Mavericks (1967)

Mavericks
Jack Schafer, il. Lorence Bjorklund
1967, Dell Publishing

Smallish and stunted, grass-bellied, cat-hipped. Almost everything splendid gone - everything except the spirit and the hardihood. And the stubborn clutch on freedom.

Jake Hanlon is an old man aware he's outlived his era, freshly aware that even this mourned time of cowboys and horses was part of the same process of progress that's killed off his kind and brought an end to the mustangs. Living in an old, abandoned ranch house in New Mexico, he reflects back on the horses he's known, all of them mustangs. The wild white mustang who refused to be captured. The outlaw's horse, Jimmie Dun, who outlasted the Thoroughbreds and the cheaters in an endurance race. Last Dollar, the mustang he liberates from a Chicago street peddler, whose body is forever stunted by his poor early years but who manages to save Jake's life. And the broomtail herds he's spent his old age freeing from the men who want to eradicate them from the range, going to jail over and over as the sympathetic but exasperated local law tries to find a solution.



A mourning for the Old West, the mustangs and the cowboys, from one of the most famous western writers. Beautifully illustrated by Bjorklund.

Horses
White Mustang - grey stallion
Jimmie Dun - 14h dun gelding
Last Dollar - sorrel mustang with 4 socks and a star
Sorrel Clipper - Thoroughbred/Standardbred cross
Thunderbolt
Limpy Galumpus - roan gelding
Little Brown Jug - sorrel gelding
Smilin' Joe - dun gelding
Little Minx Minnie - sorrel mare

Other Books
Shane
First Blood
The Big Range
The Canyon
The Pioneers
Company of Cowards
The Kean Land and Other Stories
Old Ramon
Tales from the West
Incident on the Trail
The Plainsmen (illustrated by Lorence Bjorklund)
Monte Walsh
The Great Endurance Horse Race
Stubby Pringle's Christmas (illustrated by Lorence Bjorklund)
Heroes Without Glory
Collected Stories
Adolphe Francis Alphonse Bandelier
New Mexico
An American Bestiary, 1975
Conversations with a Pocket Gopher and Other Outspoken Neighbors

Movies based on his Books
Shane
- classic
- remake
- TV series
Monte Walsh
Monte Walsh remake
Stubby Pringle's Christmas

Movies based on his short Stories
The Silver Whip
Tribute To A Bad Man
Once A Hero
Trooper Hook
The Company Of Cowards

About the Author
1907-1991
Born in Cleveland, the son of a lawyer, graduated from Oberlin in 1929. Started a master's at Columbia, then became a reporter. He was living in Waterbury, Connecticut when he wrote his most famous western novels, moving west to New Mexico only in 1955.

Links
The Jack Schaefer page