Ryre was as hard as the burnt Texas land in which he lived. But, when his wife died, something in him died, too. He’d fought in the great war between the states, had rode with the Texas Rangers, and knew morea about killing than most men. So, he decided to leave Texas for a more peaceful existence in Louisiana.
But in a land filled with hard men, it can be difficult to avoid them. Ryre had the misfortune to run into a small band of men run by two gunmen, one who rode with Quantrill’s raiders. They quickly learned that they’d cornered a curly wolf when he hurt several of the men, including the leader. As Ryre lay on the floor, bleeding and hurt, the gunman told Ryre, “You hurt the wrong man when you hurt me.”
They wrapped Ryre in a fresh cowhide and tossed him into the desert under the white-hot Texas sun to slowly bake and agonize as the hide shrank around him and hardened into a rock-hard shell. Before they rode away, the gunman, with a smile on his face, said to Ryre as he regained consciousness: “In case you want to know what’s in your future, the reason you ain’t able to move around much is on account of that cow hide you’re wrapped in. I figure in a couple days, it’ll be squeezin’ you like your mama never done. Learned that little trick from the Apache.”
But, they’d soon learn they hurt the wrong man.
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A gunslinger in the Wild West was fairly uncommon. A cowboy chasing “cow critters” could be found throughout the Old West. In western books, historical fiction novels, or western novels, the western cowboys are a dime a dozen . (Maybe that’s where the phrase “dime novel” arose.)
Cowboy stories were common on the western open range, and those cowboys told a lot of those stories, but cowboy novels were not. A “cowboy western,” was pretty uncommon during the early days of western novels. Usually, the greatest westerns were about some gunslinger in the Old West, or a marshal or sheriff made larger than life, or a mountain man or Indian fighter (such as Buffalo Bill).
This is another western fiction novel of the highest caliber, an action packed adventure from Brevia Books by Voyle Glover, an author one reader said “reminds me of Louis L’Amour’s books. He was my favorite when it came to westerns.”
