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The Big Drift #1
The Big Drift
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 him—the 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 lives will be inexorably linked in the spring of ’85 through what will be one of the most brutal roundups of the nineteenth century.
Follow Will, Zeke, and the rest of the Slash Fives as they ride through West Texas in search of stray cattle in an unforgettable tale of love, redemption, and true grit.
***2015 SPUR AWARD FOR WESTERN TRADITIONAL NOVEL, WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA
***2015 PEACEMAKER AWARD FOR BEST WESTERN NOVEL, WESTERN FICTIONEERS
***2014 ELMER KELTON AWARD, ACADEMY OF WESTERN ARTISTS
***2015 KELTON AWARD FOR FICTION, WEST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
***2015 FINALIST,WILL ROGERS MEDALLION AWARDS
- GenresWesterns
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
7 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Dearen
42 books30 followersA 2022 inductee in the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, Patrick Dearen is the author of 19 novels and 10 nonfiction books, including primary-sourced histories. Born in 1951, he grew up in the small West Texas town of Sterling City. He earned a bachelor of journalism from The University of Texas at Austin in 1974 and received nine national and state awards as a reporter for two West Texas daily newspapers.
An authority on the Pecos and Devils rivers of Texas, Dearen also has gained recognition for his knowledge of old-time cowboy life. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he preserved the firsthand accounts of 76 men who cowboyed before 1932. These interviews, along with decades of archival study, have enriched Dearen’s novels. His newest nonfiction work is "Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River," the first environmental history of the Pecos.
His middle-grade novel, "Halloween on the Butterfield Trail," was published in 2025 by TCU Press. That same year, his novel for adult readers, "The Big Dry," was named a finalist for the prestigious Spur Award of Western Writers of America. In 2024, his novel "Grizzly Moon" was also Spur Award finalist.
Dearen's 2022 novel was "The End of Nowhere," based on the events in Porvenir, Texas in 1918, when Texas Rangers and accomplices--without authorization--executed 15 men and boys of Mexican heritage in retaliation for the Brite Ranch Raid of Christmas Day in 1917. No solid evidence linked any of the executed individuals to the raid, and no one was ever indicted for participating in the executions.
Other recent novels are "Haunted Border" and "Apache Lament," both of which received awards. Other award-winning fiction titles include "Dead Man's Boot." and "The Big Drift," winner of the 2015 Spur Award for Western Traditional Novel. This work is set against the backdrop of the actual big drift of 1884, when a blizzard drove hundreds of thousands of free-ranging cattle down from the Great Plains into Texas. He has also authored the novels "To Hell or the Pecos" and "Perseverance," the latter work set along the rails in Depression-era Texas.
Dearen has received awards for his books from Western Writers of America, Western Fictioneers, Academy of Western Artists, Will Rogers Medallion, San Antonio Conservation Society, West Texas Historical Association, New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, and Permian Historical Society. A backpacking enthusiast and ragtime pianist, he makes his home in Midland, Texas.
An authority on the Pecos and Devils rivers of Texas, Dearen also has gained recognition for his knowledge of old-time cowboy life. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he preserved the firsthand accounts of 76 men who cowboyed before 1932. These interviews, along with decades of archival study, have enriched Dearen’s novels. His newest nonfiction work is "Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River," the first environmental history of the Pecos.
His middle-grade novel, "Halloween on the Butterfield Trail," was published in 2025 by TCU Press. That same year, his novel for adult readers, "The Big Dry," was named a finalist for the prestigious Spur Award of Western Writers of America. In 2024, his novel "Grizzly Moon" was also Spur Award finalist.
Dearen's 2022 novel was "The End of Nowhere," based on the events in Porvenir, Texas in 1918, when Texas Rangers and accomplices--without authorization--executed 15 men and boys of Mexican heritage in retaliation for the Brite Ranch Raid of Christmas Day in 1917. No solid evidence linked any of the executed individuals to the raid, and no one was ever indicted for participating in the executions.
Other recent novels are "Haunted Border" and "Apache Lament," both of which received awards. Other award-winning fiction titles include "Dead Man's Boot." and "The Big Drift," winner of the 2015 Spur Award for Western Traditional Novel. This work is set against the backdrop of the actual big drift of 1884, when a blizzard drove hundreds of thousands of free-ranging cattle down from the Great Plains into Texas. He has also authored the novels "To Hell or the Pecos" and "Perseverance," the latter work set along the rails in Depression-era Texas.
