Most of it is hellish country out there. Hot, dry, dusty and known to be deadly.
When five ruthless men ride in on a terror raid they find a surprisingly fertile valley, a plantation garden blossoming in the desert.
It has taken Jacob Marney years of toil and heartbreak. He lost his wife in the making of this oasis but the place warrants his suffering, it is both productive and remunerative even though he cares little for the financial reward it allows, unlike the five invaders.
Jacob has one thing he cherishes above all others and when the five lay an edge on his treasure it cuts like a knife and demands desperate measures. But Jacob is a man of the soil, a peaceful man, ill equipped for violence and he is left with only one alternative.
Sometimes events compel a man to do something he would much rather not.
Needs must when the devil drives.... and the devil just arrived in The Thirty Six Hundreds.

It's not such a big step from pictures to writing.
And that's how it started out for me. I've illustrated more Western book covers than I care to mention and been doing it for a long time. No hardship, I hasten to add, I love the genre and have since a kid, although originally I made my name painting the cover art for other people, now at least, I manage to create covers for my own books.
A long-term closet writer, only comparatively recently, with a family grown and the availability of self-publishing have I managed to be able to write and get my stories out there.
As I did when illustrating, research counts a lot and has inspired many of my Westerns and Thrillers to have a basis in historical fact or at least weave their tale around the seeds of factual content.
Having such a visual background, mostly it's a matter of describing the pictures I see in my head and translating them to the written page. I guess that's why one of my early four-star reviewers described the book like a 'Western movie, fast paced and full of action.'
I enjoy writing them; I hope folks enjoy reading the results.