Camels West — Phyllis de La Garza

Now, twenty years later, the United States Congress is depending upon the young woman's curandura medical skills and courage to help their agent in a tactical experiment using imported camels. The camels are to be transport carriers as he surveys a wagon road along the 35th Parallel from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River.

If all goes well, use of these camels would be the first step in a plan to study, breed and adapt camels at Camp Verde for both long-distance transport and for war. Camels were used successfully by the Persian Army as artillery base carriers, and their reputation as "Gunships of the Desert" was impressive. Camels would be as familiar as the packhorse and donkey on the American frontier and in war! But the plan needed time, and the American Civil War and the railroad ultimately ended the experiment.

CAMELS WEST is an epic, action adventure based on a real but little known period in America's history. The camels, their handlers, the Comanche danger and the trek are all true. US government agent Jeremy McNeal is based on a real person. Graciela is fiction, to round out the story with a romance and to add the dimension of a woman's emotions. She is a representation of all the strong women who helped open the West. The herbal medicines and skills ascribed to her character have all been meticulously researched and are accurate.

This is the sensational story of the exotic camels, and the commitment of a man and a woman to their jobs...and to each other.