Speaker 1: The National Broadcasting Company presents Joel McCrae in.
Speaker 2: Tales of the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 1: Tonight transcribe from Hollywood another authentic reenactment of a case
from the files of the Texas Rangers. Tales of the
Texas Rangers, starring Joel McCrae as Ranger Jace Pearson, Texas
more than two hundred and sixty thousand square miles and
fifty men who make up the most famous and oldest
law enforcement party in North America. Now from the files
of the Texas Rangers come these stories based on fact only. Names, dates,
and places are the pitches for obvious reasons. They events
themselves are a matter of record. Case for Tonite the
Cactus Pair.
Speaker 3: It is four pm the afternoon of March twenty eighth,
nineteen forty seven. Robert Coot's, a new hand on the
Triangle Ranch, is repairing of fence on the Southeast Range.
Speaker 4: He stops as a writer aproaches, ooh ooh, how'd he brect.
Speaker 2: On?
Speaker 5: How do he meet Coots? Well, I see you finally
got my job.
Speaker 6: I got a job because there was one open. If
you left it open at your worry, I reckon, not
mine You've.
Speaker 5: Been making up to the old man, trying to get
me fired ever since you came into this country.
Speaker 4: That ain't sowing. You know it.
Speaker 6: I've been looking for work yere, but you didn't get
fired in mine. I can you got sacked because you
can't leave a bottle alone.
Speaker 4: Sounds like you're calling me a lad.
Speaker 6: I ain't calling you anything. I'm just telling you I
have about clearing off.
Speaker 5: You're telling me to clear off this range. All right,
I'll get but before I do, I'm gonna whip your
tail coats.
Speaker 4: You better not try it because you ain't about to
whip my tail. Wait. Wait, show now, clear off.
Speaker 6: Like I told you, don't come back.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be no need for me to come back.
Put that shock stand away from me. Get away. Here's
the other barrel for good measure. All right, boy, come
here here.
Speaker 3: The body of ranch hand Robert Coots was discovered by
the owner of the ranch next day.
Speaker 4: When he wrote out the search for the missing rider.
Speaker 3: He summoned the sheriff and the Sheriff cold with the
assistance of a Texas ranger. Ranger Jace Pearson was a
signed to the case.
Speaker 4: Say you spotted the buzzards this morning, mister Golf. Yeah, yeah,
and I found Coots. Im look im. He must have
been shot sometime yesterday.
Speaker 6: I thought I heard a shotgun yesterday afternoon through the
road out.
Speaker 4: Then why didn't you, Sheriff?
Speaker 6: You know, even having a time with the kyots and
mountain cats lately. I just figured one of my hands
must have spotted one and cut loose.
Speaker 4: Coots was fixing the break in the fence. Uh, that's right.
I might have known something was.
Speaker 6: Wrong when Coach didn't come back to the rants last night.
Speaker 4: Spot's just up ahead with my deputy standing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can see the body now. Anybody been stealing
paddle around here lately, Sheriff, Oh, few, headman then jas
nothing big Coots might have run into somebody doing it though,
might have here we are hobo right, yeah, Hide the
horses off the fence here, and I want Tom tramping
around their body. Coots with you a long time, mister Golf.
No reason no hired him on less than a week ago.
Speaker 4: There was no round here. Jase only been here about
a month, all told you? Ever say where he came from?
Speaker 6: Hip hip over on Martha hit with both bells. Jace
once through the stomach once.
Speaker 4: Through the head.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was on the ground when the second charge
hit him, though. Look some of the shot clipped the
grass mm and killer's force stopped here too.
Speaker 4: Looks like him.
Speaker 6: Coots must have had a fist fight with a man
who killed him. How do you figure that, Jason? My
little dried blood in the grass here, scuffle marks and
some of the blades pressed down as though somebody had
been lying here.
Speaker 4: Coots was shot though it might be his blood, you know,
but his wounds. He was killed instantly.
