High Iron — Frank Bonham

Here, for the first time in book form, are three of Bonham's best Western short novels. "The Sin of Wiley Brogan" is the good-humored tale of a young horse-breaker fed up with his lot in life, whose chance meeting with an entrepreneurial postal official leads him into a riotous new profession involving stagecoach competition for the delivery of mail in eastern Oregon. "Texicans Die Hard" has a south of the border locale and an intricate plot in which a Texas cowhand inherits an old Chihauhuan rancho. His decision to work the ranch with his sidekick leads him into a series of conflicts. "High Iron," a saga of epic proportions, tells of the men who built the Central Pacific Railroad through the High Sierras, and of the multiple hazards, both natural and man-made, that they faced and overcame.

Frank Bonham made significant contributions to Western fiction. Bill Pronzini was born in Petaluma, California.