Download or read book Portraits of the Pecos Frontier written by Patrick Dearen and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pecos River country of West Texas is a vast land of contrasts, stretching between San Angelo on the east and El Paso on the west. Rich in history and folklore, this region has shaped the lives of those who live there. Patrick Dearen spent years tracking down its stories, and then painting word portraits of some of its intriguing individuals, forgotten sites, and legends. He trekked across the Guadalupe Mountains in a fresh search for the Lost Sublett Mine. Another lost mine, the Chisos, lured him deep into Big Bend National Park. He canoed the mythic Pecos River in quest of the origin of its name, and dared the spirits in a haunted house in the Davis Mountains. The mysterious Marfa Lights teased him across an arid plain on a dark night. In Palo Duro Canyon, he rounded up Texas’s oldest cowhand and shared his line camp. He rode the Rio Grande with the Border Patrol, hopped a freight train with hoboes, and walked the scene of a manhunt for a cowboy born a hundred years too late. Expanded and updated, this book will leave you bonded to the land, its heritage, and its people. “Using the drama and color of a gifted storyteller —a contemporary J. Frank Dobie—Patrick Dearen in these pages lets us sample the many flavors of his Pecos frontier.” —Elmer Kelton in the foreword

Download or read book Crossing Rio Pecos written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-03 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pecos River flows snake-like out of New Mexico and across West Texas before striking the Rio Grande. In frontier Texas, the Pecos was more moat than river—a deadly barrier of quicksand, treacherous currents, and impossibly steep banks. Only at its crossings, with legendary names such as Horsehead and Pontoon, could travelers hope to gain passage. Even if the river proved obliging, Indian raiders and outlaws often did not. Long after irrigation and dams rendered the river a polluted trickle, Patrick Dearen went seeking out the crossings and the stories behind them. In Crossing Rio Pecos—a follow-up to his Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier—he draws upon years of research to relate the history and folklore of all the crossings—Horsehead, Pontoon, Pope’s, Emigrant, Salt, Spanish Dam, Adobe, “S,” and Lancaster. Meticulously documented, Crossing Rio Pecos emerges as the definitive study of these gateways which were so vital to the opening of the western frontier.

Download or read book Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier Revisited written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-25 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1988, Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier was acclaimed by reviewers as “superb,” “significant,” and “utterly delightful.” In this revised edition, Patrick Dearen draws upon the latest in scholarship to update his study of the Pecos River country of West Texas. It’s a land wild with tales that blend history, geography, and folklore, and from his search emerge six fascinating accounts: -Castle Gap, a break in a mesa twelve miles east of the Pecos River, used by Comanches, emigrants, stage drivers, and cattle drovers; -Horsehead Crossing, the most infamous ford of the Old West; -Juan Cordona Lake, a salt lake where sandstorms and skull-baking sun defied early efforts to mine salt vital to survival; -The “bulto” or ghost who wanders the Fort Stockton night; -Lost Wagon Train, a forty-wagon caravan buried in the sands; -The lost mine of Will Sublett, who found gold and kept its location secret unto death. Although linked by the search for treasure, the stories are as varied as the land itself. They speak eloquently of the Pecos country, its heritage, and its people.

Download or read book A Cowboy of the Pecos written by Patrick Dearen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1880s, the Pecos River region of Texas and southern New Mexico was known as “the cowboy’s paradise.” And the cowboys who worked in and around the river were known as “the most expert cowboys in the world.” A Cowboy of the Pecos vividly reveals tells the story of the Pecos cowboy from the first Goodnight-Loving cattle drive to the 1920s. These meticulously researched and entertaining stories offer a glimpse into a forgotten and yet mythologized era. Includes archival photographs.

