Showdown at Chalk Creek

About the Book

A part-Cherokee Civil War veteran who served with General Stand Watie’s Mounted Cherokee Rifles, Jacob Welles has since become a trail hardened cowboy working for nearly a decade for the legendary cattle king Charles Goodnight. Upon receiving an unexpected inheritance from his late Uncle Henry, he heads west to establish the Running W Ranch along Chalk Creek in the upper Arkansas River Valley of central Colorado. Along the way he si engaged in gunfights with murderous bandits. However, they are but a prelude to the conflicts and adventures he will face in Colorado. Gathering about him a loyal crew of tough cowboys and vaqueros, he moves his herd from Trinidad in southern Colorado to his destination at the base of the mythological Chalk Cliffs in a canyon at the foot of Mt. Princeton. There begins the struggle to establish a ranch with cattle purchased from his old boss.

Faced with rustlers, nightriders and hired gunmen, he and his men defend themselves and Jacob’s dream and develop an unexpected alliance with the Ute Indians in the region. Danger and death become regular events in the life of the Running W as Jacob witnesses the killing of some of his men and the constant raids against his property. He also confronts a growing mystery as to the cause of the conflict that threaten to destroy his dream. Added to this is a decision that he must choose between two women who love him, Alexis Forsythe, a sophisticated business woman from Baltimore who has established herself in New London and promises him passion and riches, and a sister to his vaqueros, Ana Garcia, who has been hired to keep house and cook for him and becomes a trusted friend.

The author’s great-grandparents were Kansas and Colorado pioneers and he himself has lived in the places described in this, his first novel of the old west. A lifelong horseman, he knows the feel of the saddle after a long day, the smell of the dust of the trail, the feel of a Rocky Mountain winter and his taste for the realism of the time and place enables him to bring alive the struggle, adventure and conflict within this unique, fast paced, rollicking western adventure.

About the Author

Vernon Schmid is a native of the west. He has been a ranch hand, horse trainer, trail guide, wrangler, rough stock rodeo rider, disc jockey, radio and newspaper journalist. A prize winning poet and syndicated columnist, he is a retired pastor whose published work includes the novels Showdown at Chalk Creek and Seven Days of the Dog and a dozen poetry collections including Kissing Moctezuma’s Serpent. His work has appeared in nearly a hundred periodicals. He and his wife, Susan, live in rural northeast Maryland where they spend time with their horses and he teaches at Cecil Community College.