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Meet the Author - Bill Bishop
Born and raised in the Dakota Badlands, “Wild Bill” Bishop has been driven by a pioneer spirit and an unquenchable curiosity in what lies beyond the distant horizon. His wanderlust has taken him to the far corners of the world, where he has come to appreciate the true value of his beloved Black Hills of South Dakota and his western roots.
TWO HEARTS ・ The Tale of Cole Younger's Sweetheart
The Old West comes alive in this epic tale of lawless desperadoes and a man seeking redemption through the love of a good woman. Things become increasing dangerous for Bill Barton as his cattle rustling buddies in Missouri including Frank and Jesse James turn to the ways of gunslinging outlaws. Living a double life as a southerner named Leroy Thompson, Bill works to guard his real identity when south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He knows the promise of his new life would come to a violent end, if his Confederate partners ever found out he had been a Union spy during the war.
While on a cattle rustling foray into Missouri, Bill’s life becomes even more complicated when he accidently runs into the love of his life, Cole Younger’s sweetheart, Lucy Breeden. Lucy feels as deeply for Bill as he does for her which puts the couple on a collision course with the bloodthirsty Cole Younger, who believes if he can’t have Lucy, no one will.
What are they saying?
“Every good yarn has a little action, a little romance, memorable characters, and a soupçon of truth. Bill Bishop’s “Two Hearts” has all of that and more. The fate of Cole Younger, Bill Barton, and their love for Lucy is the story of the West, and the history of a family come to life.”
— Bruce Stronach, Dean, Temple University Japan Campus.
"A master storyteller in command of his craft brings the outlaws of the Old West to life in a cunning tale of revenge and romance."
— Randall Barton, Development Writer, Reed College
“Bill Bishop has returned to his Western roots to pen a frontier adventure that grabs your full attention from beginning to end. “Two Hearts” is a story too real to be fiction.”
— P. Reed Maurer, President, International Alliances Limited
Sneak Peek Under the Cover
Preface
The genesis of this novel is a Barton family myth that has been passed down through the generations for more than 140 years. It has been said that the Barton brothers rode with the James brothers after the Civil War. During these outlaw days, my great-great grandfather ran off with Cole Younger’s sweetheart. It has been further claimed that she may have been part Seneca or Cherokee Indian. As the tale has been told, the couple first met along a small river in northwest Missouri where she was doing laundry. They fell in love, later ran off, got married, and had children who continued the Barton family march west into the Dakota Territory and beyond.
The hero of the tale as I have tried to reconstruct events is Bill Barton who was born in Illinois in 1845 to Amorett Waite and Oromal Bingham Barton. Bill Barton moved from Illinois to Iowa shortly after the Civil War in 1865. John Barton, Bill Barton’s oldest son, was born in Iowa in 1868. John married in Iowa in 1897 and had seven children—three sons and four daughters—and later homesteaded at Rainy Creek near the little town of Creighton, Pennington County in western South Dakota in 1912. John’s oldest son, Bill Barton, named for his grandfather, later married Kathrine (Kate) Busskohl and had three children—two sons, Harold and John, and one daughter, Velda, my mother. From 1929 until 1935, Bill and Kate Barton homesteaded the last available free land near Dewey in Custer County in the Black Hills of South Dakota not far from where gold was first discovered on French Creek in 1874.
I have spun both fact and fiction into this epic tale, drawing from historical facts about the Barton family as well as facts surrounding: Jesse and Frank James; Cole, Jim, Bob, and John Younger; William Quantrill; Bloody-Bill Anderson; Clell Miller; Charlie Pitts; Bill Chadwell; Belle Starr; Judge Shirley; Allen Pinkerton; General George Armstrong Custer; Capitan Leander McNelly; Dan Rice; and many others as well as drawing from the many accounts of the Northfield, Minnesota bank robbery and the ensuing manhunt. The story roughly takes place over a ten-year period from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the presidential election in 1876.
