Prologue PROVING GROUND The boy is emaciated. His mop of red hair hangs across his scarred face, obscuring a lost eye. He staggers and stumbles up...
The Trickster with the Sidewinder Gaze
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Features & Gunfights
Has the Apache Kid’s Daughter Been Found?
Caught between two worlds, Guadalupe Fimbres Muñoz had to make difficult choices for her future. She knew little of what was happening in the...
Tragic Fight on the Devil’s Backbone
January 11, 1886 Captain Emmet Crawford is on the brink of victory. Yesterday, his punitive raiding party of three officers, one medic, one...
Rail Barons, Train Palaces, and Great Locomotives
When Peter Cooper created America’s first steam engine, Tom Thumb, in 1830, he unknowingly built a machine that would become a symbol synonymous...
10 Myths on the Dakota Uprising
The Dakota Uprising that began in Minnesota on August 17, 1862, quickly grew into the largest “Indian War” in Trans-Mississippi American history....
The Sodbusters’ Historian
In 1886, Solomon Butcher had his eureka moment, the biggest idea of his life. He would compile a book, a photographic history of the pioneers of...
The Outrageous Climax Jim
Climax Jim was the darling of the Arizona press during the late 1890s. He rose to fame thanks to the fertile imaginations of the old-timers who knew...
Buffalo Bill Gets on Track
In the year 1869, dime novel king Ned Buntline aspired to write one of his corkers about Frank North, the famed scout and Indian fighter who was...
The People of the Horse
The Utes call themselves the people of the horse. As the first unconquered tribe to obtain horses and livestock, they became respected...
The Best Texas Rangers Photos, Ever
There are many, many iconic images of the Texas Rangers, but here are my 10 favorites and why. Click on the photograph to view the slide show. Bob...
Showdown at the V Cross T
ADOBE RANCH, N.M. Out here, where the tawny Plains of San Agustin spill over the Continental Divide and slap up against the mountains of the Black...
Five Myths About Ned Wynkoop
Ned Wynkoop risked his command to end an Indian war and exploded with rage when those same Indians were brutally hacked to pieces at Sand Creek....