The Legend of Horse Thief Jack: Part I

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published in Richland Source in 2013.

MANSFIELD — Nothing much ever happened in Shady Grove before Jack came to town. Nothing ever prepared the quiet farming folk to face the jaws of death as they did. 

I’m sure that before then, no one ever locked their barn against anything other than a hungry coyote or a November gale. And there weren’t but a handful of men within 10 miles who had ever pointed a gun at another man.

No one knew where he came from, for not even Hell would claim a spirit so mean. Only one man in a lifetime can ride the earth with such evil; and why he came to this innocent back-40 settlement, God only knows. It was like unleashing a grizzly bear in a schoolyard.

He had only one eye — the other was under a patch — but that solitary-pointed outlook gave him a tremendously effective, single-minded focus to accomplish his ends. He was known in all the sheriffs’ reports as One-Eyed Jack.

He was a horse thief, of course — a very successful one — and 50 men followed him around like a pack of wolves. They’d sweep through the East or the deep South or the Midlands for a season, picking the best mounts from off the streets and fields, and then drive them in a herd out to the river frontier where settlers and soldiers and wagon trains would always give good gold for a strong horse.

The Diversionary Tactic

When his company first rode into a village they were so charming and eager to play, the saloon keepers there would think it was like the Fourth of July all over again and roll out every keg for a celebration. Even the townspeople would join in the hullabaloo for a day or so: playing games and having contests in the streets, and laughing at their drunken luck — until the boys suddenly left town, and half the barns for miles around stood empty in the night.

They were like some awful, devouring blight that robbed a land of its pride and strength, and left it behind shamed, weary and distrustful. Yet, for some reason, they were never recognized as a plague when they first came over the fields with their intoxicating revelry. They were always as welcome as a spring thaw.

That’s how it happened here and that’s why there is no longer a saloon in this town, or even an inn where a stranger might stay for a minute longer than he must to pass through. For one thing — the barkeep was killed, as well as enough of our neighbors to make the rest of us, who were left digging graves, wish he had never opened his door that day to Jack’s happy band of loud boys.

They set up their clamoring just as soon as they got into town and flashed enough silver in the first hour to make everyone out in the square eager to listen to what they were bragging about. There were maybe a dozen of them at first — enough for a nine of “Base Ball,” and they were chiding for a team from Shady Grove to match them in the square for a game.

Few people here had even heard of it, but it didn’t take more than a pint or two of whiskey to get nine merchants and farmers out of their jackets and onto the field hooting like schoolboys in the pond.

They had a sawed-off oar that they swung to strike a ball out into the grass, and then they’d race around the square hollering like they’d just sat on a live coal. They made a ruckus that could be heard clear up the river, and it wasn’t noon before most of the valley had emptied into town to see what the commotion was all about.

It looked like Election Day, the town was so full of excited people, and there wasn’t a man who uncorked a bottle who wasn’t cheering by the bottom of the fifth.

The Discovery

It’s always fun until somebody gets hurt, and this time it was Farmer Finley — when a wild pitch beaned off the top of his head. As he staggered off the square the crowd rose to a vigorous protest, and the game started looking less like fun and more like a battle was brewing, as both teams’ jibes sounded more and more like threats.

When Finley made it home, he found his blue-ribbon draft horses had gotten out of the barn. He went to get Neighbor Shank’s mare to go out in search of them, but discovered that the mare had unaccountably also broken free, as well as neighbor Cook’s gelding and neighbor Wheeler’s roan. As the horrible recognition of foul play hit him in his already bruised head, Finley raced back up the hill to the square.

No one could hear him yelling, they were all raising a roar that echoed down the way clear to the next village. There was a brief shoving match that was clearly about to erupt into fisticuffs when the umpire stepped in and stopped the game for fear of bloodshed.

In the stunned silence that followed, the only sound to be heard was Farmer Finley yelling, “WE BEEN ROBBED!”

The Taunting

Jack’s men set up camp on the bluff overlooking town, as if to spite the people of Shady Grove. Seen high against the stormy sky, the townsmen below watched the dancing flames of a massive campfire, and shadows of drunken men reeling on the ridge. The laughter that echoed down on the smoky winds was mocking and hurtful, but more humiliating than that was the sound of frightened, neighing echoes from just beyond their reach. For the stolen horses were up there too, and no one dared go after them.

It was like a small army of armed men atop that cliff, and down below a poorly fit and weary militia gathered in the square to reckon their chances. Just a few of them had been to the recent war — Shiloh and Antietam — and none of them wanted to try that again. Their only chance was to wait and see if the fire died down in the night, if the whiskey could knock out enough of Jack’s men so that the horses might be stampeded through the camp and down the cemetery road. 

They weren’t too concerned with justice just then, or about apprehending the thieves — all they wanted was just to retrieve their horses and hang on to their lives.

It wasn’t until old Shrack’s barn burned that their apprehension turned to anger, and it wasn’t until old Schrack himself burned that anger fomented to a righteous strength.

The Barn Burning

From the front steps of the village church the worried men watched as flaming logs were hurled off the cliff and over the treetops, and they heard volleys of cheers when one of the torches lit on the pitched roof of Schrack’s barn. Apparently whatever horses the thieves couldn’t steal they would waste, and as the flames roiled through the hayloft, not even the storm winds could carry off the shrieking cries of the mares trapped inside.

That barn fire was what finally ignited the posse, and blood started to boil. The men of Shady Grove began to rage, and old Schrack himself was raving so hard it looked like he would bust. The Sheriff had to put a headlock on him, and a few others wrangled him over into the churchyard to keep him from breaking any more windows.

His guardians left him alone, however, when his spittle turned to tears and he collapsed in apparent defeat. Unfortunately for him and for the whole village, they all walked away, so no one saw him when he stole off to the river, to the path below the cliffs where Jack’s men were camped.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK IN PART II.

Timothy Brian McKee grew up in Mansfield and started gathering local history when he was in the 6th grade. He left here in the 1980s with no intention of ever returning again. After a number of years in California he realized that what he knew best was Richland County history, and that if he had anything to offer the world, it was here. So he came back home and has spent the last fifteen years telling our story in books, paintings, and film.

This is Part 1 of a 4-part series about the Legend of Horse Thief Jack—A Richland County ghost story.

Parts 1 & 2 tell the story itself, and Parts 3 & 4 are an exploration to determine how the story originated, and what possible basis the legend may have in documented local history.