Four epic western novels about wagon trains traveling across the country… and the desperate settlers who battle nature, disease, and violence in their quest for a fresh start.
THE WILD OHIO by Bart Spicer
It’s the summer of 1790… and Col. Duncan Crosbie, a veteran of the American revolution, leads 300 French emigres in a wagon train from Alexandria, Virginia to their new home in the wilds of Ohio…a quest for freedom that becomes a harrowing struggle for their lives.
“The historical background is woven into the story with care, lending realism to the action. Spicer stirs his mixture vigorously in his first attempt at historical fiction. Tension mounts and the suspense races to the denouement.” The New York Times
WESTERING by Irwin R. Blacker
An epic saga of a wagon train heading west from Missouri to Oregon in 1845, across two thousand miles of blistering prairies, raging rivers, and massive mountains, while ravaged by disease and misfortune. But the wagon train pushes relentlessly forward, driven by the migrants’ unwavering hope, desire and sheer desperation.
“A well-written look at the brutality and beauty, the love and anger, that rode the long trail with migrants,” Sacramento Union
ARROW IN THE DUST by L.L. Foreman
It’s 1869. A wagon train of restless, rootless men and women moves through a death-infested wasteland to a life in Oregon the settlers hope might be a little better than the one they’ve left behind. The nearest settlement is 300 miles to the east…and waiting for them to the west are a thousand Apaches and Pawness who’ve bled for their land…and will again. The wagon train’s only escort are seventy raw recruits, led by a deserter with a price on his head who is masquerading as a general. They may be doomed… but hope, fortitude, and pure grit might just get them to the promised land.
“For those who enjoy a blood and thunder novel, Arrow in the Dust will provide thrills and chills.” Lexington Herald
REAR GUARD by James Warner Bellah
“He writes about the west like he won it in a poker game,” Time Magazine
In the horrific quiet before the battle, Captain MacLaw handed his pistol to the woman he loved and said: “There are six cartridges. Save one for yourself.” If it came to that, she would… and take six savages with her.
Over a thousand Indians are coming to attack the wagon train, kill the men, and ravish the women. The Captain’s troop of forty battle-weary men, willing to fight to the death, is all that stands between the Indians rampage and a massacre.
Bart Spicer, Irwin Blacker, James Warner Bellah, L.L. Foreman /
Anthologies, Western
