The Last Good Horse – Author David Martin Anderson to sign his book at Hastings Books in Laramie
Hi, Laramie. I'll be signing my novel, THE LAST GOOD HORSE, Friday (July 29) from 4:00PM to 7:00PM at Hastings Books in Laramie. This is a one-time event, so I hope you can come by to pick up your signed copy and support the cause of wild mustang preservation. Much appreciated!
- David Martin Anderson
About the Wild Mustangs: Imagine a world without the great American mustang. Visualize our western parks and grasslands void of all wild horses. We are getting close, very close to that imagery today. Consider this: in 1914, there were roughly four-million wild mustangs in the United States; culling and slaughtering has reduced this number to less than one-hundred thousand. What is being done to our remaining untamed herds in this supposed enlightened age of ours is truly a travesty.
About the Author: David Martin Anderson journeyed to Montana’s Pryor Mountain to study the last of the Spanish jennets still roaming free but soon to become extinct. The fruit of that labor is the novel, The Last Good Horse.
About the Book: The story, itself, transitions between the 1930s and modern-day Montana as the protagonist, Billy Bartell, languishes in a prison hospital eager to tell the truth about the dark days of his youth when he rounded up horses for the slaughterhouse. It was in 1939 that seventeen-year-old Billy leaves home to seek his fortune. For Billy the choice is simple: stay in Billings working the family funeral home or work the Pryor Mountain meadowland capturing wild mustangs and living out a lifelong dream among the last of the old-West cowboys. Ironically, Billy substitutes one death trade for another, for not only does he master rounding up horses, he learns how to slaughter and render the animals by the thousands and pack their carcasses in iced-down boxcars. Through it all Billy must come to terms with his newfound craft. You see, he has made a pact with the devil, one Captain Belial. Getting out of a pact with the devil is never easy especially when you are seventeen and possess a conscience.
“One of the best stories ever written on the exploration of our mustang herds. David Anderson weaves a gripping and emotional tale of murder and slaughter in 1939 Montana.” - G.Ray Field, Director, Wild Horse Foundation
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