Range War of Callie County

by Dusty Richards

Charlie Brackeen owns the big ranch that takes up the entire north end of drought-stricken Callie County. When he pushes his B-Bar-M cattle south of their own range, it’s no mistake—it’s a hostile takeover, enforced by Sheriff Alex Woodbridge, the tough, one-eyed former Texas Ranger who’s in Brackeen’s pocket. They want the small ranchers leaderless and isolated so they can be picked off one-by-one and forced to sell their land.

They just didn’t count on Jed Mahan.

Jed is a small-time rancher who wants nothing more than to raise his cattle in peace and find comfort at the table and in the bed of the alluring Mrs. Gabriella Contras. As the county’s independent ranchers come together, though, they look to him for leadership. Jed’s reluctant at first, but when he’s blamed for the murder of his neighbor’s son, he has no choice but to step up. Woodbridge and Brackeen won’t waste time on something as trivial as a murder trial. Jed has two options—convince by-the-book county judge Neemore Davis of his innocence... or put Woodbridge in the ground before the old sheriff does the same thing to him.

In the dust and heat of a wild South Texas summer, it won’t take much of a spark to set off a range war in Callie County.

Published:
Publisher: Galway
Genres:
Western

Tags:
western book series, western books

About the Author

IF THERE WAS A SATURDAY MATINEE, Dusty was there with Hoppy, Roy and Gene. He went to roundup at seven-years-old, sat on a real horse and watched them brand calves on the Peterson Ranch in Othello, Washington. When his family moved to Arizona from the Midwest, at age 13, he knew he’d gone to heaven. A horse of his own, ranches to work on, rodeos to ride in, Dusty’s mother worried all his growing up years he’d turn out to be some “old cowboy bum.”

He read every western book on the library shelves. He sat on the stoop of Zane Grey’s cabin on Mrs. Winter’s ranch and looked out over the “muggie-own” rim and promised the writer’s ghost his book would join Grey’s some day on the book rack.

Since English teachers never read westerns, he made up book reports like “Guns on the Brazos” by J.P. Jones. The story of a Texas Ranger who saves the town and the girl. Then he sold them for a dollar to other boys too lazy to read when teenagers were lucky to earn fifty cents an hour. In fact, book reports kept him and his buddy in gas money to go back and forth to high school.

After graduating from Arizona State University in 1960, he came to northwest Arkansas, ranched, auctioneered, announced rodeo, worked 32 years for Tyson Food in management, anchored TV news and struggled to get a book of his own sold. The three earlier books on the list were published without his knowledge and only discovered in 2011 as even existing.

In 1992, his first novel, Noble’s Way was published. In 2003, his novel The Natural won the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation Fiction Book of the Year Award. In 2004, The Abilene Trail won the same award. Dusty invests a lot of his time helping others who want to learn how to write by speaking at seminars and conferences all over the United States. There is no difference in writing any kind of fiction. In Dusty’s words, “You simply change the sets, costumes and dialect.”

Dusty’s website: dustyrichards.com
Interview on Youtube: http://youtu.be/n1p4-B6fvjE?hd=1


Amy Cowan

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