Download or read book The Illegal Man written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spur Award-Winning Author A story that could have come out of today’s headlines, this revised edition of the acclaimed novel explores a Mexican national’s desperate attempt to provide for his family. Ricardo has known only poverty in Mexico, but he dreams of a better life in the United States. He enlists a “coyote” to smuggle him across the Rio Grande, a river that separates not only one nation from another, but one world from another. The Illegal Man is also the story of Ann Rawlings, a recent widow struggling to preserve her West Texas ranch. There is a troubled Border Patrolman and her bigoted foreman, who considers Mexican ranch hands to be little more than animals. For Ricardo, it’s a world in which he will suffer hardship and indignity, but one he will gladly endure to support his family. The Illegal Man grew out of a newspaper series by Patrick Dearen, who interviewed Mexican and American officials and accompanied Border Patrolmen along the Rio Grande. He based his character Ricardo on an actual Mexican national he interviewed on a West Texas ranch. “A warm, gripping novel that explores a subject of intense interest to all Americans. Wonderfully told, this novel should endure.” —Norman Zollinger, two-time Spur Award winner. “A vivid description of what a common man goes through seeking work in a different country than his own. It is a powerful story filled with adventure, sadness, persecution, and loneliness.” —San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times. “Dearen's writing is so perfect, so descriptive, so charged with emotion, it sucks the reader into the very marrow of the story. . . Stretches the mind and the heart as the good and the bad in life play out on its pages . . . It is a good story: a story of love, of justice, and of redemption.” —Permian Historical Annual. “A beautifully written story that speaks eloquently.” —Roundup Magazine.

Download or read book Haunted Border written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 Elmer Kelton Award Winner Spur Award-Winning Author Patrick Dearen "Fast-paced, gripping, and exciting . . . An unusual but interesting concept for a western story."—Historical Novel Society. In 1870, Jake Graves faced a choice: allow Comanches to carry off his sister, or shoot her. Unwilling to fire, he has been tortured for decades by the brutal end that he could have spared her. The incident bred in him a hatred for Indians that persists to this day in 1917 on the Cross C Ranch on the Texas-Mexico border. Now Jake learns that his daughter Dru wants to marry Apache foreman Nub DeJarnett. Even before Jake can process the news, Mexican bandits kidnap Dru and her cousin Ruthie. The bandit leader, Rentería, considers himself a tlahuelpuchi, a shape-shifting agent of evil, and he needs the women’s blood to survive. Whether man or monster, Rentería is a killer. Through a stretch of Chihuahuan Desert teeming with mystery, Jake and Nub take up the chase on horseback, for Rentería believes that Dru is his reincarnated sister and plans to slay her on the Rio Grande where his sister became his first kill. Haunted Border is based on a taped account by a survivor of the true-life Brite Ranch Raid of 1917.

Download or read book Apache Lament written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spur Award-Winning Author 2019 Elmer Kelton Award Winner Eight months have passed since Sam DeJarnett lost his wife and unborn child to Mescalero Apaches, and now he is one of ten Texas Rangers pursuing those very hostiles in 1881. He lives only for vengeance, and the fresh Mescalero trail in the snow is leading straight into the bitterly cold Sierra Diablo of Texas. In the Mescalero band is Nejeunee, a twenty-year-old woman with a baby. She has lost her husband to the Indaa, or white men, and she lives every moment in hatred. High in the Diablo snows, Sam the Apache hater and Nejeunee the Indaa hater are fated to meet, and what follows will test everything each of them has believed about the other's race. This novel is based on actual events.

Download or read book Dead Man s Boot written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spur Award-Winning Author * ELMER KELTON AWARD FOR FICTION, ACADEMY OF WESTERN ARTISTS * WILL ROGERS BRONZE MEDALLION AWARD FOR WESTERN FICTION * FINALIST, PEACEMAKER AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL, WESTERN FICTIONEERS Clay Andrews is like a dead man, adrift in an uncaring dark. But he's also searching, and in 1869 he has ridden to the Pecos River to find answers. Back in Central Texas, Clay's sister has died, and only on this river might he learn why. The person perhaps responsible may have fled here, but no one enters this no-man's-land except at his own peril. Comanches are on the prowl, and across the Pecos, Mescalero Apaches range all the way to the mysterious Guadalupe Mountains. In a dead man's boot, Clay finds a map to rumored gold in the Guadalupes. When Comanches approach, he flees upriver and finds Lil Casner at a lone schooner. Long abused in an arranged marriage, she must fend for herself while her obsessed husband combs the Pecos for the very map Clay has discovered. Upstream at the Bar W Ranch, two other haunted figures await. One is an experienced cowboy who has come to the Pecos for reasons that strangely parallel Clay's. The other is a shiftless cowhand in whose mind lurks something evil and deadly. Comanche attacks . . . a kidnapping . . . a chase through Apache country to Skeleton Cave and on to the Guadalupes. For Clay, the answers will never come unless he rides into a mountain range where Indian spirits may guard a golden hoard.

