Novels from Stories

“Adobe Walls”—6,000-word short story that gave rise to 17 novels (so far)

Despite being born and raised in New Mexico and working on a ranch on the llano estacado east of Tatum, New Mexico for awhile, I never expected to write so much as even one western short story or novel. Shows how little I know. (grin)

I wrote and published an historical (or period) western short story, “Adobe Walls” on October 23, 2014. Adobe Walls is the fictional name I gave the real ghost town of Charleston, Arizona.

Charleston lies about halfway between Tombstone and Sierra Vista along the west bank of the San Pedro river. In its heyday, it served primarily as the bedroom community for Millville, just across the river, where silver ore was processed in stamping mills.

Interesting facts—Back in the olden days, the good citizens of Charleston would drop their dead into Dead Man’s Gulch, which flowed into the San Pedro River, which flowed north. At Fairbank, a few miles farther north, citizens would fish-out the bodies and bury them.

Clanton Ranch, home of Ike Clanton and the “Cowboys” of the movie Tombstone is five miles south of Charleston and about 12 miles west of Tombstone. When they didn’t want to ride all the way into Tombstone, some of the Clanton ranch hands would head for a saloon in Charleston.

Not surprisingly, Adobe Walls is also where Wes Crowley first introduced himself to me. Two days after I published “Adobe Walls,” I started my first-ever (and first Wes Crowley) novel, Leaving Amarillo. That led to two more novels: Longing for Mexico and South to Mexico, and I honestly thought that would be the end of it.

But Wes came back. Didn’t I want to know how it all started? Well, of course I did.

So I wrote three prequels: The Rise of a Warrior, Comanche Fire, and Wes Crowley, Texas Ranger. By then, I was so hooked on the Wes, his horse Charley, and their story that over time I added six more titles to the Wes Crowley Saga: The Marshal of Agua Perlado, The Battle of Tres Caballos, The Scent of Acacias, The Right Cut, In the Cantina at Noon, and finally The Final Chapter.

Only it wasn’t the final chapter. Although I’d also written 40-some novels in SF, Action-Adventure, Thriller, and Detective-PI-Crime genres as I was writing the westerns, I missed Wes.

Fortunately, I realized there was a 16-year gap between Comanche Fire and Wes Crowley, Texas Ranger. Lucky me. (grin)

So I set out to write the Wes Crowley Gap Series. There are currently five titles in that series: Assignment Brownsville, The Comancheros, The New Mexico Territory, Return to the New Mexico Territory, and Carmen Morales.

And I expect there will be (a lot) more to come. All from one little 6,000-word short story.

To see descriptions of all of these western novels (and more), visit StoneThread Publishing at https://stonethreadpublishing.com/the-wes-crowley-series/. Click on the cover for any book to see the description of that book.