Out of Texas

In 1937, Percy Bryce Cato, a young writer with the Federal Writers Project, had a last assignment- to locate and interview Buford Hobbs whose lashing on the streets of Gonzales, Texas, led to the Brantley-Baltzell feud. Cato's search for Hobbs and their ensuing conversations uncovered a trail of carnage and long kept secrets.

In 1859. the lashing of young Buford Hobbs on the streets of Gonzales, Texas, led to the murder of Doctor John Brantley, and this ignited the historic Brantley-Baltzell feud. The nation's newspapers widely reported the resulting carnage that came out of Texas and led all the way back to Mississippi. The feud seemed to have run its course by the end of the Civil War. Or had it? In 1870, the mayor of Winona, Mississippi, Arnold Brantley, was assassinated and Governor Alcorn dispatched two officers of his mysterious Mississippi Secret Police Bureau to solve the crime. One was a white officer, Neil McCoy, a former gunslinger. The other was a black officer named Buford Hobbs. As the drama around Winona unfolded, the deceased mayor's brother, a decorated Confederate general was also murdered. It would be left to Buford to see that justice was served, even as he struggled with his feelings towards Rebecca, the widow of the feud's first victim. Rebecca's story during those turbulent years would be one of coming to grips with the economic survival of her family as well as her own feelings toward Buford. She would ultimately have to make difficult choices with devastating consequences.