Last Real Cowboy
An Epic Tale of Grit, Heart, and the End of an Era.
About the Book
Spring of 1871. Twenty-two year old Jonathan Calhoun sets out on a train from New York City to St. Louis, Missouri, then changes to a stagecoach to ride to the Cripple Creek Cattle Ranch in Armadillo Flats, Texas—for an adventure of a life time. He has taken a summer job herding 2,500 long horn cattle on the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas.
Jonathan leaves behind his socialite fiancée and his job at his father’s magazine to draw sketches of the trail ride and the cowboys. He has no idea how his life will change from this one summer. He expects the cowboys will be seasoned older, unfriendly, grisly men, but finds them surprisingly smart, fun, hardworking young fellows around his age. These men will become the best friends he will ever have and will teach him how to be a cowboy and also about real life.
At the end of the summer, Jonathan must return to New York City and his old meaningless, unfulfilling life—and marriage to Rebecca Ann. He finds, after a time, he no longer belongs in the city. He belongs in Texas with the cowboys.
He makes his way back, finding the cowboys in a Kansas cow town, and never looks back. His life becomes alive with a new journey, challenges, exciting people. After several years of herding, Jonathan, his best friends, Whiskey Bill and Rattlesnake, and a couple others ride to Wyoming to start their own small ranch. In 1886, the Winter of Death blows unbelievable cold and snow across the Plains, wiping out all the cattle.
Through the next years, Jonathan learns the worth of a day of hard work, true friends, the real value of life. But life is difficult, unknowing. In 1891, he reads an article in the newspaper. “You say they’re just giving away land down there in Oklahoma Territory?” The partners long to go back south and start over, find new land, find a different life.
Opening of the Cherokee Outlet Land Run, Saturday, September 16. Bang! Jonathan’s horse suddenly races forward as the Run begins.
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