Old Sam Gunnison was like a father to Shell Harper and Rimfire Ranch is the only real home he's ever had. Shell is the foreman now, and with old Sam dead, it's up to Shell to see to it that Sam's daughter Emmy, inherits title to the ranch. But powerful and treacherous men will do anything to stop Shell -- their lust for the spread is as great as their lust for power in a young and savage land. Shell Harper has to stand alone against the infamous Billy Bishop gang, his gun the last chance for Rimfire.
1995 by Jason Manning Harper Paperbacks (New York) 184 pp ISBN: 0-06-100748-X
This novel is dear to my heart because it has roots going back to some of the first writing I ever did. In my late teens and early twenties I wrote a series of short stories about four far-flung siblings brought together by the death of their father, Sam Gunnison. When I finally got the chance to write a novel on that theme the siblings were reduced to one, the daughter, with a foreman and some hired hands as the other principle characters. I enjoyed presenting two separate narratives -- the Shell/Emmy story and the Addicks/Mattie one -- in the same book. Oh, and one of my better closing lines, to boot.
I am toying with the idea of writing some original material to carry on the story of Emmy and Shell and the rest of the Rimfire crew, to be presented on this website.