A Western Adventure: Texas Jack Book 7
Grady Jones life was hard as a child, and it didn’t get better with age. His father died when he was young and a few years later his mother was killed in a senseless shooting. He was on his own until the Reverend Barnaby took him in. Tensions were high in that period just before the Civil War and they lived in Ohio at that time, a border state. The Reverend was anti-slavery and a staunch abolitionist who worked with the underground railroad helping slaves flee to freedom.
One evening when he was helping the Reverend guide some slaves, Grady was forced to kill a slave owner who had caught up with the Reverend. It wasn’t long after that Grady found himself enlisted in the Union Army as a paid substitute for Reverend Barnaby… a legal maneuver if a man had the money to do it.
The Civil War only made things worse for Grady. He was wounded several times and killed many men. As the war progressed, he became more disillusioned, bitter and found killing to be easier. At the end of the war, he came out a hardened, troubled man. He finally made his way back to Reverend Barnaby and through him he met Mary Rodgers. Mary was a religious young woman and very firm in her beliefs… and she was very pretty as well. Over time, Grady accepted the Lord, married Mary and vowed to never carry a gun or kill another human being and becomes a preacher. They were happy and for the first time in his life he had direction and meaning.
When Mary and his young daughter, Becky, are kidnapped by renegade whites to be sold as slaves in Mexico, Grady must face facts. Life on a violent, dangerous frontier doesn’t always mesh with a life of peaceful, non-violence. He has a chance meeting with ‘Texas Jack’ McKenna who was passing through town and enlists Jack’s help in tracking the kidnappers.
Life in the old west often caused men to change. Sometimes due to tragic events they were forced to examine their lives… to reimagine and reinvent themselves. This story tracks the changes that created the beginning of a legend in the west… Preacher Jones, Frontier Avenger.
Available now on Kindle and coming soon in paperback!
