Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels is the unforgettable memoir of Rita Lorena Link, whose childhood unfolded on the sprawling, storied Waggoner Ranch—a 500,000-acre Texas estate steeped in legend. At age three, Rita moved to the ranch with her mother and soon formed a deep bond with her stepfather, ranch owner Albert “Buster” Wharton, who became her closest ally. But when his death sparked a bitter legal battle that ended with Rita and her mother’s eviction, the only home she had ever known slipped away. From ages three to seventeen, the ranch was her classroom, playground, and stage. Rita learned to ride horses and shoot guns from Buster, to smoke at age five from Miss Mandy, and to contemplate Buddhism from Grace, her Japanese governess. Cowboys, cooks, and caretakers imparted their own colorful—and sometimes troubling—lessons, while the ranch drew everyone from political figures and movie stars to eccentric nannies and rowdy party guests. She witnessed everything from wild soirées where pearl-handled pistols were the party favors to an attempted kidnapping that left her shaken and scarred. A vivid chronicle of both carefree joys and darker truths, Fallen Angels captures the extravagance, eccentricity, and high-stakes intrigue of one of Texas’s most iconic ranches. More than a memoir, it is a tribute to the land that shaped her, the people who worked it, and the animals that made it home—a portrait of a vanished era in Texas history.