Full Circle Moment

Back in August of 2017, I made the trip to Cody, Wyoming, for the Buffalo Bill Centennial Symposium at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. I had just finished the first draft of my book on Texas Jack Omohundro and was trying to find a publisher.

That evening’s keynote speaker was historian and author Paul Andrew Hutton, whose book The Apache Wars I had brought with me, hoping to have him sign it. After his talk, I had the chance to meet him and tell him about the project I was working on. He told me he had read the earlier book on Texas Jack and said it was great that someone was taking a fresh look at Jack and his legacy. His encouragement meant a lot to me at that moment.

Eight years later, I was as shocked as I am proud to see my own book, Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star, cited in Paul Hutton’s New York Times bestseller, The Undiscovered Country.

It's one of those moments that remind you how both how small, and how generous, the world of Western history can be.