Riding Lucifer's Line by Alexander Bob;Johnson Byron;

Author:Alexander, Bob;Johnson, Byron; [Alexander, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Quirl Bailey Carnes

1910

Texas history of the family Carnes can be written in blood. Their epic story of Lone Star adventures is punctuated with bullets. The oldest of three law-enforcing brothers, Alfred Burton Carnes, held twenty-year tenure as the elected sheriff in Wilson County, southeastern neighbor of the Alamo City in Bexar County.1 Herff Alexander Carnes, two years younger, would see service as a Company D Texas Ranger and U.S. Mounted Customs Inspector in West Texas, surviving the Culberson County gunfight which claimed the life of Pascual Orozco, Jr. and four suspected desperadoes, only to be killed later by Mexican smugglers crossing the Rio Grande.2 The focus of this chapter is on the youngest brother, Quirl Bailey Carnes.

Hardly a whole year had elapsed since the June 1, 1884, birthday of Quirl, when the shiretown honors for Wilson County were wrested away from Lodi and formally awarded to Floresville. West of the county seat by twelve miles was the tiny community of Fairview, the generally professed birthplace of Quirl.3 Though it’s but a ghost of its former self, Fairview, at one time, could lay claim to having “three general stores, two drug stores, three doctors, a Masonic Hall, a school, and three churches, two cotton gins, a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, a grist mill, a Post Office and a wagon yard. . . .”4 Fairview was the home of farmer Joseph Milton and Mary Catherine “Mollie” Carnes, Quirl’s parents.5

Quirl B. Carnes forfeited his status as a farmer, not following in his father’s footsteps: He wanted to be a lawman. By September 1908 at age twenty-four he was in service of the State of Texas, a private in Company B, Ranger Force, under command of Captain Tom M. Ross.6 The handicapped Ranger captain walked with aid of a “cork leg.” Tom Ross had recklessly and accidently discharged his six-shooter and the doctor had performed an amputation.7 For the short go Private Carnes was headquartered at Alice.8 A change in duty station and captains was on the crime fighting horizon.

Captain Ross, because one of his subordinates had attempted “to make a livery stable and a morgue out of the Alamo Saloon” by riding his horse into the establishment and discharging his six-shooter, was fired. Ross was, after all, ultimately responsible for the actions of his men. Adjutant General J. O. Newton had not been happy, nor had the big boss, Governor Tom Campbell.9 Captain Tom Ross was replaced by Marvin Eugene Bailey a native Texan from Karnes County (Karnes City) and formerly 1st Sergeant of Company C.10

Quirl Carnes, as so many Rangers before, had made the jump from one company to another. With the dawning of 1910 he could be found in Company A under the direct command of Captain Francis Noel “Frank” Johnson, former sheriff of Mitchell County.11 Captain Johnson maintained company headquarters at Harlingen (Cameron County) in South Texas. He was charged with scouting along Lucifer’s Line from Rio Grande City (Starr County) to below Brownsville where the river emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, and 100 miles north back to Alice.

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