"Mary, you have got to talk George out of this madness," her sister pleaded. "You can’t move to Colorado territory. It’s hostile country. With Indian attacks, bandits, gunfights, lawlessness, and the dry desert prairie with no trees. A cowboy could live there but not a woman with eight children. How will you grow food? You’d be giving up so much. I don’t want you to starve or get killed."
Life changed dramatically for the Swinks when a slick salesman from the Colorado Land and Colonization Company strolled into the Swink-Russell store and convinced the partners to invest a mere $100 for 500 acres in the Arkansas River Valley. George’s long-held yearning to move West began as he embarked on the challenging journey by train and then on foot for weeks to this remote area in the Colorado Territory. Exhilarated by what he saw he was convinced this was the place to forge a better life. Now he needed to persuade pregnant Mary and their eight children to join him at the small adobe home at the ford on the Arkansas River.
This historical fiction novel is based on real events in the life of George Washington Swink, his family, and the pioneers of Rocky Ford, Colorado during the 1870s. These brave pioneers faced daily hardships just to survive.
Extensive research has been done to utilize available sources in writing about this time and place in history. Dialogue, narration, and fictionalized scenes have been added to help the historical characters come alive. Through many trials and hardships, these intrepid pioneers settled the desolate southeastern Colorado prairie.
