J. W. Williams's classic survey of the big ranches of the Southwest
reaches deep into the stories of key players in American ranching
history. Colorful tales of the finest cutting horse, the meanest cow
thief, the most princely cowman of them all--even the hair-raising
details of gunplay with a badman whose name cannot be revealed--are told
in bare-knuckle fashion that leaves no cushion to soften the truth. This
is an account of many journeys by car down roads that led to roundup
grounds and to chuck with the cowboys; to the ranch homes of those who
built the great cattle empires; to the Burnetts, the Spurs, the
Pitchforks, and the Matadors; and to many points along the way where
ranching history was made. A master storyteller, Williams connects these
sites to living legends of the cattle and beef industry. He spent the
night beneath the stars in Colonel Goodnight's Palo Duro Canyon, drove
across the state line near the original XIT fence northwest of Amarillo,
and glided along the base of the impressive Sawtooth Mountain for out in
the Reynolds' Kingdom of the Long X, half a hundred miles west of Fort
Davis. The Big Ranch Country reaches far up into the Texas Panhandle,
deep into the Big Bend of Trans-Pecos Texas, and down south to the great
ranch empires of the Texas coast. Williams was the first to publish maps
of most of the great Texas ranches and tells many of little-known
stories of the land that once was home to Boley Brown, the prince of
good neighbors; Quakers who moved to the plains to escape the wicked
world; and the Hank Smiths, whose famous old rock house was once the
last "outpost of civilization."
