"Civil war till late 1970's. West Texas, eastern New Mexico, and the border country of northern Mexico. Francis Chapman, Marin Chapman, Shadrach. There are no Indians"-- Provided by publisher. "Francis Elmore Chapman was born for the West and but temporarily restrained by an 1875-chance-of-birth in Nashville. Just after his eighteenth birthday, Chapman travels to the Pecos River Valley in the New Mexico Territory with his father. There the younger Chapman witnesses his first gunfight between a buffalo-bone hunter and Ab Quezada, one of the last of the legendary cowboys. This is the real thing--not pulp fiction--and Chapman is hooked. Chapman's life is influenced by Quezada's stoic code--until he falls in love with his mentor's common-law wife. This event leads into border wars and forays into the daunting Ciudad Juárez nights where her sons are missing or something worse. It is here Chapman meets Shadrach, a sociopathic killer, who will grow into his persistent antagonist. The west is evolving and along with it Chapman's life as a small rancher and bounty hunter. His son, Martin, follows the elder Chapman's pattern. But four years in a Korean POW camp is psychologically and physically devastating. Army nurse Jill Bateman takes Martin back to New Mexico trying to piece together his world and reconnect him with his son, Pete. This is a novel of what the west was then and is now. However, it is also a story of how the thread that now runs through our lives binds us together into the future" -- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.