Speaker 6: He didn't move fifteen feet and then back again after
getting blasted like that.
Speaker 4: Come on, yeah, what are you looking for?
Speaker 6: Marsh moved off this way, Prince, mixed right in with
some of your herd. It was grazing around here, and
then took off mighty sudden. See here where they dug
in to get started.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that could mean the cattle people, all right, chasing
the stock.
Speaker 6: Jas we'll find out. Let's get back to the horses.
Follow this trail, all right, this is far enough. Whoever
it was, he wasn't trying to steal the cattle. He
was following the herd tracks. So the trail of his
horse wouldn't stand out clear. I don't see how you
can tell that herd moved up rains toward the Mesa.
Anybody stealing them would have been driving him to the
south fence where the state road is. I have to
get him to a truck to get him away.
Speaker 4: But we made him wrung.
Speaker 6: Then, jays a shotgun must have stampeded him. They'd been driven,
someone had left marks where they out to get away
from the rider, and the rider would have left tracks
cutting after him.
Speaker 4: I see what you mean. But shouldn't we keep on
trailing them? Go? Yeah, but not this way.
Speaker 6: He was headed for rocky ground near the Mesa, trying
to lose anybody who might follow him.
Speaker 4: He's smart.
Speaker 6: I don't get your plan. Well, he was careful leaving
here after he killed a man. He mightn't have been
so careful riding in before he killed. You know, backtrack
the trail he took getting here. It might tell us
where he came from.
Speaker 4: That makes sense.
Speaker 6: Jeez, let's go, ranger. Can I have the body picked
up by the funeral house now?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And even an autopsy isn't gonna tell us much. Huh.
Speaker 6: I thought you could tell a lot from the shot
to kill somebody. That uh, ballistic stuff, not so much
with a shotgun. Barrels are smooth bore. Don't leave rifle, Marx.
But hey, hold it, what's your planing ranger? These empty
sixteen gage shotgun shells. Killer might have ejected him here
to reload his shotgun in case he ran into trouble.
Speaker 4: Oh can you tell anything with those?
Speaker 6: If we find the gun they came from, we might
be able to match the way the hammer hits the shell. Yeah,
if we find the shotgun, every rancher in ky Polkan
the county must have one.
Speaker 4: The sheriff and I'm backtracked on the approach the killer
had used.
Speaker 6: To get to the Triangle ranch owned by Gaulf But
we came to a dead end.
Speaker 4: Well, Jason, yes, this as far as we go. Then't
followim on pavement or the gravel road shoulder and rode
out from town. It's too bad.
Speaker 6: I was hoping he'd come from a ranch someplace with
a narratives down to one spot.
Speaker 4: Not much we can do now, so I can go
around exambling shotguns. One other thing.
Speaker 6: First, A couple of deep tracks in that ditch off
the road.
Speaker 4: Must have had rain here. Yeah, day four yesterday. That's
why I left such a clear print there yesterday.
Speaker 6: Then I want to get a kit from my radio
car and drive back here. Well for take a couple
of photographs of that print, make a faster impression of it.
Help us to identify the horse if we find him.
We took the cast and headed for town to check
every horse in the territory. It would have been impossible,
so I had to gamble on a short cut.
Speaker 4: Howdie ranger?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 4: Audi Haudi? Hey? Mind dropping that hammer a minute and
taking a look at this here? He hey?
Speaker 6: Ready it faster cast shoe print of a left hind hoof.
Speaker 4: You remember making a shoe like this?
Speaker 6: Head common flit share it was cocked or something. I
might remember, but I don't know. I know it's a
tough one. But all shoes are a little different. We're
in different places. Hoops have to be fitted for slightly
different shapes. That's true, right, If I come across that
shoe now, after seeing the cast, I might recognize him.
Speaker 4: Good. I'm gonna leave this cast here.
