An hour later and twenty miles to the west—the storm now abated and the countryside white and still—a one-armed farmer wearing a ragged Confederate cap was searching for a lost calf near the Liberty road when he heard singing at a distance and coming down the trace. Soon there appeared a band of riders on prancing steaming mounts. As these horsemen passed by, they returned the man’s smile and touched their hatbrims to him.
And as they rode into the national imagination and the legend it would make of them, they kept on with their song:
Oh, I’m a good old rebel, that’s just what I am.
And for this Yankee nation I don’t care a damn.
I’m glad I fought against it, I only wish we’d won.
And I don’t want no pardon for anything I’ve done.
About the Author
JAMES CARLOS BLAKE has written seven books of fiction, including In the Rogue Blood (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), Red Grass River (winner of the Chautauqua South Book Award), Borderlands (winner of the Southwest Book Award), and the critically acclaimed Wildwood Boys. He is also the author of The Pistoleer and The Friends of Pancho Villa. He resides in southeast Arizona.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
PRAISE FOR
Wildwood Boys
“A superb and engrossing novel…. Blake [is] one of the best and most original writers in America today.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A master storyteller and a master writer.”
—El Paso Herald Post
“One of the best prose stylists writing in America today.”
—Austin American-Statesman
“Once again Blake takes on a notorious historical figure…. His highly readable style…[tells] a gritty, gripping adventure.”
—Publishers Weekly
“What makes this richly reimagined story of William Anderson truly horrific is the pure poetry and haunting beauty of Blake’s writing…. He navigate[s] the human bloodstream with substance and style.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Blake takes readers on a wild ride with Anderson and his guerrillas…. His novel would translate well to film—another portrait of the down and dirty Civil War of the West.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Blake reminds us that…as in Vietnam or Rwanda or the Balkans, civil wars can be the dirtiest wars of all….[I]t’s Blake’s achievement to get us to understand…an attitude that outlasted the war, fostering public support of ‘populist’ outlaws.”
—Los Angeles Times
“[Wildwood Boys has] more than its share of lyric beauty.”
—Tampa Tribune
“The narrative has a hypnotic cadence…captivating.”
—Copley News Service
“Once again, Mr. Blake has drawn a searing portrait of a distinctly unheroic hero who will stick in the reader’s mind.”
—Washington Times
“A captivating…fascinating read.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
Other Works by
James Carlos Blake
Borderlands: Short Fictions
Red Grass River
In the Rogue Blood
The Friends of Pancho Villa
The Pistoleer
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WILDWOOD BOYS. Copyright © 2000 by James Carlos Blake. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061857065
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Wildwood Boys Page 44