Medicine Road: A Western Duo

by Will Henry

A Spur Award-winning author

"Orphans of the North," in Will Henry's words, is a story in which "you will meet no purely instinctive, so-called dumb animals, but only those sensitive wilderness folk who are able, in their mysterious unknown ways, to think and to feel and to communicate with one another, very much as you and I." "Medicine Road" is a story from the time of the mountain men. Jesse Callahan was raised by the Miniconjou Sioux. He now works for Jim Bridger who has a string of trading posts in southern Wyoming Territory. Brigham Young, leader of the Mormons, has sworn to wipe out Bridger's trading posts, and he has chosen Watonga, Black Coyote, of the Arapahoes to lead the onslaught. Jesse falls in love with Lacey O'Mara, a married mother of two children. The guns and ammunition that Jesse is transporting to the trading fort at Green River are what Watonga wants most. This is a tense story of calculating courage, intense and dramatic action, and grim realism told with a native feel for the characters and the wilderness in which they play out their fates.

Henry Wilson Allen wrote under both the Clay Fisher and Will Henry bylines.

268 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1952

About the author

Also wrote westerns as Clay Fisher.

Henry Wilson Allen (September 12, 1912 – October 26, 1991) was an American author and screenwriter. He used several different pseudonyms for his works. His 50+ novels of the American West were published under the pen names Will Henry and Clay Fisher. Allen's screenplays and scripts for animated shorts were credited to Heck Allen and Henry Allen.

Allen's career as a novelist began in 1952, with the publication of his first Western No Survivors. Allen, afraid that the studio would disapprove of his moonlighting, used a pen-name to avoid trouble.[3] He would go on to publish over 50 novels, eight of which were adapted for the screen. Most of these were published under one or the other of the pseudonyms Will Henry and Clay Fisher. Allen was a five-time winner of the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and a recipient of the Levi Strauss Award for lifetime achievement.

Henry Wilson Allen was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Allen died of pneumonia on October 26, 1991 in Van Nuys, California. He was 79.

Reviews

[Philip Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the fourth book of Henry Williams' Will Henry series, and I am so enthralled that I am just starting on the fifth. All have been extremely well written, and five will not be the end.
This story, Medicine Road, was up to the standard of all the earlier ones. A mountain man defies all obstacles, outsmarting a very clever Arapaho chief several times, foils a Morman plot to take over Jim Bridger's fort, and finally finds love. A thoroughly exciting, gripping tale, recommended for anyone who enjoys Westerns.