Speaker 6: If anybody brings in a horse to be shod, and
the left hind hoof looks like the cast, don't touch
it until you call us.
Speaker 4: You're right glad to have keep my eyes open.
Speaker 6: Any other blacksmiths around here, Sheriff, Oh not for over
fifty miles.
Speaker 4: Were gonna look a for that gun. Now you start
on it.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna pay another visit to the Triangle ranch. I
want to talk with mister gauld again. Finish here in
a minute, Joe, you know, run on the rest of
the irrigation clumps with this. Okay, that's fine.
Speaker 4: Good. What was it you wanted to know?
Speaker 6: I asked you if Coote seemed nervous, like he'd been
running away from something or somebody who was afraid might
catch up with him. No, I can't say, dud well,
he was anxious about what's find it? Job seemed like
good workers. So when I had an opener and I
took him on regular, oh one of your hands leave,
I know, no, say I. I had to fire a
folk named Harvey Brecktt fired him. Huh, Why you're drinking,
making trouble in the bunk house and I'm doing his work?
Speaker 4: Did this break?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Coats just have been seen him around. I'd a break
take it. When you told him he was fired? She
was kind of drunk cuss me out, though? Is that all? Yep?
I paid him off, give him an extra month, Like
I do with any hand I have to let go.
He seemed all right after that. You know where this
break is living now here?
Speaker 6: He's bunked up one of them deserted dobe huts by
the old quicksilver her mind Rhodes washed out, though all
the huts ramptish since mine stop operating, why really you
want to seem?
Speaker 4: I sure intend to.
Speaker 6: I went back through town and picked up the sheriff,
and we rode our horses out to the bend and mine.
Speaker 4: I've checked one hundred guns today, chase every tough and
near tough. I could think of, oh good though, huh uh?
No hammer marks like the one we're looking.
Speaker 6: For to fire the guns to get a test shelt
for comparison. Sure, but I'd swear none of them was
a gun we want. I kept the most likely ones
and labeled them for UV good. You can add one
more when we test Brick's gun. And here the shacks
now poor.
Speaker 4: Must be that one little smoke's coming up the chimney.
That's Brick Good is coming. Your fella's looking for.
Speaker 5: Oh Howdy share, howdy.
Speaker 4: Brick Ranger wants a few words with you.
Speaker 6: Okay, mind if we come inside?
Speaker 4: All right, reckon.
Speaker 6: You know that somebody killed a man who took your
place over the Triangle Ranch.
Speaker 4: Yeah so I heard on Tuesday afternoon? Where were you?
I was right here? Anybody who says I wasn't as
a liar?
Speaker 6: Nobody said anything yet? Where's your shotgun? I don't have
a gun? You don't, huh? And where's the gun you clean?
Speaker 4: Not long ago? I didn't click.
Speaker 6: And tell me you didn't. It's aily rag in the
corner says you did. This rag was used for cleaning
the gun and nothing else.
Speaker 4: Better. I got the gun bricked. We want to see it.
Speaker 6: It's under the bunk, sixteen gage, double barrel, Yeah, loaded
two he let me have it a minute. I just
matched these with the shells you've been carrying twins, all right, Sheriff.
Speaker 4: No doubt about this matcham brack.
Speaker 6: We found the shells on the Triangle Ranch. Hammer marks
match yours, and Coots was killed with a shotgun.
Speaker 4: At that gun.
Speaker 5: Sure you found shells from it on the Triangle Ranch,
because I worked on the Triangle Ranch.
Speaker 4: Remembering, Hey, you can.
Speaker 5: Get laughed out of court With evidence like that, I
fired a hundred shots out there at coyotes.
Speaker 4: The story could hold, Jase.
Speaker 6: Maybe maybe not, because there's one other thing, Brick. We're
all going to take a ride into town after I
checked the shoes on your horse.
Speaker 5: That's real interesting, Ranger, because if we're riding in the town,
you'll be packing me behind you.
