The Purgatory River

Rivers West #16

by Frank Roderus

Caught in a flagrant indiscretion with his employer's daughter and pursued by some rather angry family members, likable and vibrant Aaron Bent flees to St. Louis and the frontier beyond. Forced, as a bond servant, to join a wagon convoy traveling what would become the Santa Fe Trail, Aaron encounters Talks-to-Ghosts. At a place once known to Talks-to-Ghosts' people as Horse Camp, Aaron escapes the convoy and falls in with Herman and Elena Montoya, a brother and sister fleeing their own past. As part of a small settlement party sent to expand the territorial claims of Mexico they hoped to shape a new life in the basin of the Purgatory River. But, like so much of our frontier history, emotions and misunderstandings will rule the day. And a climactic conflagration will threaten to destroy all who live in this place once known as Horse Camp.

Genres: Westerns

265 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Frank Roderus wrote his first story—it was a western—when he was five. It was really awful, as might be expected, but his mother kept that typed and spell-checked short story tucked away until the day she died.
Later, Frank became a newspaper reporter, thinking that books are written by authors which he most assuredly was not. He kept trying to write though, and eventually did it wrong enough to learn how to get it right. That first sale, a young adult novel published by Independence Press, was more than thirty years and a good many books ago.
As a journalist, the Colorado Press Association awarded Frank Roderus their highest award, the Sweepstakes Award, for the best news story of 1980, and the Western Writers of America has twice named Frank recipient of their prestigious Spur Award. Frank passed away at age 73 in December 2015.

Reviews

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A FR Western of Early America/Spain/France/England/A Future United States

FR had penned a western that begins with Americans traveling southwest to trap for beaver. The men were intercepted by French soldiers and had to pay a fine of go to jail. After the situation was settled they proceeded to Sante Fe , Mexico, where they began to learn about the mountains of the southwestern states. This is an excellent read for the genre......DEHS

[BARBIE KINDIG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a good book

I found this book to be very boring. I don't even know why I even finished it. I almost didn't