The Adventurous Deeds of Deadwood Jones — Helen Hemphill

Saddle up! We're headed for Deadwood. When Prometheus Jones wins a horse with the raffle ticket he got from Pernie and LaRue Boyd, he knows things won't go smoothly. No way are those two rednecks going to let a black man, even a freeman from the day of his birth, keep that horse. So as soon as things get ugly, he jumps on the horse, pulls his friend Omer up behind him, and heads off. They hook up with a cattle drive out of Texas heading for Deadwood, North Dakota. Prometheus is a fine hand with a horse and not so bad with a gun, and both skills prove useful as the trip north throws every twist and turn imaginable at the young cowpokes. The Adventurous Deeds of Deadwood Jones, a Voice of Youth Advocates Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers book, revives the famous "dime novels" about "Deadwood Dick" written by Edward L. Wheeler, which, in turn, were loosely based on the autobiography of the African American cowboy Nat Love.