Speaker 4: I don't own a horse.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Tales of the Texas Rangers, starring
Joel McCrae as Ranger Jase Pearson. Now we continue with
tonight's case the Cactus, an authentic story from the files
of the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 4: Breck had a stop and he knew it.
Speaker 6: His story about the coyotes and the empty shotgun shells
covered him and we didn't even have enough to take
him in.
Speaker 4: We left him and headed back for town.
Speaker 6: If he is the one, Jase, we're going to have
a time proving it. Gun would have made a strong
case against anybody who hadn't worked on the ranch.
Speaker 4: But he can all by that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you got someone your mind, Jase, What is it?
He swore he hadn't been on the Triangle Ranch in
a week since golf fired him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can't prove otherwise.
Speaker 6: I don't know if he did shoot at a coyote,
must have been before Golf fired him.
Speaker 4: That means those empty shells would have been lying out
on the ground when it rained two days ago.
Speaker 6: A cardboard portion of the shells don't look like they'd
been wet. The son could have dried him out after
the rain, Jase. Yeah, there's some metal on the shell too.
I'm gonna send those shells through to the lab at Austin.
Speaker 4: You think they'll be able to tell it to've been
out in the rain.
Speaker 6: Or nut metal gets wet. It's gotta be some oxidation.
I will know whether there is or not if there
isn't for me, and the shells were fired in the
past two days.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he'd still stick to his story. Jase.
Speaker 6: You know how jury is with scientific evidence, little leary
of it sometimes. I know he'll need more.
Speaker 4: I wasn't thinking of the shells as jury evidence.
Speaker 6: I was thinking of him as a timesaver for us. Uh,
he's telling the truth, he'll have to start all over.
But if he's lying, we'll have to trip him up.
I sent the shells through to Austin, and while I
waited for a report. I drove to Koot's old home
at Marfa. He'd been well liked. There no reason for
anybody to follow him and kill him. It was a
routine check. And on the way back I got my
report from Austin, KTXA to Unit ten, Unit ten to
KTXA go ahead, A report from Loustin.
Speaker 4: Lab on exhibits submitted by Unit ten for examination ready
for it.
Speaker 3: Lab report slight oxidation probably caused by brief exposure to
normal night moisture.
Speaker 6: No evidence the shells were thoroughly soaked, though no indication
of such exposure, and LAB report ten for Unit ten
clear KTXA Austin. I drove back south as hard as
I could. When I got near the Quicksilver mine, I
took charcoal out of the trailer and rode onto the
shack Brick had been using to make sure he was
still around.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, oh charcoal, crack open up.
Speaker 6: I want to talk to you, all right, What do
you want this time? I just want to make sure
you're still around, that's all. Well, you see me, don't you? Yeah?
I see something else too. Looks like you've been packing
a few things in there. That's my business, not yours.
I'll make it my business. If you try to leave
this county, I'll look, Rangie, you've got nothing on me here.
You had taken me in before.
Speaker 5: If I want to move out of here, I reckon
I can move.
Speaker 6: You try it and you'll hit the county jail so
fast it won't even give your spurs time to rattle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're talking big, but you ain't got a charge
to hold me on. It ain't no law against shooting
coyotes now.
Speaker 6: But there's a law against moving into a shack without
the owner's permission. The mining company give you the right
to live here. Yeah, that isn't going to be hard
to check on all right, then, Ranger, go back to
town and chick because until you do and get a warrant,
you got no right.
Speaker 4: In here, have you?
Speaker 6: Okay, Brey, I'll be back and you better be here.
Speaker 4: I got back to town as fast as I could.
I had to have a minor charge to hold him
on because I pulled up to the.
Speaker 6: Sheriff's office I found out I wasn't gonna need it.
Speaker 4: Stay in the car, chase. Why what's happen?
