land they worked, and they wanted part of it for their own once the battle between the states had concluded. Not only was their request denied, but they were dispossessed because they weren’t Indian. Men like Dick Glass were bitter over the treatment and turned to a life of crime and retaliation.3
In late March 1885, Glass and the gang of miscreants that usually rode with him were run out of the Creek Nation for rustling cattle, stealing horses, and murdering. He reluctantly obliged, taking with him other Creek Freedmen who had partnered with him in his lawless activities.4
Glass roamed through the Seminole, Pottawatomie, and Chickasaw Nations to the Texas line before settling a spot seven miles from Muskogee known as the Point. Glass and his gang made their way back to the Point after every criminal act. It was their rendezvous location, and lawmen that came looking for him there and found him never lived long enough to report it. There were no cabins, lean-tos, or barns on the property. Glass and the other desperados slept outdoors, subjected to the various elements.5
The life of a renegade was tiring and uncomfortable; it was with this in mind that Glass decided to repent from his devious ways and set a new course. According to the letter he sent to the editors of the Indian Journal newspaper to be posted on the front page, Glass “wished to become a law abiding citizen if the police would not molest him.” The price already on his head made the proposition impossible to accept.6
Texas lawmen Culp and Meadows were not swayed by Glass’s promise to reform. They were going to bring him in regardless. They pushed on at a hard and steady gait through the terrain. The men brought their horses to a quick halt once they reached a clearing in the trees at the base of the mountains. Glass was sitting atop his nearly exhausted ride waiting for them. The lawmen approached the scene cautiously. A flash of satisfaction filled the sheriff’s face as he surveyed the area for signs of anyone who might be coming to Glass’s aide. Satisfied that Glass had simply given up, Culp ordered the outlaw to throw up his hands.7 Glass had no intention of obliging. His hand streaked down toward the holster on his thigh. Sheriff Culp and Constable Meadows beat him to the draw and Glass was pitched off his horse.8
Once the smoke had cleared, the lawmen holstered their weapons and dismounted. They exchanged a congratulatory glance as they slowly approached the criminal lying in a heap on the ground. Glass was of average height and weight with a scar across the side of his neck, running from his ear down to his chest. It was a burn of some kind over which the skin had grown back red instead of black. It was a distinctive marking, one that made it easy to recognize him in any situation. Glass also had a scar on one hand, made by a bullet that had passed through it when he was in one of his shooting scrapes. Any fleeting doubt the lawmen might have had that the body lying motionless on the ground was anyone other than Glass was removed.9
To learn more about the life and times of Sam Sixkiller read
Sam Sixkiller: Cherokee Frontier Lawman
