Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-206) and index.
Contents:
The precipice -- El Llano Estacado -- Stepping over the threshold -- J.W. and Mollie Jarrott -- Isolation loneliness and danger -- Cowmen vs. plowmen: tensions escalate -- Death on the lonely Llano Estacado -- Trail of the assassin -- The man who hired the assassin -- Epilogue: What a difference an individual life can make -- Appendix: Timeline of events -- Notes.
Summary:
In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature. But frontier cattlemen who had been pasturing their herds on the unfenced prairie land were enraged by the encroachment of these "nesters." In August 1902 a famous hired assassin, Jim Miller, ambushed and murdered J. W. Jarrott. Who hired Miller? This crime has never been solved, until now. Award-winning author Bill Neal investigates this cold case and successfully pieces together all the threads of circumstantial evidence to fit the noose snugly around the neck of Jim Miller's employer. What emerges from these pages is the strength of intriguing characters in an engrossing narrative: Jim Jarrott, the diminutive advocate who fearlessly champions the cause of the little guy. The ruthless assassin, Deacon Jim Miller. And finally Jarrott's young widow Mollie, who perseveres and prospers against great odds and tells the settlers to "Stay put!".
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