Ranger Winds: The New Breed
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When Buster and Johnny entered the house, they passed through the kitchen into the bedroom. There on the bed lay a nude woman; she had been shot several times in her private area and once in the head. There were signs of a struggle in the room but no blood other than what was on the bed and the headboard.
Johnny covered the body with a blanket; then he and Buster walked outside. Johnny told Buster to take Billy to town, keep him in protective custody, while he tried to pick up a trail. Buster mounted up and rode away with Billy while Johnny went out about a hundred yards and began to ride ever increasing circles around the farmhouse. He was hoping to find fresh tracks to follow. About half way around on his second circle, he picked up the fresh tracks of two horses.
The direction of the tracks led him toward a line of trees next to a seasonal creek. With Rifle in hand, he used the cover on the creek bank and rode carefully in case the killer, or killers, were hidden in the tree line. As he followed the tree line upstream to where the tracks entered, he saw a body hanging in a tree.
When he reached the body, he saw the man was heavily covered with blood from the waist down; he was nude and all his manhood had been cutoff. There were no gunshot wounds, just complete castration; then he was left to bleed to death.
The dead man’s horse was fully saddled, standing a short distance from the body. Johnny cut the man down, draped him over his horse and led him back to the farm house. As he was riding he was trying to put the pieces together.
It was evident that what he had was a crime of passion; she was shot in the female area, and he was castrated. The question is who was the culprit?
When Johnny reached the Evans farmhouse, Doc Potts had just arrived along with the Uvalde mortician. Doc examined both bodies, pronounced them dead, then loaded their corpse in the undertaker’s hearse and headed for the funeral home.
As the hearse pulled away, Potts said, “I know the dead man, he was Cole Robertson; lived on a farm about eighteen miles north of here.”
Johnny sat down on the front porch and continued to analyze what information he had concerning the killings. Number one, it was definitely a crime of passion and, since the fresh trail led from the farmhouse to the castrated Robertson, the murders were connected. All indications were that Cole and the Evans woman were lovers.
Johnny reasoned that the husband, Clay Evans, came home unexpectedly and found them in bed. Then, in a moment of rage, Clay shot his wife and led Cole to the hanging tree where he hung him up, castrated him and left him hanging but not by the neck. No sir, Evans left him hanging by his hands; he wanted Cole to die slowly and painfully by bleeding to death from the groin.
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About the Book
In their early years, the Texas Rangers protected the settlers from Mexicans and Indians along the river. As time passed, the Rangers became lawmen, protecting Texas after the Civil War. Now, times are changing and the Rangers must change with them. These men are known as the new breed. In this fourth book in the Ranger Winds Series by author E. Richard Womack, the Rangers still mourn the death of Ranger Captain Laughlin McFarland, a legend and the fastest gun in Texas. Captain Jones has been selected to replace McFarland, Dusty McFarland and Boots Law have become Ranger Captains in Uvalde and Abilene respectively, and Ryder McCoy has been assigned to establish a new station in Fort Worth. Newfangled inventions, such as one of the first horseless carriages in Texas, keep the men on their toes—as do a gang of highwaymen and the Pinkerton detective sent to catch them. Although new forensics and techniques have made detection procedures more efficient and simple, there’s still plenty to keep the Rangers busy as murder, robberies, rustling, and general mayhem still plague the West as they rush headlong into the twentieth century.
About the Author
E. Richard Womack, a native of Bowie, Texas, grew up listening to his great-grandfather tell tales about cowboys and the old West. Womack lives in Bulverde, Texas, and also spends time on a small, South Texas ranch in Fowlerton. This is the fourth book in the Ranger Winds series.