Clutching the telegram with the news of a brother Ranger’s murder, John R. Hughes stormed into the Marfa office of his commander on April 17, 1889, and announced through clenched teeth, “I want to go after Parra.”
“Parra” was Geronimo Parra, a bandit leader wellknown to lawmen on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Earlier that day in a mountain pass north of El Paso, the outlaw had ambushed Ranger S…