As it happens, the year 1876 marks a watershed in American history. Many tectonic events converged during the preceding decade that have in many ways set the foundations of the America in which we live today. From the purchase of the Alaska territory, the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, the rise of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (later to evolve into today’s FBI), the opening of the last Indian lands in the Dakotas, and the celebration of America’s first centennial, to the globalization of the ice trade, the establishment of America’s modern day Christmas traditions, the discovery of the telephone, the death of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the running of the first Kentucky Derby, the demise of the James-Younger Gang in Northfield, Minnesota, and the contested presidential election of 1876 which led to the sudden decision to withdraw federal troops and end southern reconstruction, resulting in the loss of civil rights for millions of newly freed slaves for nearly one hundred years. All these events and many more have been woven into the story, each playing a role in helping to set the stage and propel the plot forward. In writing this fictional account, I found it necessary to include a few historical facts, believing we are all products of the times in which we live. Bill Barton and Lucy Breeden were no different.
This is a work of fiction, none of the characters or events depicted in this story are intended to represent any true persons either living or deceased or their true actions or intentions or any actual historical events. This fictional novel is at best a flight of fancy based on a long-held Barton family myth. The author’s intent is to entertain, not to inform readers of the accurate recounting of historical persons, facts, or events. The author reserves the right to leave the writing of history to historians. As to those things that may be plausible, the author believes the realm of the possible is limited only by an understanding of the facts and your own imagination.
Bill Bishop
Hot Springs, South Dakota
July 22, 2018
Story Excerpt
Too Close for Comfort
A horse’s nicker pierced the moonless inky-black silence like the point of a razor-sharp lance. The unmistakable sound bristled the hairs on Bill’s sweat drenched neck, sending his heart pounding in his chest like a caged beast. Bill laid on his horse, cupping its head with both hands, firmly clamping off any unguarded reply. He judged the nicker had come from the thicket off to his left no more than a hundred yards behind him. He had no way to know if his relentless pursuer knew Bill was close or was simply trying to see what he might be able to flush out of the shadows.
The rider and his nickering horse continued to pick their way through the brush first one way, then the other, coming ever closer with every step. The rider made no attempt to silence his winded pony. Bill had ridden hard for hours to stay ahead of his pursuers until his horse could go no further. Laying him down in the brush, Bill had hoped to rest and, God willing, to let his pursuers ride on by. That plan seemed like a good one at the time, but now he wondered how his pursuers seemed to always know his every move in advance. When he had doubled back, his pursuers were ready. When he had ridden up a small stream to cover his tracks, his pursuers had followed without missing a beat. He even tried using livestock to shield his movements; once again, his pursuers hadn’t been fooled. Hiding in the shadows, he feared all his running would soon come to a violent end.
Bill knew if he let his horse up and tried to face down his pursuers or if he now tried to make a run for it in the open, he would be cut down without mercy. It was well-known the Youngers all carried Winchesters that they could rapid-fire with deadly accuracy at a full gallop. The wound in his shoulder reminded him that the stories of their shooting abilities were no exaggeration. His only hope was for the rider to pass by close enough that he might take him down from behind with the wicked razor-sharp blade of the knife he had acquired back in Louisville, Kentucky from the late Jacob O’Leary. Killing a Younger was his worst possible option. If he did, the Youngers would redouble their efforts to pursue him to the gates of hell and beyond to even the score. If pushed, however, he would do it without hesitation. As with so many condemned men, Bill found religion and prayed to all that was holy for his pursuer to pass by quietly, so he could ride out when the coast was clear. The course history would now take depended solely on the whims of a nickering pony and its relentless rider.
A barking growl seemed to come out of nowhere, “Cole, Cole, over here! Bobby thinks he found his trail and traces of fresh blood.” The rider reined up less than twenty feet from where Bill and his jet-black steed lay motionless in the brush. One downward glance and the rider would find his prey. Bill froze as time slowed to a standstill.
“On my way!” yelled the rider as he swung his horse around, spurring its flanks to quicken its pace. Bill instantly recognized the voice of the rider as belonging to the natural-born killer, Cole Younger himself. The jingle of tack and thumping of hoofbeats faded into the distance.
Voices drifted on the wind as Bill heard Cole Younger and other men discussing their next moves. One of the men had a high-pitched voice that carried well in the cool night air. Bill could clearly hear him outline the gang’s future plans.
Howdy partner, glad you swung by!
Just a short 600-word excerpt to get you up in your saddle taken from TWO HEARTS:
September 3, 1876
Rockwell City,
Calhoun County, Iowa
Too Close for Comfort
Now that you're up on your horse, why not come join the posse. Prepare yourself for a wild ride through a thicket of blazing guns, hardened desperadoes, tender moments, and all the frontier bravado of the Old West come to life.
Giddyap, partner. It's time to ride.