Tales of Badmen,

Bad Women, and Bad Places: Four

Centuries of Texas Outlawry

by C.F. Eckhardt

Texas Tech University Press, 224 pp., $15.95 (paper)

Texas “tall” tales are particularly gruesome, perhaps because of the lengthy amount of time Texas was an unsettled state, a perfect breeding ground for the unlawful. In the stories Eckhardt has collected, the police are tenacious but largely ineffective, the men are sneaky as well as quick to shoot, and the women … they’re either damaged ghosts or unruly madams. Ranging from the earliest claim jumper, a Frenchman, to the more famous characters such as Bonnie and Clyde, Tales of Badmen either introduces or reaquaints the reader with new Texas legends and their illustrious histories. The stories of these early Texans contain little-publicized details about every small Texas town you may have driven through at one time or another. Your next stop at one of these dusty, quiet towns may find you seeking out the gravestone or hideout of an incorrigible old legend who is now decidedly quiet.

This article appears in December 3 • 1999.

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