Arkansas Smith II: The Tumbleweed Trail

Arkansas Smith #2

by Jack Martin

For Jake Preston the offer of a position with his brother’s cattle operation in Kansas City couldn’t have come at a better time. At home in Wyoming things were not too good, the farm was failing and Jake and his family were facing an uncertain and scary future. And so Jake, his wife and three children packed up all their belongings worth taking and left in a small wagon, traveling overland, wanting the see the remaining wilderness before civilization gobbled it all up.

They took The Tumbleweed Trail, hoping to gain protection from the fabled spirit said to protect those who traveled the trail. And they needed protection too when a gang of merciless outlaws descend on them but that protection would not come from any paranormal entity but from a flesh and blood man – a man called Arkansas Smith.

163 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 30, 2012

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Jack Martin is a pseudonym for Goodreads author Gary M. Dobbs. Dobbs also writes under the pseudonyms Gary Dobbs and G.M. Dobbs.

Born in 1965, Gary M. Dobbs (Gary Martin Dobbs) is a British writer and actor. He has seen publication in a number of print magazines, as well as had work on both BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Wales. As Gary Dobbs, he has appeared as a character actor in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Moonmonkeys, Larkrise to Candleford, Casino Royale (2006) and The Big I-am.

As Jack Martin he is known for a string of Western novels for Robert Hale's Black Horse Western imprint, including Arkansas Smith, The Ballad of Delta Rose, and The Afterlife of Slim McCord. In 2016 a digital edition of The Tarnished Star was issued by Piccadilly Publishing under the alternative title of LawMaster. The title change refers to the title used for the script by Neil Jones and Gary M. Dobbs which is optioned for a feature film.

Reviews

[Randy]

It was a legend told to calm children on the trail at night when the all-encompassing darkness seemed to close in. Jake Preston had been told the story when he was a boy and now he told it to his children.

Old Tumbleweed was a trapper that had survived a shipwreck with his mother when he was just a baby. When she died, wolves found the baby and raised it. Once he saved an old Indian medicine man from a grizzly and had been granted eternal life to aid and protect travelers along the Tumbleweed Trail named for him.

Jake Preston, his wife Ellie_may, and their three children, Jakie, Susan, and little Lucy were headed, from a failed farm in Wyoming, first to Dodge, then Kansas City to join his brother in the cattle business.

When they were attacked, Jake thought it was Indians, with an arrow flying over his head. In the rush to get back to the wagon, he tripped and broke his ankle.

It was then they heard the shooting, nothing coming toward them though. Someone was out there on their side.

With the dawn, they were introduced to Arkansas Smith and they learned the ones who'd tried to kill them was a gang of outlaws made up of whites, Indians, and A Mexican, led by a man named Brady.

Smith had been after them after the posses was ambushed and fell back.

Smith becomes their protector on the journey. He knew the gang would be back, their pride stung from being repelled by a bunch of farmers. Little Lucy took to him right away, believing him to be "Mr. Tumbleweed."

Along the way, Arkansas has to deal with Mother Nature, the Brady Bunch(heh), to keep them whole.

Once again, Jack Martin(Gary Dobbs) has delivered a fine western.

[Chaplain Stanley Chapin]

Enjoyable short book

It is a nice change of pace book that does not require the intensity of a mystery or a action filled spy/military story