Ralph Compton the Alamosa Trail

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was the USA Today bestselling author of the Trail of the Gunfighter series, the Border Empire series, the Sundown Rider series, and the Trail Drive series, among others.

Robert Vaughan is the Spur Award-winning author of Survival: A Novel Of The Donner Party (written under the pseudonym K. C. McKenna). He lives in Sikeston, MO.