This western story is written by Johnny D. Boggs a spur award – winning author. The story is set in the New Mexico Territory beginning in the fourteenth year of young Caleb Hart. He would be sent by his parents over twelve hundred miles to work for his uncle, Captain Frank Hart, on his ranch. The ranch was just about the biggest one in the Territory at the time.
Caleb Hart tells the story after thirty plus years had passed. He describes himself in the present and compares himself to how he was then. Looking at himself he is ashamed that he knew so little and called himself a green pea. His father and uncle were cowboys who rode and worked together. Caleb’s father got physically broken up and he had to leave the cowboy life because of broken bones and arthritis that completely took over his body. He assaulted Caleb with the stories of his past but Caleb took them as just yarns of a broken man with little or no truth in them.
The story is compelling and has many points of suspense which draws the reader into the intricacies of the situations created by the writer. If the reader is imbedded in western history the names and places ring the bells of famous people and places. The complexities of the simple western life give a reader the feeling that as time passes and we think we are so sophisticated yet we see and observe that the complexities of life really do not change very much as we push on into modern times.
This is an interesting western story with the constant Theme’s of western life. I would recommend the book as a western with strong values and the growth of a boy into a man. I enjoyed the book and it was a quick read.
