Rent One Ranger: A Memoir (Bridwell Texas History Series)

Synopsis

'Joaquin Jackson's frank and colorful account of his long career as a modern-day Texas Ranger thrills like an action novel, yet the stories are true, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always gripping. I could hardly put the book down. . . .The writing is superb.'

—Elmer Kelton, voted the Greatest Western Novelist of the Twentieth Century by the Western Writers of America and award-winning author of The Time It Never Rained and The Good Old Boys

'There's adventure here, and wit, and camaraderie, and poignancy, all delivered with a certain swagger by a man who never wanted any other life but the one he chose, and who did his best as he saw it all along the way.'

—Bill Wittliff, distinguished photographer, writer, screenwriter, and producer, whose credits include The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, Legends of the Fall, and Lonesome Dove

'Joaquin Jackson told me that West Texas weather is so dry and hard on women that his wife put Crisco on her face. That is the colorful storytelling you can expect in this book...really wonderful tales that are told in true Texas language.'

—Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas

'It is great to see my friend Joaquin Jackson's life celebrated. It is a life well lived!'

—Tom Selleck

'This is a ripping good tale. . . . It bestows a rare understanding of people who live, react, and reflect as our society's protectors and sanctioned hired guns.'

—Jan Reid, writer-at-large for Texas Monthly and editor of Rio Grande

'An authentic piece of American history—the West has a peculiar grip on all of us and Texas most of all. This book takes its place in the legacy of Texas literature, and, of course, the name Joaquin Jackson is already legend. David Marion Wilkinson has done a splendid job.'

—John Milius, screenwriter of The Wind and the Lion, Apocalypse Now, and Jeremiah Johnson

'This is the best modern-day Ranger memoir I have seen.'

—Mike Cox, author of Texas Ranger Tales II and The Texas Rangers: Men of Valor and Action

'At last there is a personal recollection that does justice both to the Ranger legend and to the Tejanos whose story was long left from the pages of the Texas experience.'

—East Texas Historical Association

When his picture appeared on the cover of Texas Monthly, Joaquin Jackson became the icon of the modern Texas Rangers. Nick Nolte modeled his character in the movie Extreme Prejudice on him. Jackson even had a speaking part of his own in The Good Old Boys with Tommy Lee Jones. But the role that Jackson has always played the best is that of the man who wears the silver badge cut from a Mexican cinco peso coin—a working Texas Ranger. Legend says that one Ranger is all it takes to put down lawlessness and restore the peace—one riot, one Ranger. In this adventure-filled memoir, Joaquin Jackson recalls what it was like to be the Ranger who responded when riots threatened, violence erupted, and criminals needed to be brought to justice across a wide swath of the Texas-Mexico border from 1966 to 1993.

Jackson has dramatic stories to tell. Defying all stereotypes, he was the one Ranger who ensured a fair election—and an overwhelming win for La Raza Unida party candidates—in Zavala County in 1972. He followed legendary Ranger Captain Alfred Y. Allee Sr. into a shootout at the Carrizo Springs jail that ended a prison revolt—and left him with nightmares. He captured 'The See More Kid,' an elusive horse thief and burglar who left clean dishes and swept floors in the houses he robbed. He investigated the 1988 shootings in Big Bend's Colorado Canyon and tried to understand the motives of the Mexican teenagers who terrorized three river rafters and killed one. He even helped train Afghan mujahedin warriors to fight the Soviet Union.

Jackson's tenure in the Texas Rangers began when older Rangers still believed that law need not get in the way of maintaining order, and concluded as younger Rangers were turning to computer technology to help solve crimes. Though he insists, 'I am only one Ranger. There was only one story that belonged to me,' his story is part of the larger story of the Texas Rangers becoming a modern law enforcement agency that serves all the people of the state. IIt's a story that's as interesting as any of the legends. And yet, Jackson's story confirms the legends, too. With just over a hundred Texas Rangers to cover a state with 267,399 square miles, any one may become the one Ranger who, like Joaquin Jackson in Zavala County in 1972, stops one riot.

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