BY THE WINNER OF THE 2015 SPUR AWARD    In the late 1880s, the Pecos River region of Texas and southern New Mexico was known as "the cowboy's paradise." And the cowboys who worked in and around the river were known as "the most expert cowboys in the world." A Cowboy of the Pecos vividly reveals tells the story of the Pecos cowboy from the first Goodnight-Loving cattle drive to the 1920s. These meticulously researched and entertaining stories offer a glimpse into a forgotten and yet mythologized era. Includes archival photographs. Along much of its Texas stretch today, the Pecos is only a polluted trickle, squeezing through a jungle of salt cedars that choke banks sloughed and neglected. The modern motorist crossing it by bridge is more likely to greet it with a yawn than with visceral emotion. But were he to read the history buried deep in its banks, he would find the sweat and blood of cowhands who knew this ghost as the most formidable and treacherous river in the West. "Compelling . . . A fascinating popular history." - Roundup Magazine of Western Writers of America "Well written and thoroughly researched, the book includes crisp, vivid chapters . . . A paean to the daring souls who braved the forbidding environment." - Southwestern Historical Quarterly "Impressive research . . . well-written . . . A welcome addition to that small shelf of books on one of the wildest and wooliest rivers in the West." - Austin American-Statesman "One of the definitive works on this area and way of life. . . . Patrick Dearen has established himself as a productive and prolific scholar of far West Texas." - West Texas Historical Association Year Book "Patrick Dearen has meticulously researched , compiled, and written a fascinating book about the denizens of one of the harshest regions of the Southwest." - True West "Well-researched, well-written, and rich with tales of hardship, heroics, and dreams in the years before the great cattle drives finally gave way to cattle trucks." - Dallas Morning News "A well-written, vivid account of the life a cowboy experienced working in the Pecos River and southern New Mexico area." - The West News The Spur Award-winning author of twenty-three books, Patrick Dearen was born in 1951 and grew up in West Texas. He earned a bachelor of journalism from The University of Texas at Austin in 1974 and received nine national and state awards as a reporter for two West Texas daily newspapers. An authority on the Pecos and Devils rivers of Texas, Dearen also has gained recognition for his knowledge of old-time cowboy life. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he preserved the firsthand accounts of 76 men who cowboyed before 1932. These interviews, along with decades of archival study, have enriched Dearen's thirteen novels and led to ten nonfiction books. His newest ebooks are "When Cowboys Die" (a Spur Award finalist), and  a revised edition of "The Illegal Man," a modern-day western novel about an illegal Mexican immigrant seeking work on a West Texas ranch. His other novels include "The Big Drift," winner of the 2015 Western Writers of America Spur Award for best western traditional novel, and "To Hell or the Pecos," inspired by actual nineteenth century events on the Butterfield and Goodnight-Loving trails. For the background of another novel, "Perseverance," Dearen turned to Depression-era Texas and hobo life. Dearen has also been honored by Western Fictioneers, Academy of Western Artists, San Antonio Conservation Society, Will Rogers Medallion Awards, West Texas Historical Association, and Permian Historical Society. A backpacking enthusiast and ragtime pianist, he makes his home in Midland, Texas with his wife Mary (managing editor of the Midland Reporter-Telegram) and their son Wesley.