![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "I hated sheep at first, but they growed on me. It is a sacrifice that any self-respecting cattleman would regret, but a man has to do what a man has to do. In his seventies, Wes is not facing drought, though like Charlie he is forced to run sheep on his west Texas hill country ranch because they are profitable, which allows him to stay in the cattle business which isn't profitable. Wes Hendricks, the primary protagonist of The Man Who Rode Midnight is cut from the same cloth and could be viewed as the reincarnation of Charlie twenty years down the road. It was the story of Charlie Flagg, a tough-minded Texas rancher who in the 1950s was hanging on with all he had as he tried to survive the worse drought to hit that part of Texas since the Dust Bowl days of the '30s. It is The Time It Never Rained, which one admiring critic conceded wasn't "the Great American Novel," but may very well be "the Great Texas Novel." Back in 1973 Elmer Kelton published his most critically acclaimed novel, one that won both Spur and Western Heritage awards. ![]()
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