Sons of Texas

by Elmer Kelton

Overview

Mordecai Lewis and his sons Michael and Andrew ride into the Spanish province of Texas to hunt wild horses, planning to sell the animals back home in the Tennessee canebrakes. The expedition proves fatal for Mordecai and leaves the Lewis boys in peril on both sides of the border: with a murderous Spanish officer in Texas and a blood vendetta with the Blackwood clan, a neighboring Tennessee family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765310224
Publisher:	Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC
Publication date:	05/01/2006
Series:	Sons of Texas Series
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Elmer Kelton is a native Texan, author of forty novels. He has earned countless honors including a record seven Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, Inc., an organization that has voted Kelton the greatest Western Writer of all time. He lives in San Angelo, Texas.

Editorial Reviews

A veteran writer of more than 40 western novels, seven-time Spur Award-winner Kelton again delivers careful plotting, colorful characters and vibrant action in this tale set largely in Mexican-ruled Texas. In 1816, the patriarch of the Lewis clan leaves its Tennessee farm to join a group of local adventurers who plan is to capture Texas wild horses and bring them back to sell. Lewis's 16-year-old son Michael sneaks off and joins them. When the party run into a Mexican military patrol at the Louisiana border led by the sadistic Lieutenant Rodriguez, Michael's father is murdered along with much of the party, and Michael is left to die on the prairie, but survives (with a little bit of deus ex machina aid) and returns home. Five years later, after suffering through a bloody family feud, Michael and a younger brother, Andrew, return to Texas to settle the score and stake out new lives for themselves. Michael eventually finds love, revenge and even future Texas hero Stephen F. Austin. Lucid sentences, few surprises, heavily dialected dialogue, authentically clipped emotions, careful historicism and smooth pacing give what could be a hokey story nice nuance. The second and third installments will cover the Alamo, Sam Houston and Texas independence. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The greatest living writer of Western historicals (Jericho's Road, 2004, etc.) sets spurs to a new trilogy. Looking for the next dream in 1816, Mordecai Lewis leaves Tennessee-and his wife and kids-to head west in search of fresh land to settle. He returns empty-handed but dream-packed. The Lewises have little truck with surveyors and boundaries, they just move west and take up empty land until civilization encroaches on them. Now Mordecai has Homeric tales of the Spanish land called Texas, a limitless spread of golden earth bending past the horizon, whose population of wild horses is protected by the Mexican military, led by the murderous Lieutenant Armando Rodriguez. When Lewis gets a band together to round up a herd of those wild mustangs, self-righteous thief and neighbor Cyrus Blackwood insinuates himself into it. Also along is the series hero, young Michael Lewis. At the Sabine River, Michael meets Marie Villaret and loses his heart, as does she. The backwoodsmen round up a herd and head back to the States, but they're betrayed by Cyrus Blackwood. Rodriguez and his troops stop and murder the Tennesseans; Michael sees his father's brains blown out. He manages to get back to the Villaret ranch, where he recovers enough to head home and find Cyrus Blackwood. Trying to bushwhack Michael, young Finis Blackwood gets his arm shot to pieces and later removed. The Blackwoods vow to kill Michael. Rather than ignite a feud that could go on for years and cost his family many lives, Michael sets off west. At the Villaret ranch he hears that Spain will allow 300 American settlers to create farms in Texas. He asks Marie to marry him when he returns with some land to settle. Dialogue from heavenand storytelling fresh as a gunshot grip each page about the true West.

Kirkus Reviews