“[Fisher] is a consummate storyteller, but his finely chiseled prose also sings with a lyricism that is as haunting as it is rare. His stories not only ring true, but also pull the reader feet-first into worlds that have vanished.” —Santa Fe Reporter, praise for the author
Runtime
8h 5m
Release
03-01-19
Abridgement
Unabridged
Genre
Fiction/Westerns
Overview
Kirby Randolph was a tough mountain man. He had promised himself that he would get the wagon train to Santa Fe because Aurélie St. Clair was in one of the wagons. She was half Indian, the most beautiful and the toughest girl he had ever seen.
This is the story of men and women who kept the Santa Fe Trail open in the 1880s, from Westport, Kansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Editorial Reviews
“While this does not have the practiced fluency of Haycox, there is a similar realism in the handling of a wagon train making its way down the Santa Fe trace. The hero is an unwashed mountain man, the heroine is a half breed, the mule skinners’ talk is unexpurgated and unasterisked, and the hardships of the trail are completely unvarnished. The whole dynamites itself out of the standardized field and formula.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Author Biography
Henry Wilson Allen (1912–1991), also known as Will Henry and Clay Fisher, was a prolific author of Western fiction. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he worked as a stable hand and gold miner before becoming a full-time writer. He wrote more than fifty novels, including eight that were made into feature films. He is a five-time recipient of the Golden Spur Award and a recipient of the Levi Strauss Award for lifetime achievement.
Narrator Biography
John Lescault, a native of Massachusetts, is a graduate of the Catholic University of America. He lives in Washington, DC, where he works in theater.
