THE KEEPER’S DARE On June 30, 1939, an event took place that wrecked a Southeast Texas boomtown to its very core. Moral principles, Christian ideals, and a bloodthirsty sense of qualified, vigilante justice somehow merged to ignore the death of one, and turn a blind eye of guilt away from another. One of these men used the law for his own evil purposes, and to hide a wicked past of murder and graft. The other traveled a path of violence and barbarism that left human destruction in its wake. When these two finally met, it was a foregone conclusion that one would have to die. After the smoke from both barrels of a twelve gauge shotgun had settled, a sheriff’s deputy was dead; and the nightmare for the accused murderer had just begun. In the hands of a ruthless sheriff and his men, they would stop at nothing to gain a confession. And my uncle, Ebb Menzies, would meet them on their own ground and never see a trial. There were none who knew of the evil that lurked in the shadows to make sure he never saw a day in prison, and those that did encounter it; learned to regret it. Witnesses grew silent from fear; moved to places unknown; or were found dead. This is the story of real people who lived on fierce terms, regardless of who got hurt. It was a time when the local lawmen were the keepers of their own rules and accepted cruelty as a way to find the truth. Those who dared to take them on, were men of a different breed; and who came to the table with their own game. The Keeper’s Dare is real, gritty, and true to life. The events depicted in the story actually happened, and a murderer went free. But not before he paid the Keeper’s price.