The Big Bend, the Big Country, the Big Empty. The High Plains, the Permian and the Panhandle. Cowboys, Cowtown and the curl of a killer tornado. A place where you can stretch your eyeballs. Where the Hale-Bopp comet, hardly visible above some smoggy, light-polluted cities, looked like it could drop into the Pecos River at any moment. West Texas, home to the state s biggest legends, is chronicled by two authors who have spent most of their careers crisscrossing it. Mike Cochran and John Lumpkin, Associated Press journalists, bring their experiences to the pages of this handsome volume,...

The native son of a distinguished West Texas family and a 1954 graduate of Texas A&M whose career and personal pursuits have ranged from farmer to insurance salesman to wildcatter, pipeline entrepreneur, rancher, banker, real estate mogul, big game hunter, conservationist, philanthropist, front-running gubernatorial candidate, and oil tycoon, Clayton W. Williams Jr. is by all measures one of a kind.

He has repeatedly been on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, yet more than once Claytie has also been on the verge of bankruptcy. This authorized biography captures the...