From the Author
The 79-mile section of the Butterfield and Goodnight-Loving trail between the Middle Concho and Pecos rivers of Texas was the longest dry stretch of any major route in the nineteenth-century West. In researching To Hell or the Pecos, I traveled every mile of this desert. Twice, I hiked the old trail between Castle Gap and Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos. This on-the-ground study, coupled with my interviews with 76 men who cowboyed before 1932, allowed me a unique connection with the past. Furthermore, I drew upon three actual incidents of the nineteenth-century Pecos River country:
- The 1867 siege of the Joel D. Hoy party at Horsehead Crossing
- Tom Green’s abduction of a teenage girl from a North Concho River ranch in the 1880s and his flight to Horsehead Crossing
- Two cowhands’ 1890 pursuit of Mexican bandits between the Middle Concho River and Castle Gap