Chance — Clay Tanner

Riverboat owner Tate Browder is one of the slimiest varmints to cruise down the Mississippi. On his boat, the New Moon, he's fleeced many a sucker in poker games that have made his fortune. But Chance Sharpe is on to Browder and his cheating ways … and soon he's won the New Moon with a trick of his own that leaves Browder boiling for revenge ...and Chance fighting to stay afloat. Along the way he meets up with Marilee, a luscious blonde who wants to down Chance … any way she can get him!

A native Texan born in 1946 and the oldest of five children, George Proctor spent his preschool years traveling the thoroughbred horse racing circuit across the United States with his parents (his father, W.L. Proctor was a 9-time nominee for the Racing Hall of Fame before he died in 1998). His family bought a horse training and breeding farm near the East Texas town of Gilmer in the early 1950s. He attended public school in Gilmer, Texas, where he was weaned on TV, comics, paperbacks, and Homer.
“I guess it was in the third grade that I first picked up the Illiad and Odyssey. I must have read them twice every year for five years after that,” George said in an early newspaper interview done in 1978.
The seeds were planted early for becoming a published writer and artist. George saw countless films and read anything he could find growing up and became hooked on the lore of the Old West's action and adventure and history. His Uncle Jack (a roping and riding rodeo winner) took George along on the rodeo circuit during many seasons when George absorbed more history and lore of the West.
Besides the usual farm duties and teen-age employment, Proctor worked on the racetrack with his father through the summers. At age fifteen, he earned an assistant trainer license while working at Detroit Race Course in Detroit, Michigan. He held either an assistant's or stable foreman license until age twenty-two when he graduated from Texas Technological College majoring in journalism and political science with a minor in government.
After college, George worked briefly at KLBK-TV station, a CBS affiliate out of Lubbock, Texas. He served as floor man, soundman, lighting technician, cameraman, commercial talent, advertising copywriter. George began to mentally re-visit “story” ideas that he had in mind since his early years. He loved to read/see a good story and began to think he could write stories based on ideas he'd had starting from his earliest school years.
The writing and art “plant” continued to grow as George spent five years as a newspaper reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, and started to submit short works and ideas to publishers. He worked two+ years on the newspaper's general assignment desk, and three+ years as the Dallas County Courthouse reporter.
Then he began a career as a fulltime freelance writer, editor, artist in 1974. But although George pursued psychological motivations and probed power structures in more serious works, he refused to characterize himself as a “serious” writer and admitted a weakness for the old shoot-em-up-at-the-mountain-and-galactic-pass idea.
“I'm still pretty much an adventure writer,” George told a large convention audience in 1985. “I like action in my stuff.”
George enjoyed action and adventure throughout his life as he delved into numerous avenues in developing ideas, storylines, and characters. He was on-call as a guest lecturer and discussion leader at several colleges and community groups as well as Science Fiction and Western Writers' conventions. The five books in THE TEXIANS (early Texas settlers characterized themselves with this name) western series were published between May 1984 and early 1985 under the penname Zach Wyatt. The CHANCE books (a western series featuring a riverboat gambler) appeared between November 1986 and July 1988 with the pen name Clay Tanner.