On a warm May afternoon in 1897, angry 53-year-old Jim Clements strides into a rural pasture, from an intense argument with his brothers-in-law. The feared Civil War veteran and onetime companion of notorious gunfighter John Wesley Hardin, is never seen again. Suspecting murder, sheriffs' posses from Gonzales and Karnes County, Texas scour the countryside in a fruitless search for Jim's body. The man most people believe to be the killer is Clements' 37-year-old brother-in-law Tom Tennille. Tom is gone from the jurisdiction, however, and the law seems uninterested in his apprehension. Could Tom have killed Jim to protect his sister and her children from Clements' ongoing domestic violence? If Jim is indeed killed in either self-defense or in protection of Jim's family, why does the killer not claim the defense of justifiable homicide? Where is Jim's body?The answer to these questions may lie in understanding the culture and emotional climate of post-Civil War Texas, Texas Reconstruction and the bloody Sutton-Taylor Feud. The effect of these influences on the mindset of Tom Tennille or some other killer of Jim Clements may be the key.
