Frontier & Pioneer Western Fiction; US Historical Fiction; Action/Adventure
Date Published: March 20, 2026
With all the swagger of a classic western, a legendary buffalo claims his rightful place among the genre's most iconic heroes.
Meet Rathuun. Born in an idyllic canyon, tragedy strikes on his first day. A grizzly bear scatters the herd, devours his twin, and leaves him to shiver and die. But the buffalo calf with a white spot on his chin survives.
The plains are changing fast. Wagons roll west in endless streams. Telegraph wires stretch across the horizon. Locomotives scream down polished rails, slicing through the earth. Extinction
seems imminent when everyone wants to kill the biggest buffalo on the prairie. Native people shoot arrows and drive herds over cliffs. Hide hunters slaughter millions. An obsessed buffalo assassin is determined to wipe them all out and change the world forever. There's an army of barking rifles, and they're all pointed at Rathuun.
Will the hunters take Rathuun's head and leave his carcass to rot on the prairie?
Welcome to the prairie!
Excerpt
Rathuun heard a fierce roar that rattled between his ears.
He had just finished nursing for the first time since he was born a
thrum, hours earlier. His mother’s warm breath had tickled his flank
just moments ago.
It was a peaceful morning on the prairie, but in a flash, everything had
changed.
The thunderous roar boomed again. The entire brum was on the move.
In his haste to lead his followers away from danger, Drumm sounded the
alarm and leapt forward. The old bull crashed into Rathuun, sending the thrum
sprawling.
Rathuun’s legs wobbled as he tried to stand. It was a miracle that
the collision hadn’t broken him. There was an instinctive pull to follow
the brum, and it was centered beneath his chin, between his front legs.
He blinked rapidly, whipping his head from side to side, searching for
his mother. Moments ago, she had been beside him. “Hathah!” he
bleated, searching for the young cow who was his whole world.
But he knew she was gone. Gone with all the others. Why had she left him
behind?
He shivered at the realization that he was all alone. His heart throbbed
against his ribs. It was a struggle to make sense of what had happened.
Everything turned upside down and sideways. The panicked brum quickly
vanished as the plains swallowed the pounding hooves and flashing tails,
leaving nothing but a faint echo of their distant bellows.
It was eerily silent in the wake of the wild scatter of the
buffalos’ frenzied exodus. Rathuun took a tentative step forward, not
knowing what to do or which way to go.
Dust choked the air. His third, translucent eyelid swept sideways across
his eye, clearing away the grit kicked up by the fleeing brum. He stood, dazed
and completely alone.
Or so he thought. The silence quickly gave way to horrible sounds.
Rathuun turned his head. Twenty feet away, something moved. A dark,
hulking monster hunched over something. Rathuun’s blood pounded with
fear. There was a heavy thump in his chest. Then he saw the creature.
It was a rumbler.
Though he’s never wrangled beeves to market, Dave was a top hand on his grandfather’s dude ranch in the Adirondack Mountains… before he turned ten. He’s lived most of his life on dirt roads. Whenever he gets the chance, he travels west to recharge his spirit on the windswept prairies.
He’s an Adirondack 46’er which means that he’s hiked to the top of every mountain in the park. In 2018, Dave completed the 1960s fitness craze by hiking 50 miles in one day. That’s one heck of a long walk, but not nearly as grueling as the iconic trails that he chases in his fiction.
Even after all these years, Dave still has his head in the clouds like Ken from MY FRIEND FLICKA, and a quiet, self-reliant spirit like Sam from THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN. That blend of wonder, heart, and spirit runs through the characters he portrays. His editor states he is “exceptionally good at creating real moments between characters”—and readers seem to agree.
Dave’s breakthrough series, Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail won Chanticleer’s Grand Prize for Book Series. He’s now the author of nearly twenty novels and counting, and as long as there’s coffee in the kitchen, Dave will be plotting one adventurous story after another.
Contact Links
https://mybook.to/RathuunKingofPrairie
No comments:
Post a Comment
I try to get comments published as quickly as possible. I don't always reply to comments on my blog, but I do try to visit as many people as possible when I participate in blog hops and I share links where possible to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and such so others can discover your work. I do read and appreciate your comments.