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Back in the 1980's, a dishonest publisher published this novel after Dusty had withdrawn this book from him. He sold copies of it and never paid the author a dime. The original manuscript was recovered, dusted off, re-edited and published this year. It is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Cactus Country Publishing. The story is about a lawman who's wife and two step-daughters have been murdered and he sets out to find the killers. Deep in his grief and frustration, he starts drinking to kill the pain in his heart. By accident, he rides into a camp where a grizzled mountain man is whipping a squaw with a quirt. When the lawman demands the man to stop, the stranger whirls and shoots his horse. In return the lawman shoots him. Then he finds a young Indian woman was the point of her former holder's anger. After a stormy start, the two set out to find his family's killers and arrest outlaws along the way to meet their expenses. Bountyman and Doe is really the first book in Dusty's career of writing the west. It's fast moving, with some humor. Besides the delightful cover by western artist Mike Andrews, it makes a good read. |
When Cactus Country Publishing opened their doors, they wanted to step into the west in a big way. Publisher Lou Turner and western author/editor Dusty Richards sat up nights talking about what a real western anthology should contain. They needed the authority of some known western writers to bring this collection on a well grounded base of name brand writers. Dusty set out to ask them for their help. A long time member of Western Writers of America, he knew lots of them, and they came to his aid with short stories, historical articles and cowboy poetry. On the other hand, he also knew from his work helping novice writers there were lots of good chroniclers of the west out there needed exposure too. So he put out a call for them to come and he soon found himself buried in manuscripts. A surprising number of those stories were durn good. So the fabric of this first anthology is woven with Spur winners and folks climbing the ladder to get there. He calls it the bathroom book. You can put it in there read one, come back and read another. However, we bet you can't put it down once you open the cover. And we received so many submissions we will have #2 out by the first of the year, but don't miss Volume Number One. Makes a great gift for Christmas for the western reader on your list. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Cactus Country Publishing. |
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Book number 2 in the Chet Byrnes series follows in the footsteps of novel number one, The Texas Blood Feud. Chet Byrnes and his family's start in Texas was his father who fought with Sam Houston to drive Santa Anna out of the Lone Star Nation. On the land given to him for his military service, he built a ranch and then lost his health and mind relentlessly searching for his three children taken captive by the Comanche. Chet assumed leadership of the ranch at an early age. Denied the chance to go see what was over the horizon by his ranch obligation, he felt he missed the things other young men enjoyed. Pursuit of horse thieves and the consequential hanging of the rustlers caused a feud in the first book, The Texas Blood Feud, which was a Will Rogers Medallion Award Winner. In book #2, Between Hell and Texas, he must find a place for his remaining dysfunctional family members in a new land where the flames of the feud cannot reach them. Chet chooses the Arizona Territory for their new home, which means he will be forced to part with the woman he loves who has too many family obligations to leave Texas. The ranch he wants to buy belongs to a man in the east and is run by an iron fisted individual who has no plans to leave the place. The foreman is robbing the current owner blind. Chet has to expose this crook and tangle with him as well. A rich woman wants him, but Chet is so busy trying to take control of his new ranch, he sets her aside. There is no easy path for him, then the story line gets even more tragedy with a strike by a band of outlaws on his way home to move his family. One pre-published reader said, "It's even a tougher book than the first one." |
Frank Brother Series Book Number One Cactus Country Publishing Rath Macon comes back from a trouble plagued cattle drive to Kansas and finds his ranching empire being sold out to settle his debts. His ex-wife, who'd divorced him while he was gone, had spent all his money, ran up high unpaid bills and left him broke. So the story opens with auctioneers selling off his estate. With only three good horses he bred and raised he leaves the Texas hill country to the chant of the men selling his life's hard work. He stops over in a new land of waving bluestem grass covered hills in Kansas. A place he's thought about in passing with the herds he took north. By chance, he meets a young lady in a mercantile who invites him to a community social dance and supper. Mary Ann Cates is the widow of Ed Cates, a deceased member of the James Gang, killed in a shoot-out raid with lawmen two years earlier. He was a man she knew growing up who came back from the war and told her he was a cattle buyer for a firm out of Fort Scott. They lived on a nice farm and she thought he was away so much buying cattle to make their living. When he is shot, and news gets out, she is shunned by the community. No one will even dance with the "Outlaw Queen.' But her past marriage and tarnished reputation doesn't bother a Texas drover looking for a new life. Macon must build a new business using his past experience in the cattle drives. He convinces a banker to partner with him. Helps the local lawman, and is the brunt of an insane hatred left from the civil war that costs him more losses. Things don't come easy for the man who came home from the war in Mississippi barefooted to San Antonio. Lifted himself up by his own grit and industry, then when he neared the top he lost that dream to a vicious woman's greed. A pre-publication reader called it a strong love story of the west against the rolling sea of a blue stem grass with the bitterness still being played out from a long ago war. This book will soon be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Cactus country Publishing. |
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Western Fictioneers Wulf's Tracks 2010 Finalist
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True West Magazine Best of the West 2011 Best Living
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