Publisher, Macmillan Audio (October 2011)

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“Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted.” —Tombstone Epitaph

“Lovers of Louis L’Amour–type Westerns will welcome [this] series.” —Nashville Banner

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, brawn 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.

About the Author: Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. His first novel in the Trail Drive series, The Goodnight Trail, 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.