Elmer Kelton. Captain’s Rangers (1968)

     Elmer Kelton. Captain’s Rangers (1968) Kelton made a reputation for himself as a writer of historical Westerns. If this one is typical, he likes to mix a love story into his history. Actually, a lot of Westerns mix love and adventure romance. Here, a Captain McNelly is authorised to clean up the Nueces Strip, the tract of land between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers which many Mexicans considered improperly ceded to Texas, and which like all dipsuted border regions became a scene of pillage and rapine. Texans rustled Mexican cattle north, and Mexicans rustled Texan cattle south.
      Langham Neal works for the Dangerfields; returning from a branding session with Zoe and a couple of vaqueros, he discovers the ranch burned and everyone dead. Zoe vows vengeance; Bailey, a neighbouring rancher who wants Zoe and her land, mixes into the situation. When Neal prevents a revenge attack on a neighbouring ranch owned by Mexicans, Zoe fires him. Neal joins the Rangers, hears that Zoe has married Bailey, then that Bailey has beaten her, and goes to fight Bailey. He wins of course, and he and Zoe will work her ranch. Fadeout. Not a bad tale, well enough written to keep my interest and engage my sympathy for the characters, which are however barely more than the standard stereotypes. **  (Book in house we're renting)