Colonel Goodnight's cattle drive to Kansas could save war-torn Texas, but it would ruin the slaughter-house owners who stayed rich but keeping the ranchers poor. The 'hide and tallow men' hired an army of gun-hung toughs. Goodnight had the help of the Floating Outfit. And Fort Worth had itself a war!
John Thomas Edson is an English writer of Westerns.
He was born in 1928.He was obsessed with Westerns from an early age and often "rewrote" cowboy movies that he had seen at the cinema. One thing that always intrigued him was the minutiae—how did the baddie's gun jam? What were the mechanics of cheating at cards? How did Westerners really dress and speak?
His writing was helped to develop by a schoolteacher who encouraged him. Now lives in Leicester, Leicestershire.[citation needed]
During his 20s and 30s, Edson served in His Majesty's Armed Forces for 12 years as a Dog Trainer. Cooped up in barracks for long periods, he devoured books by the great escapist writers (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert McCraig, Nelson C. Nye and Edgar Wallace). He also sat through hours of movies starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn and his all-time favourite, Audie Murphy.
His first appearance in print was "Hints On Self-Preservation when attacked by a War Dog" in the Osnabrück camp magazine Shufti in 1947. Acquiring a typewriter in the early 1950s and putting it to good use while posted to Hong Kong, by the time of his discharge he had written 10 Westerns, an early version of Bunduki and the first of the short detective-type stories starring Waco.
Upon leaving HM forces, JT won second prize (with Trail Boss) in the Western division of a Literary Competition run by Brown & Watson Ltd, which led to the publication of 46 novels with them, becoming a major earner for the company.
He had the need for supplementary income from time-to-time and also served as a postman, and the proprietor of a fish 'n' chip shop. Furthermore, he branched out as a writer and wrote five series of short stories (Dan Hollick, Dog Handler) for the Victor boys papers, and wrote the "box captions" for comic strips, which instilled discipline and the ability to convey maximum information with minimum words.
His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late '60s, which gave JT exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from the core Westerns into the Rockabye County, the science-fiction hero Bunduki and other series.
While this isn't one of my favorite floating outfit books, I enjoyed reading it again. It follows the events of Goodnight's Dream and From Hide and Horn in which Dusty and company successfully make the first major cattle drive. As the book opens Dusty is charged with helping to convince other ranchers that it is not only possible, but profitable to drive their cattle to new markets in Kansas. The owners of several hide and tallow companies do everything in their power to prevent this idea from taking hold. Because this book is set early in the series, Mark Counter's association with Dusty is not well known and he is able to ingratiate himself with the hide and tallow company to learn their plans. Part two of this story is told in The Hide and Tallow Men.
Another enjoyable fast moving fast drawing western by J.T.Edson concerning Dusty Fogg and the Floating Outfit. This time they continue to help Charles Goodnight get Texas back on it feet.