A Dead Hard Country

A DEAD HARD COUNTRY is novel Number One in the Historical Series OF MEN AND HORSES, The life and times of Lucy J. Sanderson Tressler Thornhill and the men who loved and hated her. In this gripping true life account of one woman’s frontier journey Dawn Newland effectively portrays the heart and soul of the early day cowboy. It is gritty, it is raw, sometimes tragic, and oft times humorous the way these men of the saddle collided with a woman hell bent on finding justice and if she were lucky, one more chance at love. In an era when an unwritten code of honor was embraced by stalwart men of the west, they lived by courage, character, and loyalty, and especially a resolve to never back down from an enemy. To the horsemen of the Missouri River Breaks, it was known as “No duty to retreat.” Between 1880 and 1900 civilization moved at breakneck speed across the unsettled “Big Sky Country” where cowboys were king. In this rush of manifest destiny a troubled young wife was thrown to “thee range dawgs” by an enraged husband, whereupon these knights of the Northern Plains dutifully picked her up from the dust where she had fallen. Lucy’s truths lay hidden for 130 years under the honorable and protective silence of her accused paramours, Kid Curry (Harvey Logan), his brothers John and Loney, and their ranching partner James Thornhill. Only in finding their truths were hers revealed.A DEAD HARD COUNTRY brings the reader face to face with the indomitable character of a woman who had the wit and will to live amongst the wildest of the wild. Lucy fought for her place among hard men in the untamed land known as “Heaven’s Gate,” and to quote the horsemen who knew her, “She was all that and more.”