Winding Stair (9781101559239)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A superb storyteller and authentic chronicler of the American West.”

—
Los Angeles Times Book Review

 

“A master craftsman.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

“Our finest prose dramatist of the American West.”

—
The Boston Globe

 

 

“One of the best Civil War novels I have read.”

—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning
author of
Battle Cry of Freedom

 

“Jones writes about some of the most haunting men in the history of the American South—the dirt-farm infantry of the Confederate Army. . . . The strength and heart of
The Barefoot Brigade
lie in small events, individual antagonisms, boredom, waiting, slogging, hunger. One senses the men's growing mutual dependence, a reflection of the families they have left behind, the cement that holds the Confederate Army together.”

—
The New York Times

 

“Jones's Civil War novel strives for a close-up, life-sized evocation of the conflict as it follows the men of a self-formed squad within the Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment.... This is sturdy, above-average Civil War fiction—strong on unromanticized detail and day-to-day grit.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 

“
Elkhorn Tavern
has the beauty of
Shane
and the elegiac dignity of
Red River
without the false glamour or sentimentality of those classic Western films. Unquestionably it has the makings of a classic Western. Mr. Jones is at home among the ridges and hardwoods of a frontier valley: He knows what moves in its forests, how the land changes under the seasons. He holds us still and compels us to notice what we live in.”

—
The New York Times

 

“
Elkhorn Tavern
is undoubtedly Jones's finest novel. The characters are unforgettable, the atmosphere wonderfully detailed, and the action and suspense skillfully maintained.”

—Dee Brown, author of
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

 

“Douglas C. Jones writes what might be called historical novels, but they are much more than that. They are stirring word pictures of the way things really were in this country not so long ago....
Elkhorn Tavern
is even better than the books that preceded it.”

—The Associated Press

 

“Jones is a meticulous craftsman whose dialects, dialogues, settings, and sayings seem so right and natural that one had the satisfying feeling of having read a novel without one false note.”

—
San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle

 

“In this stunning historical novel, Jones re-creates place, people, and events brilliantly . . . a fine, strong, affecting saga.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

“A fine, uncompromising, unusually angled piece of Civil War fiction—from a master of gritty historical[s].”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 

“Jones may do for the historical novel what John Ford did for the Western film.”

—
Library Journal

New American Library
Published by New American Library, a division of
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Holt, Rinehart and Winston edition.

 

First New American Library Printing, December 2011

Copyright © Kemm, Incorporated, 1979 All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

ISBN : 978-1-101-55923-9

 

 

Jones, Douglas C.
Winding stair.
I. Title
PZ4.J7534Wi [PS3560.0478] 813'.5'4
79-4195

 

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

ISBN : 978-1-101-55923-9

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

This story is not a historical chronicle of the Rufus Buck gang, all five of whom went to the gallows in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on July 1,1, 1896, and with the exception of Judge Isaac Parker and George Maledon, all its characters are fictitious. But the narrative does describe the kinds of crimes for which the Buck gang and others were tried in the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It is dedicated to the good and decent people—red, white, and black—of the Indian Nations, now eastern Oklahoma, who once suffered the ravages brought on by the complexities of national expansion.