Corral Dust from Across the Big Divide

Book excerpt: Will Rogers wrote, CHARLIE RUSSELL is the only western artist a true cowboy cant find fault with. Rogers also considered Charlie Americas best storyteller, cowboy humorist, and sagebrush philosopher. Though Charlie was under-schooled and semi-literate, his salty Rawhide Rawlins yarns still delight readers eight decades after he crossed the big divide. Richard Bird Baker has long striven to bring Russells wit, humor, cynicism, and horse sense back to life. In this collection of western yarns, Mr. Baker utilizes Charlie Russell as his early-twentieth-century-styled narrator. He depicts Russell telling yarns in Charlies personal style, utilizing ample dry humor expressed in colorful cowboy lingo. These yarns convey many facets of late-nineteenth-century cowboy life, the good times and the hardships, the joys and sorrows, and above all, the humor and good nature of the western folk icon, the American cowboy. This book is a must for fans of cowboy humor, salty western metaphors, and sagebrush philosophy.