Yellowstone Kelly

The beginning of the legend of Yellowstone Kelly, one of the Old West's most outsized personalities. Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly had one of the longest, strangest, and most breathtaking careers in the Old West. The intrepid scout's talent for being in the right place at an exciting time would take him all over the world, from the Great Plains to Africa to the Philippines. Throughout his adventures, Kelly maintained a stoic outlook, a fierce wit, and a talent for survival that got him out of more than a few dangerous scrapes. Yellowstone Kelly: Gentleman and Scout, the first novel in Peter Bowen's fast-paced series, finds Kelly hunting wolves with the Nez Percé while trying actively to avoid contact with just about everyone else. This plan quickly falls apart, and Kelly is hired by a group of Englishmen who need a guide for a buffalo hunt. Kelly soon finds himself swept further from home than he ever has been before, going from the Indian Wars to the Zulu Wars.

Yellowstone Kelly wasn't always a legend, but cast into the wilderness of the uncharted West, he finds he's a man with a talent for survival. Before Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly was an unexpected hero of the Old West, he was a young greenhorn, cast out of the big city and onto the frontier. This sequel to Yellowstone Kelly: Gentleman and Scout begins at the deathbed of Buffalo Bill Cody, where Yellowstone plays cards and reminisces with the legendary frontiersman in his last hours. Looking back on his own life, he recalls the sidesplitting tale of his dalliance with an Episcopal bishop's daughter. This was the seed from which the legend of Yellowstone Kelly grew. Yellowstone carves an exciting, hilarious, and unforgettable path through the Old West, meeting historical figures and legends along the way. In Minnesota, he becomes the apprentice to noted mountain man Jim Bridger. In Utah, he runs afoul of Brigham Young and the Mormons. Through each adventure and misadventure, Kelly maintains his trademark wit and fortitude, always finding his way through even the stickiest mess.

Yellowstone Kelly has dealt with Indians, Zulus, hapless Brits, and Mormons. Now the intrepid scout meets his greatest challenge: Theodore Roosevelt. Nowadays US Army Major Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly isn't the young lively man he once was. He's cantankerous, stubborn, and his nagging illnesses are exacerbated by the slightest provocation. Still, Kelly is called back into action by his most irritating boss yet: a young assistant secretary of the navy by the name of Theodore "Teethadore" Roosevelt. The future president needs a crew of toughs to join his Rough Riders outfit, and he correctly reckons that Kelly has an inside track on some of the nastiest ones. Kelly enlists a rascally crew, including his friends Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and helps Roosevelt win the Spanish-American War. Next an impressive piece of jade leads him over the Pacific, before he's summoned to observe the outbreak of the Boer War. While sailing to southern Africa, he runs into Winston Churchill in Mozambique... and on Kelly stumbles into other areas of the history books. Whether he's being chased by Boers or Igorote tribesmen, Kelly always maintains his trademark cynicism and resourcefulness, somehow finding a way to always land on his feet - even if Teethadore is determined to take credit for it.

Only for Yellowstone Kelly can a lazy day at the bar turn into a race against time to recover a priceless skeleton. Charles Darwin's survey aboard the HMS Beagle forever changed natural history, causing a flurry of wild speculation and exploration in the wake of every major find. Yellowstone Kelly, fresh off his misadventures in Kelly Blue, is cooling his heels in a Wyoming saloon when he encounters a specimen hunter. Pignuts, the saloon owner, had bartered whiskey for a strange, three-toed horse skeleton and now displays the fossil proudly in his bar. A cold-eyed stranger comes in, buys the bones for a handful of gold, and introduces himself as paleontologist Jonathan Cope. Cope recruits Kelly to be his guide through the Wyoming wilds. The professor and his beautiful assistant, Alys, hope to find what the Sioux call Thunder Horses - enormous fossilized bones weathered out of the hills. This trip, like many other Kelly expeditions, won't be an easy one. Trailing the trio on their journey is Blue Fox, a Dartmouth-educated Cheyenne madman who notoriously loathes professors of all stripes. Along the way, Kelly crosses paths with some of the most illustrious figures of the era as he helps his group navigate the many predicaments of the Old West.

Four fast-paced books tracing the exciting and humorous exploits of Yellowstone Kelly, one of the Old West's most outsized personalities Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly had one of the longest, strangest, and most breathtaking careers in the Old West. The intrepid scout's talent for being in the right place at an exciting time would take him all over the world, from the Great Plains to Africa to the Philippines. Throughout his adventures, Kelly maintained a stoic outlook, a fierce wit, and a talent for survival that got him out of more than a few dangerous scrapes.   From hunting wolves with the Nez Percé to encounters with Jim Bridger and Brigham Young to a stint with the Rough Riders, in these four novels Yellowstone carves an exciting, hilarious, and unforgettable path through the Old West-maintaining his trademark wit and fortitude, always finding his way through even the stickiest mess.