By the time he was 18, Kyle Elliot was fighting Plains Indians, especially the most fierce warriors who'd ever ridden across the broad plains of Texas, the legendary Comanche. He'd ridden with Captain John Coffee Hays, in the Texas Rangers, and learned to fight in ways most men never understood. "Captain Jack" had taught him and the men he'd ridden with, skills with weapons, tactics, fighting from a horse, tracking, and surviving in the deserts and mountains. Hays and his Rangers were the only fighting unit the Comanche feared. His band of Rangers tracked the Comanche to their home, raided them, fought them on their own terms and on their own terrain, and won. They'd done the same against the Lipon Apache. These men did what the army couldn't do. They did what no fighting force would manage to do until decades later. They beat the Indians at their own game. Elliot tells of his education with Captain Jack: I once saw a Comanche buck race his horse towards us as we were approaching a ravine. He came out of some brush on a dead run, and before any of us could move, came to a sliding halt about fifty yards away. He just sat there staring at us, daring us. I kicked my horse in the ribs and gave a yell, but I hadn't gotten twenty yards before Captain Jack brought me up short. I trotted back, angered that he'd stopped me. I wasn't afraid of that Comanche, and I knew I could have run him down. I'd have shot him on the run. I was that good, and he knew it. I showed my irritation when I rode up to him and said, "You figure I ain't up to that buck, Capt'n?" He shook his head at me, gave me a half of a smile and said, "Just wanted to keep you and your hair around awhile longer, Elliot. That Comanche wanted all of us to chase him. Apparently, you haven't learned a thing, yet." Well, I got a dressing down in front of all of them. I was just a kid, and it had been my first real foray, so they all had a good laugh at me. We never followed that Comanche. Now, Elliot is headed to a small, sleepy little town, hoping to serve as marshal, hoping he can avoid the problems he had in his last job, which involved having to kill several men, and getting in the middle of a range war. He accepted a lawman's job in a peaceful town. It seemed to be perfect. But, Kyle Elliot would quickly learn that he'd need all the skills he'd learned as a Texas Ranger with Captain Jack to survive. The only thing that kept him from leaving was a woman. Kyle Elliot had fallen in love for the first time in his life. ============== A gunslinger in the Wild West was fairly uncommon. A cowboy chasing "cow critters" could be found throughout the Old West. In western books, historical fiction novels, or western novels, the western cowboys are a dime a dozen . (Maybe that's where the phrase "dime novel" arose.) Cowboy stories were common on the western open range, and those cowboys told a lot of those stories, but cowboy novels were not. A "cowboy western," was pretty uncommon during the early days of western novels. Usually, the greatest westerns were about some gunslinger in the Old West, or a marshal or sheriff made larger than life, or a mountain man or Indian fighter (such as Buffalo Bill). This is another western fiction novel of the highest caliber, an action packed adventure from Brevia Westerns by Voyle Glover, an author one reader said "reminds me of Louis L'Amour's books. He was my favorite when it came to westerns."
About the Author: Voyle Glover is an attorney living in the state of Indiana, and is the author of several books, fiction and non-fiction, including several westerns westernfiction.com. Glover grew up in Arizona and says, "I love all things western." He began writing westerns in the late 70's and often tells of his first story appearing in the premier issue of Far West, a California publication, directly below his favorite author, Louis L'Amour, whom Glover calls "The Dean of Western Fiction." Glover has written non-fiction and fiction novels. His last non-fiction was "Protecting Your Church Against Sexual Predators: A Legal FAQ for Leaders," (Kregel 2006). Glover works as a private attorney in Merrillville, Indiana. He also works as a contract attorney for the Prosecutor's Office in his state, doing civil forfeitures for the various police departments in the county, from the drug arrests they make where cash and other property is seized which was obtained by the drug dealers by sales of drugs. Of this work, he says: "It is a great shot in the budget arm for law enforcement, so in a sense, crime does pay. At least, in this case, the criminals help pay for the harm they bring to the community, so I feel like I'm doing a service to my community by making these criminal pay, literally, for their crimes." It is this part of him that he brings out most in his westerns, namely, his strong sense of justice. He says, of his books, "I like the good guys to win." Glover's real love is writing, especially westerns, and now and then, science fiction.