Trail of Whitened Skulls - The Cole Lavery Saga (Hardcover)

The saga spans Cole Lavery's meeting with Marta Strand on the Missouri River aboard the Missouri Pride. The riverboat is bound for Westport Landing. The passage is fraught with difficulties. Cole is low on money and undertakes a dangerous job offer. Marta Strand also wants to seek her future in the Far West of Oregon or California. Following their marriage, the couple sets out on a wagon train bound for the West Coast, a train that comes down with a dreaded small pox epidemic. Even arriving in California is no guarantee of peace and prosperity, because she and Cole are no sooner located on their land than they are driven off. This saga is a magnificent story of pioneer hardship, and of winning out against incredible odds to build a new and better life.< P>Tom W. Blackburn's Western fiction is concerned with the struggles, torments, joys, and the rare warmth that comes from companionships of the soul.