Bob Faulkner | The Buffalo Rock

Published: January 6, 2010

When young reporter Grant Collins takes the train from St. Louis to Fort Benton in 1923, he expects to make a name for himself as a writer by interviewing Tom Thomas, the last living Pony Express rider.  

What he doesn’t anticipate is the larger-than-life story that unfolds, and his own transformation in the still-wild West.

While listening to Tornado Tom spin his yarns at the Buffalo Rock Ranch (a spread the size of Delaware), the young man receives an education that neither history books nor his journalism degree from Columbia prepared him for. He takes in the famous boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Tom Gibbons in Shelby; flies and crashes with his mentor in a biplane; learns to ride a horse, straddle a bronc and shoot a gun; cultivates a romance with his host’s great niece; and makes an enemy out of a violent, knife-wielding cowpoke. He also gains a new respect for the Indians he had been brought up to regard as savages.

Author Bob Faulkner, a Marine Corp veteran and former member of the Los Angeles Police Department who now lives in Montana, has written a full-throttle romp that veers between a wild past and a rowdy present. The book was a finalist for the Western Writers of America 2009 Spur Award.

For more information, visit www.bobfaulkner.com.

– Kristi Niemeyer