WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND. 4/4: Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F, by Joe Pappalardo
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
1896 HOUSTON, TEXAS
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelor with Joe Papalardo, the author of the new book Red Sky Morning, |
| 0:09.0 | the epic true story of Texas Ranger Company F. |
| 0:12.0 | Many anecdotes. We've told none of them, but we have concentrated on the |
| 0:16.6 | gunfire. And the gunfire is what they remember today. Good heavens. These are lawmen. However, whatever happens to them once they leave the |
| 0:26.2 | frontier. I mentioned Captain Scott marries in December of 87. I believe Captain Brooks |
| 0:32.3 | will marry in not too long after that. |
| 0:35.0 | Brooks loves a woman on a horse who can shoot and he finds one, Virginia. |
| 0:39.0 | However, whatever happens to them after they leave the Rangers? |
| 0:42.6 | Let's start with Captain Scott. |
| 0:44.8 | You mentioned, Joe, that he starts building a railroad. |
| 0:47.2 | Two where? |
| 0:48.3 | What does he make of building a railroad? |
| 0:50.1 | It seems like the same restless life he lived before. |
| 0:53.0 | Yeah, there's this conundrum amongst Rangers. |
| 0:57.0 | When you become an officer you can marry at that point, |
| 1:02.0 | so sergeants and captains can marry but by the time you're |
| 1:05.1 | a sergeant and captain you've wondered the state enough that how do you settle down you've got |
| 1:10.6 | a sort of your pick of the best sort of women. I know it sounds kind of crude but that really |
| 1:17.2 | Comes out when you're doing the research. I mean Scott marries a 19-year-old and they're and they're all well healed right so yeah the women sort of things |
| 1:24.9 | just the Rangers are a great catch the families are very happy to have a ranger in |
| 1:28.7 | as a son absolutely absolutely and and they're, you know, very financially secure and it's usually their youngest, most beautiful daughters if you believe all the newspaper coverage. |
| 1:39.2 | And but the census data doesn't lie. They usually marry extremely young women and from good families. So, and it matches all the anecdotal evidence of Rangers coming into town and instead of your usual sort of prop of farmers and ranchers nearby you've got to these |
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