ively tale of a pioneering band of Texas Rangers and their adventures in a decidedly wild West.
James Brooks (1855-1944), the center of Pappalardo’s story, wandered into the Texas Rangers more or less by accident. Though in Texas for only a few years, he’d “already been a rancher, hired hand, mineral prospector, sheep farmer, aspiring groom—and nothing worked out.” At 27, he found a job that suited his “rootless disposition” and paid the satisfying sum of $45 per month as well as three meals per day. Brooks took to the job, which meant keeping order on the open range and trying to mediate conflicts among ranchers, farmers, and Native Americans, a complex tangle that eventually landed Brooks and two of his Rangers in jail, requiring a pardon from Grover Cleveland: “Backing the Texas Rangers…seems a risk-free way to send that message to intruding cattlemen and unwelcome settlers in the Indian Territories.”
