Ralph Compton Big Jake's Last Drive

Informationen zum Autor Ralph Compton stood six foot eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel, The Goodnight Trail , was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was the USA Today bestselling author of the Trail of the Gunfighter series, the Border Empire series, the Sundown Riders series, and the Trail Drive series, among others. Klappentext Two old ranch hands lead one last trail drive but they can't escape death along the way in a brand new thrilling western in Ralph Compton's trail drive series. Big Jake Motley had been running the Big M spread in Texas for over 30 years. In that time, he's driven thousands of head of cattle to market in Kansas. Now, while both the Nineteenth century and the era of trail drive are coming to an end, Big Jake is determined to make one last drive to Kansas. The only thing is, he doesn't have the cowhands to move that much beef. He drafts his old friend, Chance McCandles, into service, and together, the two aging cowboys put together a crew. The trail to Kansas is fraught with dangers both natural and man made, but when Chance is killed by rustlers, Big Jake has one more task in before him, extract vengeance for his old friend. Leseprobe chapter ONE   The death rattle could be heard very clearly for the Texas trail drive by the 1880s. And more clearly than ever for Big Jake Motley.   Motley considered himself a broken-down old bronc buster and cowboy at fifty-five years old. And not only was he broken down, but the Big M spread that he had owned for over twenty-five years was also on its last legs. His acreage had been whittled down over the years by new outfits encroaching from both sides, either claiming land that he had mistakenly not filed deeds for, or buying large slices at a time when he had to sell parcels off to stay in business.   The main problem for Big Jake was that while he had always been a fine cowboy, he was a bad businessman. And where he once drove five to six thousand head of cattle from Texas to Kansas City, he was now down to his last six hundred head. And, terrible businessman that he was, he currently found himself with no hands for the drive. This meant riding into Brownsville, and other, smaller towns, to find men for hire. And they would have to be men willing to work for a lot less than was usual. In addition, he wasn't going to be able to pay them until the drive was done and he was paid himself.   On this night he sat on his porch, smoking his pipe and staring out at what was left of his Big M spread. Usually, he enjoyed the feel of the Texas breeze on his face, the scent in his nostrils, but tonight it felt stagnant, and smelled of defeat.   He had managed to find a buyer for the ranch; the transaction would be completed just prior to Big Jake's last drive. Once he and his men left with those last six hundred cows, he'd have no place to come back to. His life as a cattle rancher would be over, and Big Jake Motley did not know what his future held.   But he was sure of one thing. For this final drive he needed two men to help him assemble a crew. One of them he'd hopefully find in Brownsville, but the other was out there . . . somewhere . . . for him to locate.   The first man was his old partner, Chance McCandless. They were the same age, and McCandless had given up trail drives long ago. But Big Jake needed a man he could trust. He didn't want anything to go wrong, and for that he needed an experienced, dependable trail boss-and that was Chance McCandless.   The second man he needed would act as his top hand, a position he had held many times before for Jake, but certainly not lately. He was JosŽ Luis Diego-his name was much longer than that, but Jake had...

Product details

• Authors: Ralph Compton, Robert J Randisi, Robert J. Randisi
• Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 30.06.2020
• EAN: 9780593102244
• ISBN: 978-0-593-10224-4
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 171 mm x 21 mm
• Series: The Trail Drive Series
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature