You almost certainly have never heard of the early-20th-century crusading newspaperman Carlos M. Wood, whose star-crossed, peripatetic life met an early end in 1914 at the hands of the Texas Rangers. But his story — which began in his birthplace of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and ended in Marfa, Texas — was filled with controversy, conflict and even a historical mystery. Wood’s story is that of a young...