Release Date

I hope you are as excited about the release of my first full length novel, A Stranger Came to Town.  The tentative release date is June 30th, 2013.  Please check back soon for more updates and insight into the adventure of the Arizona Ranger...

The Tale Continues

Patrick William Graham Jr. was destined to be small of stature, but that didn’t mean he was short on courage. He grew up with a Cherokee tribe and became blood brother to the chief ’s son, Leaping Wolf. One of Pat’s first toys was a hand-carved wooden
pistol; when his draw was faster than his father’s, he was given a working gun.
     
     When tragedy strikes, leaving Pat’s father dead and his mother remarried to a man Pat despises, he leaves his tribal home. Out in the world, his small frame makes him an easy target for bullies, predators, and petty men with something to prove.  After he kills a man who was riding him for being small, Pat’s life changes in ways he can’t control. He sells his skills as a gunman. In Mexico, he protects a silver mine from banditos and then helps them to improve their operation.
     
     One fateful day, however, on a job rustling cattle, he finds God and a better way to live.  
     
     Pat is soon welcomed as the youngest Arizona Territorial Ranger, and he puts his skills and talents to the Lord’s work.  He prevents war with the Indians seven times. But his life isn’t all heroics and escapades. Along the way, he also finds a bride, buys a ranch, and works with a
family named Earp.  

     Inspired by the stories told to him by his Texas rancher father, songs, and classic Western tales, A Stranger Came to Town is Nolan Fondren’s love song to a long-lost time and place.

The Tale of an Arizona Ranger Begins

Pat came around the corner and saw his father lying in a pool of blood. His father looked at the man walking away from him and said, “Take care of it, boy.”
     Pat stood up and said, “You yellow bellied coward. You just murdered an unarmed man.
Unfortunately for you he was my father, so you have to die. Turn around; I want you to see who is going to kill you.”
     The man turned and drew his gun in one motion without saying a word. He was fast. He was
as fast as anyone in those parts had ever seen, and he had all the advantages. The kid was surprised that he drew without saying a word. The kid was mad and had just lost his dad. And the stranger had drawn first.
     The spinning man never lifted his gun into a fi ring position. He just continued spinning as he
crumpled to the ground. Nobody had seen the kid draw, but there in Pat’s hand was the smoking gun.  They didn’t need to, but they rolled the stranger over and right between his eyes was a bright red hole.  Pat walked over to his father and said, “I got it done, Dad.” His father looked up at him and smiled.  He closed his eyes and passed away.
     The sheriff came running up and said, “Pat, what happened?”
     “I killed the man who killed my father,” replied Pat in a somewhat distant voice.