The Shawnee Trail by Ralph Compton

The Shawnee Trail by Ralph Compton

Stampedes, rustlers, and hostile Indians wouldn't slow them down. They were bound for Kansas, and a Texas-sized fight

The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maerick longhorns and the brains, brown and boldness to drive them north where the money was. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary epic series based on the history-blazing trail drives.

The Shawnee Trail

Long John Coons, the Cajun son of a conjuring woman, was driving 2,000 head of cattle north from Texas to the railroad in Kansas--through Indian Territory and outlaw strongholds. At his side was a beautiful woman with a sordid past, three ex-cattle rustlers, some renegate Indians, Mexican vanqueros and a straight-laced young trail boss. And while Long John tried to keep his hot headed crew from killing each other before they reached the end of the line, the biggest dangers was waiting up ahead--where an all-out war in Kansas make the Texas fight together, or die at the same time.

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. The Goodnight Trail was his first novel in the Trail Drive series and was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist before turning to writing westerns. He died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1998.

Scott Sowers is an accomplished actor of both stage and screen. His theater credits include roles in Inherit the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire, Bus Stop, and A Few Good Men. His many television credits include guest roles on Law & Order, The Black Donnellys, Six Degrees, All My Children, and the Hallmark Channel's Season for Miracles and The Yearling. Scott has also appeared in the films Trust the Man, The Village and The Ten. He has narrated numerous audiobooks by such authors as Douglas Preston, Robert Ludlum, John Hart, and Nicholas Sparks. In reviewing the AudioFile Earphones Award Winning book Down River, written by John Hart and published by Macmillan Audio, AudioFile magazine described Scott as [providing] a bewitching rhythm and pace, expertly capturing and elevating this story of redemption. The combination of Hart and Sowers provides the perfect marriage of prose and voice. Together they enable the book to transcend genre fiction and become something exceptional.