Dearen has received awards for his books from Western Writers of America, Western Fictioneers, Academy of Western Artists, Will Rogers Medallion, San Antonio Conservation Society, West Texas Historical Association, New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, and Permian Historical Society. A backpacking enthusiast and ragtime pianist, he makes his home in Midland, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 6, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. It takes place in the west of America in the late 1800s. The book deals with heroism, prejudism, friendship and honor in equal messure. It deals with some cattle hands and an X slave who saves them from certain death. I highly recommend this book.
April 2, 2024
This book was a gift and I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up on my own. Great read though - set during the great cattle drift in early America just after slaves were set free. About a black and white cattle hand working together to find forgiveness for what they have done in the past while moving cattle and trying to survive.
December 11, 2025
Patrick Dearen delivers an unforgettable story filled with atmosphere and authenticity. The harsh Texas winter, the desperate cattle roundup, and the unlikely bond between Will and Zeke make this a gripping and emotionally rich read. A stellar example of traditional Western storytelling done right.
July 12, 2018
One of the best Western novels you’ll ever read.
February 22, 2024
loved it
May 2, 2025
excellent book
Great historical fiction about an unbelievable phenomenon ( the big die up of 1886-87 ) that is amazingly unfamiliar to many ranchers today.
Great historical fiction about an unbelievable phenomenon ( the big die up of 1886-87 ) that is amazingly unfamiliar to many ranchers today.
March 8, 2015
PATRICK DEAREN
The Big Drift: A Novel
FICTION
TCU Press, trade paper, 978-0-87565-570-3
192 pp., $22.95
2014
reviewed 3.8.2015 by Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor
The Big Drift by Patrick Dearen begins in the Middle Concho of west Texas during a blizzard in December 1884. Zeke Boles, a black cowhand and former slave, is running from a hangman’s noose when he stumbles across Will Brite, a white cowhand pinned under his horse and caught up in the barbed wire of a drift line. This unlikely pair, brought together by chance, learns that they have more in common than that which separates them and they must depend upon each other for their very lives as each seeks redemption for his part in the memories they are each trying to outrun.
Dearen has a talent for describing this rugged country and the behavior of herd animals. The stampede caused by the blizzard is vividly evoked: “Thundering and bawling, a great shadow that seemed composed of many smaller shadows rushed pell-mell…” Later in the spring when the cowboys of several ranches converge in the upper Chihuahuan desert to round up thousands of longhorns that have burst through the drift line, they discover the cattle “had planted their forefeet, and every bovine in their wake had plowed into the animal in front of it. Successive waves of beeves were falling in a swelling heap, forming a stair-stepping course of hide, hair, and horns for the beeves that charged after them.” Dearen’s plot is smartly imagined and masterfully paced, and the action sequences are truly suspenseful.
The author notes, “In writing about racial aspects of the 1880s, I have tried to balance historical accuracy with modern sensitivities.” He has largely succeeded in this and in an empathetic treatment of the lone female character in The Big Drift, a rarity in the Western genre. Dearen has created an eclectic cast of characters and even the minor parts are fully realized: black and white, city and frontier, educated and illiterate, rich and poor. There is a sprinkling of humor, usually when Arch, a buffalo skinner who frequently sounds like a professor, makes a pronouncement, “When a man’s romances have all been on a commercial basis…finding the ‘sweet Mary’ of his dreams will reduce him to a trembling puppy.”
How much penance is enough? Are there some sins for which you can never make amends? How exactly does the balance sheet tally? “Will lay pondering Zeke’s words for troubling seconds. ‘So we just playin’ our hands, that what we’re doin’? ‘Cause we went this a-way instead of that, can’t do nothing’ except ride right straight on to hell?’” I finished this tale with tears in my eyes. The Big Drift is not just another typical tale of the blood-soaked West. This novel is a satisfying and surprisingly smooth blend of traditional Old West, insightful modern psychology, thrilling action, a tortuous search for redemption, and the power of confession, forgiveness and what you had thought was the impossibility of salvation. Patrick Dearen is the author of more than twenty books, twelve of them novels. He is at the top of his powers in The Big Drift.
Review originally published by Lone Star Literary Life.
The Big Drift: A Novel
FICTION
TCU Press, trade paper, 978-0-87565-570-3
192 pp., $22.95
2014
reviewed 3.8.2015 by Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor
The Big Drift by Patrick Dearen begins in the Middle Concho of west Texas during a blizzard in December 1884. Zeke Boles, a black cowhand and former slave, is running from a hangman’s noose when he stumbles across Will Brite, a white cowhand pinned under his horse and caught up in the barbed wire of a drift line. This unlikely pair, brought together by chance, learns that they have more in common than that which separates them and they must depend upon each other for their very lives as each seeks redemption for his part in the memories they are each trying to outrun.
