Ralph Compton Prairie Fire, Kansas

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. John Shirley was born in Houston and now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He is the author of numerous novels and books of short stories, and won the Bram Stoker Award for his collection Black Butterflies . His novels include the Specialist books (under the name John Cutter), The Brigade , Bleak History , the A Song Called Youth trilogy, and a novel of Wyatt Earp as a young lawman, Wyatt in Wichita . He has also written television, movies, and songs. Klappentext In this roller-coaster new installment in bestselling author Ralph Compton's Sundown Riders series, a young cowhand faces a trial by fire on his way to a new home and an old love. Fresh from a successful trail drive, cattle hand Seth Coe is feeling flush, especially after a lucky streak at the poker table. But his good fortune earns him a dangerous enemy, notorious tinhorn gambler Hannibal Fisher, who is none too happy about being cleaned out. The innocent Coe starts the long ride back to Texas with big plans to buy his own ranch. All he needs now, he figures, is a wife. To his amazement, in tiny Prairie Fire, Kansas he meets the perfect woman, his childhood love Josette Dubois. But she is under the thumb of her brutal father, who will stop at nothing to prevent her happiness, including killing Coe-that is, if Fisher doesn't get there first. . . Leseprobe CHAPTER ONE   Abilene, Kansas, 1871   It was a hot, dusty day, but Seth Coe was in a good mood. The long trail drive was over, and he had been paid. Seth, Franklin, and Jake were standing by the corral gate, at the big holding on the north side of Abilene, Kansas, in the bright summer sunshine.   "How's it come I got only a hundred dollars for all my work on this drive, Seth, and you got a hundred eighty?" Jake asked, counting his money.   "I'll tell you why," said Seth, smiling as he turned away from the cattle pen that sunny afternoon. "Besides being a drover, I was remuda wrangler, seeing as how Henry Graham died two weeks into the drive, and that means I got me an extra forty dollars-and I saved your bacon by pulling you out of that flash flood, so Cullin give me another forty as a bonus."   "A bonus for saving me?" Jake demanded, scowling. "Why, saving a man's life should be done out of pure decency."   Franklin snorted. "Jake, Seth almost died himself pulling your chestnuts from that gully washer!"   The cattle jostled and mooed and snorted on the other side of the raw-timber fence, stirring up a cloud of dust as the three cowboys walked away toward downtown, pleased to be leaving the beasts they'd driven north for more than two months.   Franklin Trotter, Seth's longtime pal, was a year older than Seth. He was six feet three and wide shouldered and heavy bellied. He had long brown hair, thick swooping mustaches, and a broad, affable face, his small blue eyes always glinting with mischief. Like the others he was still wearing his chaps, his red calico shirt, a bandanna tied around his neck, rough tan trousers, and a gun on his hip. "Here's what should concern you, Jake," said Franklin. "Seth was paid a forty-dollar bonus for risking his neck saving yours. That means Cullin figures your life's only worth forty dollars!"   "Also means my life, too, is only worth forty dollars," said Seth. "Jumping in that flood was a fool thing to do." He...

About the author

John Shirley

Product details

• Authors: Ralph Compton, John Shirley
• Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.10.2020
• EAN: 9780593102329
• ISBN: 978-0-593-10232-9
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 108 mm x 173 mm x 19 mm
• Series: The Sundown Riders Series
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature