​RAWHIDE ROBINSON

Was Rawhide Robinson really there when the Grand Canyon came to be? Is he responsible for Pikes Peak? Was he present at the creation of the Teton Range? Did he actually invent that mainstay of cowboy regalia, chaps? And how about riding horseback to Hawaii? Although an ordinary cowboy in every respect, Rawhide Robinson lays claim to these extraordinary accomplishments, and more.

While on a trail drive from Texas to Dodge City, Rawhide Robinson regales his cowboy companions with campfire tales that entertain and amuse, inspire awe and invite skepticism. Trail boss Enos Atkins, drovers Doak and Arizona, and the rest of his saddle pals enjoy Rawhide Robinson’s stories—all except a young cowboy called McCarty. On his first trail drive, McCarty’s halting attempts at manhood render him bullheaded, argumentative, and combative. He doubts Rawhide Robinson’s every word and challenges every claim with irreverent retorts from #@&*/ to +$%?>!

Saddle up and ride along with Rawhide Robinson and the cowboy crew. Brave storms and stampedes, rustlers and river crossings, as the herd makes its way slowly toward the North Star. You’ll soon be looking forward to the end of the day, when, after a cowboy supper of beans, bacon, biscuits, and scalding coffee you can sit back and relax around the campfire while Rawhide Robinson launches into another extraordinary—and true—adventure of bravery and daring in the Wild West.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range, as our cowboy hero tells of a mining adventure in the Arizona desert.  

Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range:
True Adventures of Bravery and Daring in the Wild West

Now available in paperback, eBook, 

and the original hardcover edition. 

And Rawhide talked on.

“I’ll tell you, boys, I never worked so hard in all my born days. I’d dig and dig and dig on the banks of that [Colorado] River and that old man Sourdough Saleratus would wash and wash and wash that dirt with his gold pan, expectin’ every shovelful to show color. But it didn’t, and so we’d start over again. I’d pick and I’d shovel and ol’ Sourdough’d swish and he’d swish that pan and eyeball every speck of every shovelful I dug up.

“Thing was, though, he never did see what he was looking for. We never found a trace of any minerals whatsoever. No gold. No silver. No copper. No nothing. All me and Sourdough Saleratus got for all our work was a big ol’ hole in the ground. You can still see it, if you care to, and that ain’t no lie. Any of you boys ever hear of the Grand Canyon?”

“That’s plumb crazy, Rawhide! It just can’t be so.”

“Ain’t you seen it, Doak?” Rawhide asked.

“No, I ain’t seen it. And you ain’t neither, if you ask me. Why, I’ll bet a dollar and a drink at the end of the trail that there ain’t none of us has seen the Grand Canyon—including you, Rawhide Robinson.”

“You lose, Doak—I done been to the Grand Canyon myself,” the quiet cowboy called Arizona said. “I come from that country, you know.”

“Well, tell them what it looks like, then!” Rawhide said.

“Oh, it’s big. That sucker stretches for miles. And not only is it long, it’s wide. And deep. And it’s got all these other canyons hooked into it, ever’ one of ’em deeper than anything you ever saw.

“And if you look way, way down in the bottom from some places up there on the edge, you can see that there’s a stream down there. Looks like a little bitty old creek, but they tell me it’s a great big old river. Biggest hole in the ground I ever saw, that Grand Canyon.”

Said Doak, “Well I’ll be darned!”

“See fellers,” Rawhide Robinson said as he stretched out full length on his bedroll and plopped his hat over his smile. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“{&@=#<*!” McCarty mumbled as he trudged back to the fire and sagged onto his sougans.

“#%)–%+ . . .”

You’ll enjoy page after page of Wild West adventures and rollicking humor in Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range: True Adventures of Bravery and Daring in the Wild West, winner of a 2015 Spur® Award from Western Writers of America and Finalist for the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award. Order a copy from your local bookstore or find it online in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.

Hardcover edition, ISBN 978-1-4328-2802-8, published by Five Star, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. Paperback edition, 978-1645403852, available here and here; ebook edition, B08S7VTZFR, available here, here, here, here, and here, published by Speaking Volumes.