Rodeo Ranch: A Western Duo

by Max Brand

Overview

Doc Willis, despite the nickname, is just an unemployed cowboy in The Valley of Jewels. Daggett

Valley holds many secrets from the past, including a now deserted mining camp. It is there that Buck Logan lures Willis with the promise of great riches to be gained. What Doc doesn't even suspect is that he is to play a part in a most subtle feat of deception in which an old man, William Daggett, will be conned into believing that he is reliving his past.

Rodeo Ranch is so called because of the rodeos sponsored by Ramon Alvarez. When an attempt is made on Alvarez's life, a rodeo is held, but the only event that interests him is the shooting competition. The event is won by Duds Kobbe, who is hired to be Alvarez's body guard. What Kobbe doesn't realize is that he will be just as much a target as Alvarez.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781432828509
Publisher:	Gale Group
Publication date:	06/17/2015
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Max Brand(R) (1892-1944) is the best-known pen name of widely acclaimed author Frederick Faust, creator of Destry, Dr. Kildare, and other beloved fictional characters. Orphaned at an early age, Faust studied at the University of California, Berkeley. He became one of the most prolific writers of our time but abandoned writing at age fifty-one to become a war correspondent in World War II, where he was killed while serving in Italy.

Barry Press has been an active professional actor, director, and teacher for over thirty-five years. He has performed off Broadway and at numerous regional theaters from Alaska to Florida. He is founder and artistic director of Living Literature, a Rhode Island-based literacy program.

Editorial Reviews

2015-04-15
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear for another two doses of thrills from monumentally prolific Western chronicler Brand (1892-1944) never reprinted since their first appearances in Western Story Magazine in 1923 and 1926. In the longer and weaker tale, "The Valley of Jewels," Cherryville muleskinner Buck Logan thinks that range rider Doc Willis, who's temporarily out of work, is just the man to stand armed guard over the crew Logan has toiling on a mysterious building project in Daggett Creek. The new gig promises Doc plenty of action since Red Grenville and his brother Lawrence are determined to stop Logan in his tracks before he can work a cunning, improbable deception on ancient William Daggett, whose long-ago discovery of gold gave Daggett's Creek its name. Brand (Seven Faces, 1998, etc.) seems to be making it all up as he goes along. In the shorter, simpler, more clearly focused "Rodeo Ranch," Duds Kobbe wins a sharpshooting contest wealthy rancher Ramon Alvarez has sponsored in order to flush out the man best qualified to protect him from the gang determined to avenge his shooting of John Turner. The complications here are that Kobbe is Turner's son and that no sooner does he sign on for the job of protecting Alvarez, who tells him, "Never think that I am a foolish neurasthenic," than he falls in love with Miriam Mantiez, Alvarez's fiancee. Brand's stock in trade is superlatives: every gunslinger is the fastest, every woman the most beautiful, every villain the blackest, every horse the finest mount imaginable. A quaint version of the king's English is respected throughout.

Kirkus Reviews