It was a time on the frontier when the Wyoming earth was mined, drilled and cracked-open in a frenzy previously unknown to man. This "black gold rush" was called THE BOOM and it lasted from 1978-1984 and then it was "last man outta Wyoming turn off the lights!" when the good times abruptly ended. The path to Oil City – the epicenter of THE BOOM – was lit by natural gas plumes that illuminated the prairie like funeral pyres and high drilling rig lights casting eerie shadows on the central Wyoming town that took on the persona of a rich new planet. An odor of oily rotten-egg loam hung like a cloud over Wyoming – the smell of MONEY. Emerging during THE BOOM were a paratha of Western grotesque characters: A young scarred Silver-Star 'Nam vet in love with a Rodeo Queen/champion barrel racer – the toast of Wyoming, a boozy midget who antagonized them, a peyote-eating Arapaho brave who dances with rattlers, mountain men of the rendezvous, a taxidermist gone mad, rodeo stars and rich landmen of the oil field. All are characters who collide in the 15 stories of "Dust and Lust".
