25. This Lawman’s Wife Was as Deadly as Him
In 1917, Frank Hamer took a break from La Matanza to marry Gladys Johnson Sims, the widow of a prosperous Snyder, TX, man named Ed Sims. She had attained widowhood in dubious circumstances: in 1916, Gladys and her brother were charged with the murder of her husband. On October 1, 1917, Hamer, Gladys, and some relatives were at a gas station when they came across the deceased Ed Sims’ brother in law Gus McMeans, a former Texas Ranger and sheriff of Ector County.
A shootout erupted between Hamer’s party and that of McMeans, and as Hamer and McMeans were clinched in a grapple, the latter was shot in the heart and killed. Hamer was wounded, but he survived and made a full recovery. When the gun smoke cleared and the cops arrived, they collected two semiautomatic pistols, three rifles, and seven revolvers from the parties. Soon after he recovered, Hamer became a federal Prohibition agent and took part in numerous raids and shootouts against bootleggers.
