Cowboy

By Ross Santee

Book Overview

"I always wnted to be a cow-puncher," says Shorty Caraway. "As a little kid back on the farm in east Texas I couldn't think of nothin' else." Shorty's father took some persuading, but in the end he staked his fourteen-year-old son to a white pony, a second-hand saddle, and "forty dollars to go with the two I had, an' he said that ought to run me until I got a job." What happened from that day until Shorty was taken on as a regular hand is told in the pages of Ross Santee's Cowboy , first published in 1982.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803258674
• ISBN13: 9780803258679
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Realistic and heart-felt portrayal of cowboy life . . .

This book is currently out of print, and there's no good reason for it. It's a fine, wonderfully written, well controled narrative about a teenager growing up in a man's world of cowboying in New Mexico and Arizona of the early 20th century. The narrator is all of 14 years old when he leaves home in East Texas, confronting a world of misadventure and discouragement as he looks for work, drifting from ranch to ranch, learning how to break horses, and taking whatever job he can find. Along the way he meets and befriends a good many men who do the real job of cowboying for ranch owners. One of them is a foreman, Mack, who takes the boy under his wing. A top hand, he is the actual cowboy of the book's title. The boy's admiration for him is heart-felt, and the scenes between them are touching. Meanwhile, we learn a lot about what it takes to become any kind of hand at all, as the boy struggles against all odds to give it his best. A realistic portrayal of cowboy life, without a single villain, stage holdup, or shoot-out on the main street of town. Readers will also enjoy Walt Coburn's "Stirrup High" and Ralph Moody's "The Home Ranch," both of which ARE in print.