Lindsay McKenna - The Last Cowboy

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Dear Reader,

I love stories about the men and women of the West. They aren’t always cowboys, but sometimes they are. The West has a very wild, individual energy unlike the eastern part of the U.S.A. When one considers the hardships, the risks of opening up our huge country from the east to the west, there was a very hardy group of men and women who took on the challenge. They were a group who braved the elements, the danger of Indian attacks and the wild animals. They carved something out of nothing and made it their own through hard, backbreaking daily work. And they were nature-oriented, not wanting big-city life. They craved the quiet of the days, the only music provided by songbirds, coyotes and wolves singing. They wanted wide, open spaces, not to be jammed in with one house attached to another one.

Not everyone is of that temperament or personality or constitution. That is what sets Westerners apart from the rest of the world. And that is what is fascinating about them, at least to me. What drives a person to be a risk-taker? What is the lure? The fascination? You can take the Westerner and put her or him in any environment around the world—not necessarily Jackson Hole, Wyoming—and you get the same gutsy, can-do attitude toward harsh, rugged life. It is a mindset. A way of seeing the world through that particular lens of reality.

Part of my ongoing series about the West and the people who live there, The Last Cowboy is about a rancher named Slade McPherson. He’s had one tough life. From age five onward, he was without parents. He was torn from his fraternal twin, Griff McPherson. They were separated, one going East and one staying at the parents’ ranch to be raised by dutiful uncles. Slade is barely able to make ends meet.

His hardscrabble life is nonstop and he has the bruising personality to survive, regardless of what is thrown at him next.

An endurance-riding champion, Slade enters fifty-and hundred-mile horse endurance contests. He’s made a name for himself on his Medicine Hat stallion, who was once a wild mustang. Together, these two hardy survivors have carved out a stellar career across the U.S.A. and Canada. Slade offers his Medicine Hat stallion to those who want the genes passed on through their mares. He owns the Tetons Ranch, sells endurance horses and trains endurance riders. He’s seen—in that world—as a man of honesty, hard work and integrity.

And it is with this aura that Dr. Jordana Lawton, an emergency physician for the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hospital, comes to him. She has a feisty mustang mare she feels can not only compete, but win in endurance racing. Slade is desperate for the money, but likes to teach only male students. He’s had a very bad run-in with a socialite from the East Coast, who took him to the cleaners and left him nearly penniless. Slade blames himself for falling for her beauty. And it has left a bad taste in his mouth for women in general. Over time, Jordana, who is from the East Coast, slowly changes his attitude toward females.

As if Slade doesn’t have enough to handle with being lured to Jordana, his fraternal twin brother, Griff, comes home. Griff, a stockbroker and banker on Wall Street, has been wiped out by the recession and the loss of his company. And legally, he owns half of the ranch. The two brothers don’t get along at all. Will Slade trade in his tough, take-no-prisoners attitude to woo Jordana and make peace with Griff?

Lindsay McKenna

To Susan Hamilton of High Country Raptors, Flagstaff, AZ, Marchiene Reinstra, Tricia Speed, Patricia Comfort, Monica Amarillis (Milan, Italy), Sunday Larson, Naomi C. Rose and Maureen Wolverton. All strong, intelligent and compassionate women. Our world needs positive, healthy role models for women. It takes a state of mind, a confidence in yourself, to be treated as an equal in today’s society around this world. I’m privileged to be a part of your lives as you are a part of mine. My wish is that someday soon, there will be equality for all women in our world.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“BOSS! LOOK OUT!”

Slade McPherson was in a rectangular corral at his Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ranch with the meanest Hereford bull he’d ever dealt with. He heard Shorty, his wrangler, give a cry of warning. There was sudden movement behind him. Diablo, the bull, had been walking toward the chute to receive his yearly set of shots. Slade never allowed any horses in such a confined area with the bull. Diablo hated men. Slade wasn’t about to allow one of his prized horses to be butted and injured by Diablo.

Whirling around, he saw Diablo toss his massive white-and-rust head, drool flinging in all directions out of his mouth. The bull had decided not to go into the chute and, instead, wheeled his one ton body around and charged Slade who was ten feet away. The bull bellowed, lowered his head and attacked.

Slade was five feet away from the steel-pipe fence. There was no way he could stop such a charge. All he could do was run like hell. And that’s exactly what he did. Because he was six-foot-two inches in height and he had a long stride. Adrenaline shot through him as he dug the heels of his cowboy boots into the dusty floor of the corral. In two strides, Slade hit the fence, made a huge leap and landed on the third rung of the five-rung corral. The ground shook from Diablo’s charge. As he jerked his leg up, still climbing to get away from the angry bull, Slade felt the brush of the bull’s head against the heel of his boot.