Speaker 6: You got here just in time? We're just heading for
my car. Let's move which way right ahead? Blacksmith shout,
he found the horse we've.
Speaker 4: Been looking for. Oh, why, oh yeah, here, Ranger. Look
it's like the cast. Oh whoa boy?
Speaker 6: You see this nick in the left hind shoe? Snail
bent a little shame as the impression of the cast,
and said, all right, who wounds him?
Speaker 4: Ranger?
Speaker 6: You're probably gonna eat me out for this? But he's
mine yours. You mean to say you couldn't recognize the
shoe you fitted to one of your own horses. But
that's a trouble, Ranger. I didn't show him. I only
part him a month ago. I just going to put
new plates on him for the first time. Now, that's
how come I just spotted the shoe.
Speaker 4: What were you doing out on the Triangle ranch when
Coots was killed? But Ranger, I wasn't out there.
Speaker 6: Your horse was last Tuesday, but I wasn't riding him.
Speaker 4: I loaned him out. You better tell us who you
loaned them to.
Speaker 6: Well, let Harvey Breck use him.
Speaker 4: Frey.
Speaker 6: Well, well, my wife couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2: I'll call her.
Speaker 6: You don't have to call her. Come on, Sheriff, let's go.
He stopped for the sheriff's horse.
Speaker 4: Loaded him in the double trailer with charcoal, and then
headed to the mine.
Speaker 6: Left the car at the wash out, unloaded the horses,
and rode to the adobe shack Breck was using.
Speaker 4: We got enough to take him in now, Jason, he's
still here. He was packing the leaves. Look, yes, let it,
here's the hooey was using rack a light under the door.
We're on time, then, how much to spare?
Speaker 6: So since she figures to move out tonight, he won't
move now stop here, Huh, he isn't gonna come easy,
share Watch out for that shotgun. He wants gun player,
he can have it, and we'll know when he answers
the door.
Speaker 4: All right, Breck, open up. We know you're in there. Breck,
Now come on, maybe waiting in there so he can
nail us with that shotgun. If we bust in, we
can wait out here for your breck.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that light in there could keep us waiting all night.
Speaker 4: If he's gone. You mean it's a trick to slow
us up. We'll find out. Keep that door covered while
I kick it in. He's empty. Reckon made his getaway.
We went over the ground outside to get his direction.
Led toward rugged country, and.
Speaker 6: We followed as fast as we put on horseback, cut
him back and forth to pick up his marks, went
up into these hills, share and made some time.
Speaker 4: He was easy to trail as far. And he's on foot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but we're gonna be on foot too. Now, Why
he's headed for the border Jase three or Grand's that way.
Speaker 4: But no horse can take this country between here and there.
Speaker 6: Oh boy, Charco, how far is it to the river?
Speaker 4: Forty miles the country the devil won't have and we'll
have to cover every inch of it on foot.
Speaker 6: That's what he's doing. Come on, let's go. We must
be close to him by Hey, look sheriff, that's him
top of the ridge. Get the cover under that leg, humble.
Speaker 4: Of horses so they can move off from grays later.
How are we going to get to him? Long way
up that bridge, and we'll be moving right into his sight.
You go around that way, all right, Crawl and hunk
whatever cover you can find.
Speaker 6: I'll go the other way and see if we can't
circle in behind him.
Speaker 4: Move slowly inches at a time at the side of
the treacherous slope. Took almost an hour, and it was
just what Breck wanted. All right, don't move, Yes, yeah, jeez,
he isn't here. Of course he isn't. I should have
figured his play.
Speaker 6: The only reason he fired from uphill was the triggers
and to giveing him time. I'm sure it was. He's
ahead of us with a knight to cover him. We
don't have horses to give us an edge anymore. I
see if we can pick up his trail, jays.
Speaker 4: If we're going into this, we're going to need water
time to go back for it. Now. We'll have to
get it as we find it. If we find it.
