9780312928155
Goodnight Trail (Trail Drive Series #1) share button
Ralph Compton
Format Mass Market Paperback
Dimensions 4.18 (w) x 6.71 (h) x 1.01 (d)
Pages 384
Publisher St. Martin's Press
Publication Date August 1992
ISBN 9780312928155
Book ISBN 10 0312928157
About Book

Former Texas Rangers Benton McCaleb, Will Elliot, and Brazos Gifford ride with Charles Goodnight as he rounds up thousands of ornery, unbranded cattle for the long drive to Colorado. From the Trinity River brakes to Denver, they’ll battle endless miles of flooded rivers, parched desert, and whiskey-crazed Comanches. And come face-to-face with Judge Roy Bean and legendary gunslingers like Clay Allison. For McCaleb and his hard-riding crew, the drive is a fierce struggle against the perils of an untamed land. A fight to the finish where the brave reach glory—or die hard.

The courage, glory and drama of the American Western experience is at the forefront of this authentic frontier series which uses the massive longhorn cattle drives as its backdrop. After the Civil War, three out-of-work Texas Rangers join the cattle drives of Charlie Goodnight--the legendary rancher who blazed the Goodnight Trail from north Texas to Denver. Includes a "teaser" promoting the next book in the series due 12/92. Original.

Reviews

From the Publisher

“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)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Compton's debut (and the first in his projected ``Trail Drive'' trilogy) depicts the rough-and-tumble adventures of Benton McCaleb and his partners. In 1865, Bent and two other Texas stet cap Rangers plan to raise a herd of maverick longhorns and take them to market. They're soon joined by Rebecca and Monte Nance, a sister and brother accustomed to frontier life, and Goose, an enigmatic Lipan Apache. The trail riders engage in several skirmishes with the Comanches; they raid an Indian camp and help U.S. Army soldiers defend the town of Waco from attack. There's also the daily work of contending with cattle stampedes and chasing down ``bunch-quitters,'' or strays. However, these folks do eat well: they're working with the trailblazing Charles Goodnight, who invents the chuck wagon here--as he supposedly did in real life. Despite the various minor plots and the fact that these characters are usually on the move, the story itself doesn't go anywhere. Yet Compton's convincingly detailed account of folks earning a living the hard way offers readers a chance to hit the trail and not even end up saddle sore. (Aug.)