Download or read book Rivers of Texas written by Verne Huser and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-31 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the landscape, history, geology, and recreational opportunities afforded by the rivers of Texas, presenting information about each river's size, location, tributaries, discharge, and special sites.

Download or read book The End of Nowhere written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2023 FINALIST, PEACEMAKER AWARD OF WESTERN FICTIONEERS 2023 FINALIST, WILL ROGERS MEDALLION AWARD It's 1917, and the Mexican Revolution has the Big Bend of Texas aflame. But the firestorm is no greater than the one inside newspaper reporter Jack Landon. Disillusioned, he flees down the road to nowhere and finds himself in Esperanza. Populated by people of Mexican heritage, the small village on the Texas bank of the Rio Grande is a target of Texas Rangers Company B, which unjustly considers it a bandit den. Jack befriends a teenaged boy and his adult sister, Mary, who teaches in the Esperanza school. As Jack assimilates to life in Esperanza, the threat of Rangers looms large. Eventually a day of reckoning descends, and it envelops Jack and Mary and the entire village. This novel is based on what actually happened at Porvenir, Texas, on January 28, 1918—the darkest moment in Texas Rangers history.

Download or read book Grizzly Moon written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spur Award-Winning Author WINNER OF THE ELMER KELTON AWARD For nineteen years, Wash Baker has been haunted by firing into the night at what he thought was a grizzly, only to kill his young son and narrowly miss a second boy, Trey. Now, in 1899, confirmed tracks of grizzly—a species of bear unknown in Texas—have been found at a Davis Mountains camp meeting attended by Wash and his daughter, Grace. The congregants include Trey, now an adult and courting Grace, and Trey's father, Ed Mulholland. Long ago, Mulholland's big talk about the dangers of a grizzly led Wash to panic and fire the fatal load of buckshot. With all of them now striking out to hunt down this confirmed grizzly, Wash has a chance to right the wrongful shot and perhaps deliver judgment on Mulholland. Meanwhile, up from Mexico has come twelve-year-old Rosindo Mesa, seeking to kill the same grizzly before the next full moon in order to free his dead father's wandering soul. This novel is based on the actual 1899 hunt for the only documented grizzly ever found in Texas. "A quick-paced and fun read that will appeal to readers with an interest in historical fiction set in the Old West. . . . A riveting read that is a highly recommended pick for personal reading lists and community library Western Fiction collections." —Midwest Book Review "Patrick Dearen paints a vivid setting, bringing the flora and fauna of the region into precise focus . . . He does a good job developing characters with deep psychological wounds and bringing them to final resolution." —Roundup Magazine of Western Writers of America

Download or read book Devils River written by Patrick Dearen and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his newest book, Devils River, Patrick Dearen traces the 400-year history of the notorious river from the time of the first Spanish explorers to the modernization of southwestern Texas and the coming of the railroad. He vividly retells stories of Indian encounters, train robberies, and other horrific events that prove just how the name “Devils River” was coined. With his inimitable style, the author weaves together a variety of themes--military events, including the Civil War and stories about the Texas Rangers; the development of the first mail lines; and the introduction of cattle and sheep raising--into a comprehensive account of the violence and bloodshed surrounding the Devils River. The nature of the river’s history is such that very few anecdotes have happy endings, but Devils River contains stories of triumphs as well as disasters. Although this is an excellent account for historians studying the west, it is also very accessible to others with little or no background in early western history.

