Longhorn arm of the law

Cummings has a pretty good story to tell himself. He hadn't even received his badge or his gun, a 9-mm Glock, when Morgan called him. In fact, he was still working as director of the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, a place steeped in the cowboy lore he loved but far away from the wide open spaces that beckoned. After 22 years with the Claremore Police Department, he'd intended to spend the next decade at the museum, but he harbored a secret dream – he didn't want to just help immortalize the cowboy legend; he wanted to become a part of it.

Catching cattle rustlers is less glamorous than many people think. "If we get a lead someone's going to pull a heist, we might set up on a place, but it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack," says Oklahoma City special ranger Joe Rector, a 10-year veteran with the cattle association. He weaves his way out of a thicket of traffic and points his white extended-cab pickup down a bumpy one-lane road. It just takes too much time, he says. With each ranger covering anywhere from 10 to 18 counties, it's more efficient to follow a paper trail rather than a dusty one.

But even if pursuing cattle rustlers rarely involves high-speed chases and Western-style shootouts, the job can be dangerous. In the 1920s, two rangers were assassinated in a hotel lobby the night before they were to testify in court. Nor is it sedate. Mr. Rector recalls chasing a group of thieves who pulled over on the interstate, abandoned the cattle, and left them to stampede down the highway.

Getting caught can mean as much as 10 years in prison, so rustlers have incentive to avoid capture. For that reason, all rangers carry a gun, and some carry more. Rector's arsenal includes three sets of handcuffs that swing from his parking brake, a belly chain, leg irons, nylon rope, and of course, his gun. Don't let the well-oiled, full quill ostrich boots fool you. Rector's a man to be reckoned with – the boots are just for dress.

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Rangers keep lists of hundreds of stockyards, along with their sale days. They memorize breed characteristics and pore over auction sheets, looking for anything unusual. Sometimes they work by process of elimination and old-fashioned horse sense, knowing that thieves often unload merchandise quickly. It helps that every ranger is required to have a minimum of five years investigative experience, as well as an agriculture background. "I spent 15 years wearing a coat and tie every day; I don't miss it," Rector says of his time at the Oklahoma County sheriff's office.

Rangers drive from farms to auctions, covering as many as 300 miles a day. It's a lonely job, Rector admits, but the rangers are a close-knit group. The cowboy camaraderie was a big part of the appeal for Cummings, who waited years for a position, taking an $18,000 pay cut to fulfill his dream. "There are unwritten rules for rangers," Cummings says. "If a ranger calls, we go."

"Some say the way we think is kind of old-fashioned," he adds. "But a man ought to be good for his word. It's about trying to carry on the old cowboy way."

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