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The John Batchelor Show

WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND. 3/4: Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F, by Joe Pappalardo

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND.   3/4: Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F, by  Joe Pappalardo   


https://www.amazon.com/Red-Sky-Morning-Ranger-Company/dp/1250275245/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Between 1886 and 1888, Sergeant James Brooks, of Texas Ranger Company F, was engaged in three fatal gunfights, endured disfiguring bullet wounds, engaged in countless manhunts, was convicted of second-degree murder, and rattled Washington, D.C., with a request for a pardon from the US president. His story anchors the tale of Joe Pappalardo's Red Sky Morning, an epic saga of lawmen and criminals set in Texas during the waning years of the “Old West.”

Alongside Brooks are the Rangers of Company F, who range from a pious teetotaler to a cowboy fleeing retribution for killing a man. They are all led by Captain William Scott, who cut his teeth as a freelance undercover informant but was facing the end of his Ranger career. Company F hunted criminals across Texas and beyond, killing them as needed, and were confident they could bring anyone to “Ranger justice.” But Brooks’s men met their match in the Conner family, East Texas master hunters and jailbreakers who were wanted for their part in a bloody family feud.

The full story of Company F’s showdown with the Conner family is finally being told, with long-dead voices being heard for the first time. This truly hidden history paints the grim picture of neighbors’ and relatives’ becoming snitches and bounty hunters, and a company of Texas Rangers who waded into the conflict only to find themselves over their heads—and in the fight of their lives.

1895 EL PASO

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm John Bachelor with Joe Popolardo.

0:07.0

Red Sky Morning is the new book, The Appet Crew Story of Texas Ranger Company F, The Shootout in March of 1887 in Sabine. the a unit, company F, the killing of one, the murder of one, who's buried it with great

0:27.0

mourning by the local people and the wounding of another of John Rogers who will become the praying ranger.

0:35.0

He says he's a severe Presbyterian who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke,

0:40.0

you understand.

0:41.0

He's become, he will become a

0:43.0

legendary captain in the future but right now we're following

0:47.4

jay a brooks because he is the sergeant that night and he will become a legendary captain of the Rangers as well but a year

0:56.0

before in a town called Alex Brooks is caught up in a law enforcement he's asked to back up in Indian Asian who is in town

1:07.0

to confront a gun-slinger cowboy who's well connected coming from a wealthy family named St John. The events of that day very much

1:16.2

changed the direction of Sergeant Brooks's life and it gives him a taste of the other side which he doesn't like at all, the law-breaking

1:26.6

side.

1:28.2

That day, Joe, let's go to the details because there's an Indian agent, this is Indian territory. the cowboy tough guy who carries a weapon where he knows he should not. The

1:44.9

Indian agent asks Sergeant Brooks and another ranger to back him up. Why and what

1:51.0

happens? Right. the TR Knight is, has it run into St John before, been told the nation where it was

1:58.4

guns to town and wasn't very much insulted and St. John rides away.

2:04.3

Now, they didn't even have a firearm on at the time,

2:07.3

but there's no respect for Indian agents.

2:11.8

They're federal law enforcement officers, but there's the inherent racism and their job of trying to police cowboys were coming in from out of state. It was, you know, that that was conflict that almost seems inevitable, but there's no law that really backs them up.

2:30.4

The federal Indian agents don't aren't protected by the same sort of laws that protect other law

2:36.1

enforcement at that time. So, cowboys will shoot at an Indian agent where they wouldn't

2:41.1

normally shoot at other law enforcement.

...

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