The Pecos River flows snake-like out of New Mexico and across West Texas before striking the Rio Grande. In frontier Texas, the Pecos was more moat than river, a deadly barrier of quicksand, treacherous currents, and impossibly steep banks. Only at its crossings - with such legendary names as Horsehead and Pontoon - could travelers hope to gain passage. Even if the river proved obliging, its Indian raiders and outlaws often did not. Its banks echoed with the sounds of the mythic Old West - the war cry of the Indian, the blast of the cowboy's six-shooter, the crack of the stage-driver's whip,...

The Big Bend of Texas is a mysterious place in 1869. Legend has it that there's a lost gold mine in the Chisos Mountains. Twelve-year-old Fish Rawlings and his cousin Gid have heard all about it. But when they discover a dying Indian in the desert, they have reason to believe it. Suddenly the boys find themselves with a great secret. No one else knows the way to the last Chisos mines-but do they dare? To find it, they must cross a desert prowled by Apache warriors. They must ride a trail haunted by devil animals and Indian spooks. Even with the help of a young Apache boy, the journey won't be...

It was 1932, the depths of the Great Depression, and thousands of desperate people rode the rails in search of jobs, homes, and hope. For some, the tracks were a road to nowhere, a dead end in a boxcar or under the wheels or in a sea of emptiness. Their fate seemed certain-until Ish Watson grabbed the rungs of a passing freight train bound for a dying relative on the Texas Gulf Coast. He brought with him the traits bestowed by his rural upbringing faith, conviction and dedication. But now he faced thundering wheels ready to mutilate and knife-wielding hobos restless to kill, a barreling train...

Cowman Mayer Halff rode a long, busy trail that few men could have followed. It carried him from 1850s France to Texas and across 1,500 miles of wild western country waiting to be tamed. Throughout his life, he was at ease whether dining with a U.S. President at a plush metropolitan banquet or squatting across a campfire from a dirt-streaked cowboy in some forsaken cow camp. Immigrating as a fourteen-year-old, Halff began as a foot peddler. He quickly built the largest dry goods business in the Southwest and by 1861 was pursuing his passion-cattle ranching. He founded several of Texas' famous...

Fourteen-year-old Josh and his friend Shan are facing hard times on their families' farms in Central Texas in 1934. It's the days of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and rain is as scarce as money. With the long dry spell have come wild animals with flashing teeth and deadly rabies. Dust storms known as black blizzards are raging, threatening lives and destroying cropland. Will a rainmaker bring rain? Will their families lose their homes? Will Josh's and Shan's friendship survive? From rabid animal attacks to a deadly flood to a barreling freight train, Josh is in for an adventure he will...

Tom Rowden has been riding away from the Pecos River for twenty years, plagued by the haunting image of his wife, Sarah, the second before he killed her. Now, he is dead-set on returning to her unmarked grave above the river to make one final atonement. His journey is interrupted when a group of Mexican bandits burn down the 7L's ranch house, kill the ranch boss, and rape and abduct his daughter, Liz Anne. The 7L's greenhorn wagon boss, Jess Graham, desperately begs for Tom's help in rescuing Liz Anne, the girl Jess loves. Tom obliges and sets out with Jess and his posse of ranch hands...

Will Brite is a Slash Five cowboy working in the Middle Concho region of Texas in the winter of 1884 when a blizzard descends upon himthe likes of which he has never seen. Trapped under his horse and entangled in a barbed wire fence, Will finds an unexpected (and unwelcome) savior in the form of Zeke Boles, a former slave on the run from a bloody, guilt-filled past.
In Zeke s dark features Will sees a reflection of the haunting memories he has been trying to escape for so long, but he reluctantly offers him shelter for the night at the Slash Five camp. Little does he know that their...

Rising at 11,750 feet in the Sangre de Cristo range and snaking 926 miles through New Mexico and Texas to the Rio Grande, the Pecos River is one of the most storied waterways in the American West. It is also one of the most troubled. In 1942, the National Resources Planning Board observed that the Pecos River basin -probably presents a greater aggregation of problems associated with land and water use than any other irrigated basin in the Western U.S.- In the twenty-first century, the river's problems have only multiplied. Bitter Waters, the first book-length study of the entire...

Author Patrick Dearen brings the reckless and risky adventures of real cowboys to life with colorful stories from interviews with 76 men who cowboyed in the West before 1932 as well as 150 archival interviews and written accounts from as early as the 1870s and well into the mid-twentieth century.