Monday 11 July 2022

THE TENDERFOOT


By Robert Vaughan
Wolfpack Publishing, May 2022

When Turquoise ranch hand Curly Stevens went into Flagstaff to meet his new employee arriving on the train, his first impression of Rob Barringer is of how big and strong the tenderfoot is. Rob’s eagerness to learn and his willingness to take on the most difficult jobs wins everyone over, including ranch foreman Jake Dunford, and Melanie Dunford, his beautiful daughter.

Ron is well-educated, and his demeanor and intelligence catches the attention of Melanie, causing him difficulty with ranch manager Lee Garrison, who believes he has an exclusive right to Melanie. Garrison makes life difficult for the ranch hands, and Rob in particular.

When Jake Dunford makes a public accusation that the ranch manager is stealing from the ranch, Garrison reacts by firing everyone, but it is Garrison who is in for a big surprise.

After reading a lot of books by Robert Vaughan, I’ve always known I can rely on him to provide an entertaining read, and this book reinforces that belief.

Vaughan has come up with an engaging set of characters and created a situation for them to survive that easily captured my imagination. Although readers know who Rob really is, and know what is going on at ranch, I still turned the pages eagerly as I wanted to see how the main characters would react when the various truths were revealed. Vaughan also places a little doubt on a couple of people – are they involved in the criminal activity that seems to be going on at the Turquoise Ranch?

The story starts in 1865 but soon moves forward twenty years to Rob Barringer deciding to leave his privileged life behind after deciding to go and learn the ropes of running a ranch from the ground up. Becoming a cowboy seems to be the ideal way to experience life on a ranch. As I said earlier, readers know who Rob really is from the moment he’s introduced to the story so I feel it’s safe to reveal that here too – Rob is the owner of the Turquoise Ranch, but none of the other characters know who he is and a main part of the story is Rob trying to discover if Garrison is stealing from the ranch. The growing attraction between Rob and Melanie add further complications as she is engaged to Garrison.

Vaughan builds the story well to its lively ending. The inclusion of an old-time cattle drive being one of the standout sections of the book for me. 

It has been quite a while since I read a book by Mr. Vaughan, and this one reminded me of what I’ve been missing. Time to hunt through my collection and add a couple more of his books to my to be read soon shelf, I think.


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