Wolf's Howl Newsletter September 2003
Covering:
Yaqui Gold, new book with actor Clint Walker
New book cover photos
It's a good thing I don't call this a monthly newsletter! I know it's been a good six months since the last one, if you don't count my review on the movie Open Range, which I still hope you have all gone out and seen. We need to give the Western a boost at the box office, and you'll not soon find a better example of a good old fashioned Western. That's really something, coming from me! I usually only push the old ones.
Well, the time has finally come when I can tell you that Yaqui Gold is nearly in the bag. In the past few days I've spoken with Clint Walker probably five or six times, as between the two of us the excitement of this book so close to coming out is nearly unbearable. (Yes, even big Clint Walker gets excited when the time is right!)
I am working on my last reading of Yaqui Gold, and enjoying many bitter-sweet moments as I prepare to turn yet another of my "children" loose on the world. From the time three years ago when Clint Walker first approached me with the idea of co-writing this novel with him there has been a lot of excitement and a lot of apprehension. Clint and I, however, are of one mind on most subjects, and so the book has come together fairly easily, with a huge helping of excitement and not quite as much apprehension as I expected.
"Yaqui Gold: Sam Coffey, fifty-four year old cowboy, and his partner, Tom Vanse, foreman on the same ranch and close to fifty, have a major accident involving the rancher's daughter, a bull, and a one-eyed cow. When the accident leads to trajedy Sam and Tom are forced by their consciences to move on. They end up in Nogales, Arizona, where Sam's "old flame," Nadia, resides. Sam is running from a childhood tragedy which he feels has brought him a lifetime of bad luck, so he swears himself to bachelor-hood. But Nadia is suffering under the strain of a boarding house about to go broke, and Sam feels enough love for her to want to help her out. It is this desperation that leads him and Tom to take an old prospector up on his offer to lead the partners to a treasure trove of hidden Yaqui gold, in the Bacatete Mountains of Sonora, Mexico. Unfortunately, not only the Yaquis, but a gang of cutthroats from Arizona are after Sam and Tom, and deep in the Mexican desert disaster strikes once more. Will Sam's premonitions of death in Mexico come true, or will he live to survive this Yaqui-made hell?
Yaqui Gold is alive with the sights, sounds and smells of Arizona, and with enough passion, desperation, and action to make the book a page turner from beginning to end. I hope you will join me and Clint Walker on this journey through almost unreasonable fear to an ending of self-fulfillment."
Yaqui Gold will have two different prices: $16.95 for the standard copy, $27.95 for copies signed by Clint Walker. If you would like copies of this first edition book, send $16.95 each copy plus 2.00 shipping for the first book, 1.00 each thereafter, to:- Howling Wolf Publishing
- P.O. Box 1045
- Pocatello ID 83204
- For books to be signed by Clint, please send a total of 29.95.
The book will most likely take another two months to be in my hands, if everything goes well. Look for it around the first of November.
On to other news: I'm sending you a couple of fun photos. One is a photo Debbie took of me for one of my new books in the Robert "Gray Eagle" McAllister series. If you would like to see the other photos taken of Kirby for the new book covers click on the link or photo below'Death of an Eagle' series book cover photos 
- The second photo is of me the night we finished the book cover photos and decided to take that mop off my head at last.
- This, of course, was before the razor took it clear down to smooth skin. Since then, it's grown to a more normal state, about an inch long. I thought you might get a kick out of these photos. And like I said, if you want to see any of the others, including the one of me with a mohawk, just drop me a line. Once I get a list of people ready to laugh at me, I'll send those out in a few days or so.
Kirby Jonas