The Cowboy from Christmas Past
Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, Christmas season of 1892
For Dillinger Kent, retired gunslinger, life was quiet on his thousand-acre spread on the outskirts of the Texas Panhandle town of Christmas River. Winter with its promise of bitter cold and occasional snow, unlike the rest of the state, made his solitary lifestyle even more remote. Springtime brought fullness to his ranch, with trees and grasses dressing the stark landscape in glorious greens; summer and fall brought their own lustrous hues to warm the countryside.
But the Christmas season was a harbinger of the icy cocoon soon to envelop him for the next three months. It was the middle of December, and deep winter crept closer.
He'd chosen a life of loneliness when he'd lost his wife, Polly Hartskill Kent. They'd made plans for a family out here, a big home to raise them in. Christmas on the ranch, Polly said, would be so much fun with lots of little feet running around. Polly had a beautiful soul and Dillinger had loved her as he would never love anyone again. But his darling wife had taken ill with pneumonia during the last Christmas season, and having a beautiful soul hadn't saved her. ... read full excerpt from: The Cowboy from Christmas Past ebook
