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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Westerns
Set in the farmlands of mid-America in the late nineteenth
century, "Fallow's Field" tells the story of a man whose work is
his only solace as he buries his emotions amidst the growing blades
of golden wheat.
After the tragic deaths of his father and uncle, Ned Fallow
grows into a silent young man, shut off from emotional ties and
struggling to earn a living on a wheat farm in Midland, Kansas. He
becomes obsessed with growing the perfect crop in the fertile
Kansas soil and pays little attention to the world around him; yet
the beautiful, intelligent schoolteacher, Lily Thomason, and the
untimely death of one of his workers finally force Ned out of his
shell and make him rethink his perspective on the life he's always
envisioned.
"Fallow's Field" is the portrait of a good man, hurt so badly
that he has turned away from those intimate connections that add
true meaning to one's life. As Ned struggles against the forces of
nature, human and otherwise, he is faced with one last chance at
happiness-and the leap of faith he must take to find his ultimate
redemption.
El Sombre: Saga of Boozer Runyan Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the l880's,
finds itself in the grip of a secret, underworld crime syndicate,
that is grabbing land from the locals. Undercover U.S. Marshal,
Adam West, (Alias, Boozer Runyan) from Washington, DC, arrives,
incognito, discovering an invisible empire of Satanic interests
that are seeking to fund a war, at the risk of collapsing the
American Banking System, using "The Wild Bunch" as pawns.
Knowing his people face a bleak future on the reservations,
Chief Sitting Bull prays to the Great Spirit for a different path.
The Great Spirit's answer is to send General George Custer and the
Seventh Cavalry 40 years into the past, where they join Davy
Crockett to defend the Alamo against Mexican forces under the
command of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Custer believes
defending the Alamo may be his greatest moment of glory, but he
soon learns that this war for Texas independence will prove far
more complicated.
It is 1888, and for Jesse Riddle, time has already brought too
much change. Caught between the excitement of life on Harrison
Avenue in Leadville, Colorado, and his commitment to the Lord, he
must now make some big decisions.
Work in the mines has exposed him to a new world of hard living
and reckless self-indulgence, and Jesse knows that the direction
his life is taking is hurting his preacher father. The church has
always been the center of the young man's life, but now more
worldly temptations are pulling him away. He tries to resist the
lure of the saloons, with mixed success. His reputation as a man to
be feared troubles him. But despite it all-the temptations, the
accolades, the power-he could not ignore the commitment he had made
to the Lord.
Jesse needs to get away for a while. The mountains have always
been his place of sanctuary, and it is to their high reaches that
he runs in times of doubt. He could not have imagined what God had
in store for him-a mystery beyond his ability to understand.
Strange new people and machines have slipped through time, but for
what purpose? The choices he must make now will determine the
course of the rest of his life. The stakes are high, and the time
to decide is short.
The year is 1880 and Jackson Junction is about as wild as any town
on the western frontier. A national depression in 1873 has forced
many men out of their jobs. One sheriff depends upon volunteers for
his posses to keep the peace. It's in this social climate that
Toby, a 15-year-old, arrives on an orphan train from New York City
to be adopted by the Oliver family and to be put to work as a cub
reporter for Mister Dunn, editor and publisher of the Junction
Citizen Press. Mister Dunn is tired of printing only planting
schedules for farmers and cooking recipes for the town's wives. He
wants exciting stories in his newspaper, and gives that assignment
to Toby. Of course, with 67 saloons on Main Street and a news
tipster by the name of Captain Pig Reardon of the Michigan Central
Railroad Police, Toby has no trouble finding excitement to write
about for Mister Dunn. "Train Town," as Toby likes to call Jackson
Junction, because of the numerous trains, and their whistles,
provides plenty of exciting stories for Toby to write. There are
bank robberies by an elusive gang, a terrible collision of two
passenger trains near the depot, a coal mine explosion, a cyclone,
a wild cattle drive through town that has a fatal ending, a wild
west show that almost gets Toby killed and a pair of court cases
which involve the Michigan Central Railroad just to mention a few
of Toby's big stories. And, there's Bethany Wiggins, who, at 15,
has her eye on Toby as her future husband ... and, not too far in
the future as far as she's concerned. There's never a dull moment
with Captain Pig Reardon around to bend Toby's ear with "scoops"
for him to write about for the Junction Citizen Press. However, Pig
always has anulterior motive, hoping to lure Toby into one of his
quick-money-making schemes to help Pig finance his way east, so he
can perform on the New York stage. "Train Town" will take the
reader back into a time of oil lamps, dirt streets and the smell of
horse manure, wooden sidewalks, bare-knuckle prize fights,
twenty-five cent meals at restaurants and boarding houses for a
good many of the town's families. And, of course, the railroads.
They never stop building new lines into Jackson Junction. They come
from the east, the west, the south and the north. There'll be three
different passenger depots in town, plus freight yards, roundhouses
and miles and miles of track. "Train Town" has it all, and Toby
Oliver, cub reporter, is ready to tell you every exciting minute of
it in the action-packed pages of this novel.
"The deep shadows were lightened by shafts of sunshine which, here
and there, managed to pierce the canopy of foliage . . ."
Kenneth wants nothing more than to be a forester. Lumbermen have
been wiping out the timber and never thinking of the future: he
knows that. The time has come for forestry to take a bigger role,
out in the Alleghenies and farther west -- and he wants a part in
it.
But he has to convince his father, who wants to see his son
become a doctor -- and prove it is more than just wanting to hunt
bears and the big cats -- more than just embracing the joys of
outdoor life, of camping beneath the open stars!
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