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 2017-09-14 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 225 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 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 Ma am Jones of the Pecos written by and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1973-03-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An unusual story of an American pioneer woman who used a needle, skillet, orgun, as needed, and who tended the dying during frontier wars or outbreaks ofequally deadly diseases."--"The Old Bookaroos."
Download or read book Pecos Bill written by James Cloyd Bowman and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates some of the legends of Pecos Bill, from the moment he bounced out of his family's covered wagon to the day his long-lost brother appears and explains that Bill is not like the coyotes that have raised him.
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 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 The Natural History of the Trans Pecos written by Brian R. Chapman and published by Integrative Natural History Se. This book was released on 2020 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Complete with an introduction chronicling the stories of biologists and naturalists who have explored and defined the ecological areas of Texas over time, The Natural History of the Trans-Pecos explores the formation of the region more than 600 million years ago, the adaptability of its ecosystems, and the conservation efforts to keep these wildly diverse environments flourishing. Detailed descriptions, vivid anecdotes, and vibrant pictures of the features that make this region so unique emphasize the rugged grandeur of the Trans-Pecos"--
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 The White Shaman Mural written by Carolyn E. Boyd and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Folded plate (1 leaf, 39 x 61 cm, folded to 19 x 16 cm) in pocket.
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 Forever Texas written by Mike Blakely and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-10-09 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring the writing of President Geogre W. Bush, H. Ross Perot, Phil Gramm, Dale Evans, Lyndon B. Johnson, Stephen Austin, Sam Houston.
Download or read book The Hidden Treasure of the Chisos written by Patrick Dearen and published by Taylor Trade Publishing. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Big Bend of Texas is a mysterious place in 1869. Legend has it that there's a lost gold mine in the Chisos Mountains. Twelve-year-old Fish Rawlings and his cousin Gid have heard all about it. But when they discover a dying Indian in the desert, they have reason to believe it. Suddenly the boys find themselves with a great secret. No one else knows the way to the last Chisos mines-but do they dare? To find it, they must cross a desert prowled by Apache warriors. They must ride a trail haunted by devil animals and Indian spooks. Even with the help of a young Apache boy, the journey won't be easy. And what will they do if they succeed?
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.
