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Overview
In the cattle drives of the Old West, pumpkin rollers were green farmboys, almost more trouble than they were worth.
When Trey McLean leaves his family's East Texas cotton farm and sets off on his own to learn the cattleman's trade, he's about as green as they come. But Trey learns fast. He learns about deceit when a con man cheats him out of his grubstake and about love when he meets the woman he's destined to marry.
And when luck finally sets him on a cattle drive to Kansas, Trey learns the trade from veteran drover Ivan Kerbow, but he also learns the code of violence and death from outlaw Jarrett Longacre, a man who will plague his life at every turn.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
When Trey McLean leaves his family's East Texas cotton farm and sets off on his own to learn the cattleman's trade, he's about as green as they come. But he learns fast--about deceit, love, good and evil--all at the side of veterans. Targeted ads. HC: Forge.
Editorials
Wes Lukowsky
Trey McLean is a little young to leave his parents' east Texas farm--he's 18--but he's ready to live his dream of becoming a cattleman. On his way west, however, his little four-cow herd is stolen by a crooked sheriff. More troubles follow, as Trey runs afoul and also meets young Sarah Stark, a comely rancher's daughter with whom he will eventually fall in love. This is a coming-of-age tale, western style, and veteran genre-master Kelton handles the theme well. The key characters are all carefully and believably rendered; no one steps out of character yet none responds with a cliche. Trey McLean will stay with readers awhile. It's a pleasure to share the heady sense of freedom he feels as he leaves home and to empathize as the numerous setbacks slow his progress but never destroy his resolve. And when he makes his ultimate decision regarding his life and Sarah, it's born out of a newfound maturity coupled with his dreams. Fine reading.Kirkus Reviews
One still experiences a sense of déjà vu reading a historical by Kelton (The Far Canyon, 1994, etc.). We have met these characters and they are us: sometimes weak and foolish, sometimes heroic, always complex and, for the most part, fundamentally decent.Young Trey McLean is a pumpkin roller (farmer) with ambitions of being a cattleman. Leaving his father's East Texas farm with a dun horse and four old cows he rides toward the unclaimed lands "out west." When his cows are stolen by a greedy farmer with the connivance of a dishonest sheriff, it is not his anger at this injustice but his helplessness to alter the situation that wins us over. He is not an archetypal macho hero with blazing six-guns but an ordinary man who confronts unfairness with gritted teeth. We share Trey's confused response to Jarrett Longacre, a top hand and a fugitive from the law, whose thoughtless outlaw ways embroil Trey with Marshal Gault, a lawman with an obsessive, unforgiving nature. Jarrett is a likable, troublesome presence in each stage of Trey's life and labors: the wagon yard in Fort Worth; on Ivan Kerbow's cattle drive, the event signalling Trey's rite of passage from farmer to cowboy; on Kerbow's ranch in far West Texas. When Trey marries Sarah Stark and agrees to manage Kerbow's ranch, Kelton adds a feminine dimension to the narrative. Just as Jarrett stands in contrast to Trey, Katy Rice, a former prostitute who becomes involved with Jarrett, is Sarah's opposite. Sarah's fear of loneliness has her hearing voices in the wind, while Katy relishes solitude. The final confrontation between Jarrett and Gault forces each of these four characters to resolve their inner conflicts and accept the consequences.
A superb coming-of-age novel by a master western storyteller whose deft touch with characterization is underappreciated.
From the Publisher
"One of the best of a new breed of Western writers who have driven the genre into new territory." --The New York Times
"Elmer Kelton is an authentic American voice." --John Jakes
"This is a hallmark of any Kelton novel: His research is thorough and his feel for the time and place is remarkable." --Fort Worth Star-Telegram