Home on the Range

"I've known Paul my whole life," he answered with a wry grin. The Civil War ended in 1865. Five years later, people in both the North and the South are still dealing with the loss of family, friends, and livelihood. The cost was high, and the scars the survivors carry are not always easy to see. Reuben Williams and his sister, Beth, live in Columbus, Georgia. Beth loves to visit the small cemetery there. Reuben thinks she spends too much time with the dead, but those visits give Beth a sense of peace. She does not know why she is drawn to the grave of Sergeant Paul Rankin. An unexplained feeling of sadness came over her the first time she read his marker. Now she visits his grave every week. She talks to him and to all the young men buried there as she searches the new stones for the name of her younger brother who never came home. Join the Williams as they try to move past the war and ride the rails west.

"Lance, Rowdy-this here feller is one of the toughest lawyers out there, but he'd rather skin mules than talk law!" Levi Parker tracked the three mules stolen from his little spread near Laramie in the Wyoming Territory until he lost their trail under cattle tracks southwest of Cheyenne. He decided to ride into town to do a little listening. Talk was loud and men were angry. Cattle had been stolen, and some local men were dead. A trial would take place soon, and it was going to be a bitter one. The trial that follows will change lives throughout the Rankins' little community when Lance Rankin and his Rocking R riders find they have more in common with this newcomer than just stolen livestock. Levi Parker's life will never be the same either-and Badger McCune is in the middle of everything. Rejoin your friends and meet a few new ones as the Rocking R riders experience court for the first time. They all struggle to let the law take its course in this third novel in my Home on the Range series.

"If those cattle behind us are stampeded tonight, they will run right over our herd." Outlaws, rivers, and stampedes made cattle drives a dangerous business in 1879. Still, money was to be made, and the large herds continued to move north. As trail boss, Gabe Hawkins wanted his herd to be one of the first on the Western Trail. The young cowboy bossed his first trail drive at age nineteen. This would be the seventh herd he led north from Texas to Kansas and would likely be his last. Times were changing. Barb wire and tick fever kept pushing the large herds farther west. Railroads were expanding as well and would soon connect the Southern cattle to their Northern markets. Joseph Gallagher owned most of the cattle on this drive. The man was most certainly a greenhorn when it came to livestock, and Gabe told him so. Still, Gabe liked him. Gallagher was a savvy businessman, and if he wanted to hire Gabe and his riders to trail the cattle north, they would take the herd through. Of course, it didn't hurt that Gallagher's daughter was easy to look at either. Join Gabe and his cowboys as they trail over three thousand head of longhorn cattle hundreds of miles to buyers in Dodge City, Kansas. While the long cattle drives only lasted twenty years, those herds and the cowboys who trailed them left an indelible mark in our American history.

Gabe Hawkins and his crew of cowboys are preparing to cross the South Platte River in Nebraska. Ogallala, the town that claims to be too tough for Texas, is in front of them. As trail boss, no women on drives were always Gabe's most important rule. However, he broke that rule twice this trip. The first was when Laurel Evans married one of Gabe's best hands and signed on as cook's helper. The second took place when Merina Montero and her four-year-old sister joined their brothers in Dodge City. Merina had no intention of riding in a wagon on the drive north, and even Gabe had to admit that she did a fine job as a horse wrangler. Now the drive was coming to an end. While heartbreak had followed Gabe north, his dream of buying his own ranch was finally coming true. Join Gabe and his riders as they complete their drive and build Gabe's ranch beneath the western sky.

May, 1879 “Flory, tell me you did not answer that post in the newspaper!” Anna Whitman is a twenty-four-year-old teacher in Altoona, Pennsylvania. She has raised and supported her younger sister, Flory, since the death of their parents ten years ago. While the sisters' lives have never been easy, things are better now with Anna's teaching job and Flory's contribution of a few dollars more. Both of their lives are affected though when Anna is accused of breaking the morality clause in her teacher contract. While she struggles with life-changing decisions, Flory continues to flit through each day with little concern for anyone but herself. She is an incorrigible flirt and has many suiters. Now one of her impetuous decisions will affect the sister' lives far beyond anything either of them considered. With her job and her reputation in jeopardy, Anna is forced to make terrifying decisions. Will staying be an option? And if they leave, where will they go? Their only relative lives on a ranch over a thousand miles away. Not only have the sisters never been out of the state of Pennsylvania, but they barely know their aunt. Will she even want them to live with her? Follow this young teacher's crooked trail as she tries to do what is right and restore honor to the family name.

Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory April 1,1880 "I guess these last six months of trying to reform went out the window. I'll just go back to my old ways. It's easier on my heart even if it's harder on my body." Miguel Montero, the "bad boy" of the Montero family, had lived fast and loose for many years. He was comfortable with his life-no strings, no woman waiting for him or telling him to behave, and riding jobs he could leave when he pleased. A talented horseman and a top hand, Miguel was an unencumbered man, and he was happy with his life. Then a woman from his past jolted him, and Miguel decided to reform to win her love. However, things did not go exactly as they should have-or did they? Join Miguel in this story as he travels east with his horse, Demonio, in search of fun and a woman he met only one time. His life, as well as the lives of the friends he encounters, will be changed in ways none of them could have imagined.

February 6, 1884 Nebraska Sandhills "Sam is the dynamite and Nate is the fuse. Those two cowboys work together like a couple of old spinster sisters." When Sam Rankin and Nate Hawkins left their homes in the Wyoming Territory in 1880, they had no idea that short trail drive would result in them being gone four long years with no return date. The two young men had met in 1879, and their friendship grew out of like interests-cowboying and fishing. Four years later, they were saddle partners and still best friends. They had ridden for outfits all over the West and had even trailed cattle north from Texas several times. Nate was the voice of reason. He managed the money and Sam's blond curls attracted the girls. Both loved to dance, and they crashed many wedding dances for the free food that was readily available. By the spring of 1884, they were riding for an outfit in the Sandhills of Nebraska. They never dreamed that a girl, a meeting with the boss, and the bandana Nate had left behind four years earlier would lead them to a crossroad in their lives. Will the decisions they face change the course of their lives and their friendship in the process? Join Sam and Nate as they grow from young men to seasoned cowhands in a land where loyalty, integrity, and a man's word determine the direction of his life.