The Western Trail - (Trail Drive) by Ralph Compton (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

From bestselling author Ralph Compton-an extraordinary saga of the hard-driving Texans who locked horns with a ruthless railroad baron in a bloody battle for an untamed land.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad...

THE WESTERN TRAIL

Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives-to win the right to call the land their own.

"Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted."
-Tombstone Epitaph

From the Back Cover

From bestselling author Ralph Compton--an extraordinary saga of the hard-driving Texans who locked horns with a ruthless railroad baron in a bloody battle for an untamed land.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad...

THE WESTERN TRAIL

Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives--to win the right to call the land their own.

"Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted."--Tombstone Epitaph

Review Quotes

"Lovers of Louis L'Amour-type Westerns will welcome [this] series." --Nashville Banner

"A sweeping, historically accurate [series] that makes America's trail drives come alive." --Artesia Daily Press (New Mexico)

"Compton may very well turn out to be the greatest Western writer of them all...Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted." --The Tombstone Epitath

"Compton offers readers a chance to hit the trail and not end up saddle sore." --Publishers Weekly

"Compton has hit the bull's eye." --The Birmingham News

About the Author

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. His first novel in the Trail Drive series, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist before turning to writing westerns. He died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1998.