Ed Wright has one last chance to prove himself. The former cowboy and Ranger gets back on the horse to drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Kansas-but must contend with a rival outfit who will stop at nothing to see him fail.
Ralph Compton (April 11, 1934—September 16, 1998) was an American writer of western fiction.
A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton began his writing career with a notable work, The Goodnight Trail, which was chosen as a finalist for the Western Writers of America "Medicine Pipe Bearer Award" bestowed upon the "Best Debut Novel". He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. In the last decade of his life, he authored more than two dozen novels, some of which made it onto the USA Today bestseller list for fiction.
Ralph Compton died in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 64. Since his passing, Signet Books has continued the author's legacy, releasing new novels, written by authors such as Joseph A. West and David Robbins, under Compton's byline.
Ed Wright was a broken man who had turned into the town drunk. Unita Nance wanted Ed to lead her Cattle drive to Cottonwoods trail. She basically kidnaps him. sobers him up and after a lot of trials and tribulations, she gets him to agree to help her make the drive. There are so many sub-stories in this one before the drive evens gets started, with Ed in the middle of it. For some reason Unita will stick by his side and before all is said and done there will be some death and a beautiful love story that Ed has trouble understanding.
With George Guidall narrating, the flaws of the genre and the book seemed minor. It really is an old-fashioned genre. The good guys win. The bad guys get killed. The details along the way are interesting as are some of the characters. Guidall does a great job at narrating the speech of strong women!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Ed Wright is a drunk. Self-centered, self-pity whiner. Not sure why Unita Nance cares so much for him. Lots of good guys and bad guys killed in this story. Not overly fast paced, very slow in some areas. The cattle drive part of the book isn’t very long and towards the end. Most of the book is of other things leading up to it. Okay read.
Ed Wright has been kidnapped/dried out/hired, by Uinta Nance, to take her herd of cattle to Kansas to be sold. But first, Ed has to find the killers who gunned down his friend.
I really enjoyed this book. It's refreshing to have a hero that is haunted by his gunslinging life and a nice little romance bit thrown into the mix. It also ends right - he gets the bad guys.