Speaker 6: And he's headed this way, come on, we'll have to
keep trail cutting, and it's gonna be plenty rough.
Speaker 4: It's like the sheriff said, country the devil wouldn't have
wreck was piling up a lead. With every hour of
the night.
Speaker 6: We have to cover two miles to his one chase.
Every time we lose the trail, he games ground can
be helped.
Speaker 4: We get to the.
Speaker 6: Top of this original maybe the wrong one again, like
the last two.
Speaker 4: We climb.
Speaker 6: The daylight in a couple of hours'll be able to
spot his tracks better then, and we can fans. Maybe
we better rest until then can't. I'm counting on him
having the rest. That's the only time we can make
up on him. Reckon your right chase.
Speaker 4: But there will be another day and night of this
without a wink and no guarantee we catch him at that.
He may go any directions and make us crossing.
Speaker 7: You want to rest a few hours when I go
on ahead? If you're going, I'm going good, Come on.
If we only knew which pull the sheriff. What scrub
between the rocks? Yeah, throw your light on it.
Speaker 6: All right, Look barely growing in the earth between the rocks,
roots ripped out a little and exposed.
Speaker 4: Fresh to grab the scrub. Pull himself up, good, and
it's we aren't climbing this for the mouth of this time.
Now we better keep on climbing. Almost twenty four hours
getting dark again.
Speaker 6: Jesse, Yeah, and more mountains ahead. Hey wait, losen no, no,
got over this way. Something on the ground by that
cactus patch?
Speaker 4: Yeah, dug for water again and hit it too, Still wet,
Dig a little, get a drink from yourself. Knows the
country all right, never misses, seems to know just where
to dig. If there's even a mouthful of water. What's
your doing over there.
Speaker 6: He ate here the rest of two access pear has
been cut in skin son hasn't dried the skins out yet.
He's only an hour or so I had. Now this
track show he's slowing down, still going fast enough to
make that river. Sometimes in night though, we'll be there too.
Then little water running up in this hole. Now, Chase,
you better take him house, for you've clean the canyon.
Speaker 4: Chase. The river's narrow there, how far a mile away?
Gotta run in the sheriff, can you make it? Buck?
His shot gun couldn't holler it any further. Lightening up
to make his last run. I think I heard something
that good. Keep going. We heard him in front of him,
and we broke through the brush of the river.
Speaker 6: He was just waiting in stop breaking, I'll get him.
Speaker 4: Don't make me put a bullet in you brack. You
you ain't taking a nat Oh, yes I am. I
go I'm over the border while you're still in the river.
I go white that I don't shot get him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you're going to have to help me drag
them the shore.
Speaker 4: You four feet made.
Speaker 8: You needed just a few more seconds, just about as
long as it took to eat a cactus fear. R. V.
Speaker 2: Breck was tried and convicted for the murder of Robert
Coots is sentenced ninety nine years.
Speaker 1: And now here again is the star of our show,
Joel the Craye.
Speaker 6: When the Allies invaded Normandy in World War II, they
got an idea as to how far the fame of
the Texas Rangers had spread. Both surrendering Nazis and liberated
free French said they knew the war was as good
as over because the Texas.
Speaker 4: Rangers had landed.
Speaker 6: Of course, it was the heroic American Ranger troops who
made the landings, but nothing could convince the Nazi war
prisoners that these were not the terrible Texans they had
heard about in many American legends.
Speaker 4: Good Night, Folks, see at the same time next week.
Speaker 1: Next week Joel McCrae and another authentic reenactment of a
case from the files of the Texas Rangers. Joel McCrae
is currently seen starting in the MGM production.
Speaker 4: Stars in My Crown The Night's Past.
Speaker 1: Included Tony Barrett, Williams, Herbert Tom McKee, and Gerald Moore.
The story was transcribed and adapted by Joel MerCad and
the program is produced.
Speaker 4: And directed by Stacy Keith. This is hal Given speaking.
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