In plunging into the world of Social Media I’ve been lucky enough to
contact some of the best, most distinguished and successful western authors.
Few are more distinguished and successful than Robert Vaughan.
Robert’s books have hit the New York Times bestseller list seven times.
He’s won the Spur Award, the PORGIE Award (Best Paperback Original), the
Western Fictioneers Lifetime Achievement Award, received the Readwest
President's Award for Excellence in Western Fiction, is a member of the
American Writers Hall of Fame and is a Pulitzer Prize nominee. And he doesn’t
just write westerns!
He tells me he has a first and second favourite
of all his books. I’ve already posted about number 2 - YESTERDAY'S REVEILLE. Robert says his favourite of all his books is the 2nd in his CADE McCALL series, CADE’S REVENGE.
We follow Cade as he rides the Chisholm Trail, crosses raging
rivers, faces cattle rustlers and fights marauding Indians while taking a herd
of longhorns north to Kansas.
Cattle drives were
a major economic activity in the 19th-century American West, particularly
between 1866 and 1886, when 20 million cattle were herded from Texas to railheads
in Kansas,
for shipments to stockyards in Chicago and points east.
1879 Cowboys
These cattle were at least initially scrawny,
fractious, semi-wild stock known as ‘Longhorns.’
These railhead towns became known as 'cow towns' and
were famous for being ‘wild and woolly.’ Cowboys, fresh from several months ‘eating
dust’ driving cattle across the plains, let off steam in the saloons, gambling
houses and bordellos of these raw new settlements. First of these was Abeline,
at the end of the Chisolm Train.
Abeline stockyards
Others followed, sometimes only blooming for a
single season as the railways pushed further west – places like Newton, Ellsworth,
Wichita, Caldwell and Baxter Springs.
By 1877, the largest of the
cattle-shipping boom towns, Dodge City, shipped out 500,000 head of cattle.
Dodge City 1874
However,
through the 1870s and 1880s, railroads expanded to cover most of the west, and
meat packing plants were built closer to major ranching areas, making long
cattle drives to the railheads unnecessary.
Thinking of trail drives, which have featured in innumerable
westerns, naturally I thought of the daddy of all trail drive movies: RED RIVER
(1948.)
A trail drive from Texas to Montana is the backdrop to Larry McMurtry’s
LONESOME DOVE, a book made into an acclaimed TV mini-series.
Tommy Lee Jones & Robert Duvall in LONESOME DOVE
A trail drive depicted in LONESOME DOVE
And the TV series RAWHIDE had its cowboy heroes
(including a young CLINT EASTWOOD) on a 6-year trail drive, as the show ran
from 1959 to 1965!
OWEN WISTER, writer of the early western classic ‘THE
VIRGINIAN’ (1902) (also made into a TV series) features in CADE’S REVENGE.
Owen Wister
James Drury in TV's 'THE VIRGINIAN'
90% of the reviews for CADE’S REVENGE are 5 star!
‘Intriguing… stays on key from beginning to end.’
'A book that's hard to put down.'
'A fun reading novel of the Old West. The author's development of the character is great.'
https://www.amazon.com/Cades-Revenge-Western-Adventures-McCall-ebook/dp/B01MQGG4HJ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
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