Download or read book Starflight to Eternity written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spur Award-Winning Author Patrick Dearen STARFLIGHT TO ETERNITY (a.k.a. Starflight to Faroul) “I held the secret of creation in my hands, but I lost it and can never have it again!” Starflight to Eternity, a wizened old man named Kasterfayette has returned from deep space, bearing a strange tale of the planet Faroul. This legendary world is said to be a place where time began and ends, and where a man may gain the power to create. But Faroul is much more, for it holds the destiny of the universe. Alan Burke, a young officer assigned to a starship, deserts when superiors hurl missiles against his home planet. Turning to space piracy, he takes vengeance by preying on government ships. During an attack on a transport, Burke rescues Kasterfayette, a top-secret prisoner who whispers in his dying breaths the location of Faroul. Along with a vicious conspirator called Poteet, a prostitute named Davon, and a young man he loves as a son, Burke sets out on a perilous interstellar journey for Faroul and the deepest secrets of the cosmos.

Download or read book Big Bend s Ancient and Modern Past written by Bruce A. Glasrud and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Big Bend region of Texas—variously referred to as “El Despoblado” (the uninhabited land), “a land of contrasts,” “Texas’ last frontier,” or simply as part of the Trans-Pecos—enjoys a long, colorful, and eventful history, a history that began before written records were maintained. With Big Bend’s Ancient and Modern Past, editors Bruce A. Glasrud and Robert J. Mallouf provide a helpful compilation of articles originally published in the Journal of Big Bend Studies, reviewing the unique past of the Big Bend area from the earliest habitation to 1900. Scholars of the region investigate not only the peoples who have successively inhabited it but also the nature of the environment and the responses to that environment. As the studies in this book demonstrate, the character of the region has, to a great extent, dictated its history. The study of Big Bend history is also the study of borderlands history. Studying and researching across borders or boundaries, whether national, state, or regional, requires a focus on the factors that often both unite and divide the inhabitants. The dual nature of citizenship, of land holding, of legal procedures and remedies, of education, and of history permeate the lives and livelihoods of past and present residents of the Big Bend.

Download or read book Pecos Bill written by James Cloyd Bowman and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1938 Newbery Honor Book Bill was just four years old when he fell from the family wagon near the Pecos River on the western frontier. Accidentally left behind by his family, he was raised by coyotes, and he didn't realize he was human until he was an adult. When he did, Pecos Bill returned to civilization and used the superhuman powers he'd developed during his peculiar upbringing to become the best cowboy in the West.

Download or read book Starflight to Destiny written by Patrick Dearen and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deep-space archaeological dig shrouded in mystery . . . Clues to the location of a legendary power in the reaches of the galaxy . . . A man and a woman, each holding half the answers, both defying a totalitarian government. Together, Blake Sharrel and Rhonda Gregory embark on a starship quest to find the Leijan, an enigma that holds the fate of the cosmos. It's an epic journey filled with peril: a crew of pirates ready to slit their throats, a planet where intruders are crucified upside down, and a chase across countless light years of unexplored space. From one planet's Valley of the Skull to another planet's City of the Skull, and on to a derelict spacecraft orbiting a black world, it will be a Starflight to Destiny. “A genuine thrilling and utterly entertaining read. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic science fiction.”—Shaun Raymond Hoadley, illustrator for books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Download or read book Standing in the Gap written by Loyd Uglow and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Large military posts have been examined in detail in numerous books written about the Texas frontier, but the importance of smaller outposts and picket stations has been generally overlooked. In Standing in the Gap, Loyd M. Uglow examines these smaller outposts in relation to the larger forts that controlled them and explores their significance in military strategy and the pacification of the frontier. The army's role in the settlement of West Texas has been, until now, explained through biographies of prominent officers and histories of both Indian campaigns and the larger forts. With only passing mention of outposts such as Grierson's Spring, Van Horn's Wells, and Pecos Station in these texts, the stories of minor posts have gone, for the most part, untold.".