Dearen has a talent for describing this rugged country and the behavior of herd animals. The stampede caused by the blizzard is vividly evoked: “Thundering and bawling, a great shadow that seemed composed of many smaller shadows rushed pell-mell…” Later in the spring when the cowboys of several ranches converge in the upper Chihuahuan desert to round up thousands of longhorns that have burst through the drift line, they discover the cattle “had planted their forefeet, and every bovine in their wake had plowed into the animal in front of it. Successive waves of beeves were falling in a swelling heap, forming a stair-stepping course of hide, hair, and horns for the beeves that charged after them.” Dearen’s plot is smartly imagined and masterfully paced, and the action sequences are truly suspenseful.
The author notes, “In writing about racial aspects of the 1880s, I have tried to balance historical accuracy with modern sensitivities.” He has largely succeeded in this and in an empathetic treatment of the lone female character in The Big Drift, a rarity in the Western genre. Dearen has created an eclectic cast of characters and even the minor parts are fully realized: black and white, city and frontier, educated and illiterate, rich and poor. There is a sprinkling of humor, usually when Arch, a buffalo skinner who frequently sounds like a professor, makes a pronouncement, “When a man’s romances have all been on a commercial basis…finding the ‘sweet Mary’ of his dreams will reduce him to a trembling puppy.”
How much penance is enough? Are there some sins for which you can never make amends? How exactly does the balance sheet tally? “Will lay pondering Zeke’s words for troubling seconds. ‘So we just playin’ our hands, that what we’re doin’? ‘Cause we went this a-way instead of that, can’t do nothing’ except ride right straight on to hell?’” I finished this tale with tears in my eyes. The Big Drift is not just another typical tale of the blood-soaked West. This novel is a satisfying and surprisingly smooth blend of traditional Old West, insightful modern psychology, thrilling action, a tortuous search for redemption, and the power of confession, forgiveness and what you had thought was the impossibility of salvation. Patrick Dearen is the author of more than twenty books, twelve of them novels. He is at the top of his powers in The Big Drift.
Review originally published by Lone Star Literary Life.
May 5, 2015
The Big Drift, by Patrick Dearen, is an old-fashioned novel about cowboys, something that I find to be refreshingly right. Except for the issue of race, which runs straight through the narrative, this book could have been written any time in the last 100 years.
The time is 1884, the setting is Texas, between the Pecos and Devils Rivers. A black cowhand named Zeke, who is on the run after accidentally killing his former master, finds a white cowboy, Will Brite, tangled with his horse in some barbed wire. Will is grateful for the rescue, but not eager to make friends with a black man, especially considering a secret that Will harbors.
But after meeting the fellow ranch hands, Zeke is given a job, and when a blizzard hits its hard going, as the cows scatter, giving us the title. The descriptions of cold and snowy conditions may make you pull your sweater or comforter further around you.
Zeke and Will will forge a bond, especially when Will falls for a young woman who has an abusive father (I wonder if Dearen knows that he is given a character a name--Jessie Alba--that is almost the same name as a semi-famous actress?). Zeke knows something about her that Will doesn't though--she's a mulatto. This section is a bit melodramatic and veers into romance novel territory, but it's all in keeping with the old-fashionedness.
This is book is ideal for young Western fans, should there be any, as it's completely clean (which, if you've seen Deadwood, is historically unlikely) and very spiritual. Zeke sometimes has aspects of "the magic negro," or the black man who seems to know everything about the human soul. But it's not overdone.
Meanwhile, we get lines like this, which we may have heard before but so what: "'This country's always hell on horses and women,' said Hyler, 'Especially women.'" Or how about this one: "He was a cowhand, and to a cowhand, a promise was a sacred pact not to be broken." Yippi-ki-yo-ti-yo!
September 29, 2015
I'm conflicted about this little book. I enjoyed parts of it - mostly the setting and atmosphere - but not others - the "after school special" way in which the morale dilemmas are handled. I also found the ending to be very unsatisfying.
May 21, 2015
Thoroughly enjoyable read. Really evokes the western cowboy tradition while sensitive to racial and sexual issues.
July 16, 2015
I enjoyed the story line, it caught my interest as it is set in the Midland Texas area.
May 5, 2016
Winner, 2015 Spur Award Best Western Traditional Novel
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews