 Feature, Novel - Drama, Frontier/Western Thrown from a racing stagecoach, a naïve runaway heads to Abilene, Kansas—where cowhands and outlaws vie for her affections until her fiancé tracks her down and nearly destroys the town trying to drag her home. The Prairie Dance doesn’t attempt to tell or rewrite history, but loosely weaves together the yarns and anecdotes of several African Americans who lived in the Wild West—including Black “Stagecoach” Mary Fields, the young cowhand Nat Love, a lovable con artist Ben Hodges, and outlaw Cherokee Bill. Buy the book on Amazon.com!  Finalist - Peachtree Village International Film Festival Fleeing an arranged marriage, Maggie Glass hops on a stagecoach headed west. She is beautiful, wealthy, naïve, and can rely only on her book smarts. Two drunkards rob her and throw her from a racing stagecoach onto the Kansas prairie. Alone in the wide sea of grass, she keeps the wolves at bay by flapping her parasol open and shut.
Mary Fields is tall and gruff, a former slave who is a hired hand at a mission church. After winning a shootout, she is fired, but agrees to run one last delivery for the nuns. At night, her coach is attacked by buffalo wolves—who set the horses racing and the coach bouncing so that the hitch breaks free and Mary teeters along on two wheels until finally landing on the prairie. She finds Maggie, and uses her Winchester to save her from the wolves. They encounter rambunctious cowboys and a helpful, yet aggressive, Indian on their way to Abilene, Kansas—the first of the Wild West towns where all Hell is in session. Mary finds her con-artist friend, Ben Hodges, more or less running the town from his poker table at the Alamo saloon. He stacks the cards so that Mary wins a restaurant, which then becomes an instant success when she and Maggie open for business. Their most frequent customer is young cowhand, Nat Love, whose hair is as long and wild as the tales he tells. Only Maggie is naïve enough to believe the outlandish stories he tells, and only she doesn’t see that he has fallen hard for her. After all, she is more interested in outlaw Cherokee Bill—a man so dangerous that Wild Bill Hickock declares it against the law to attempt apprehending him. As the cattle season comes to a head, Maggie’s fiancé tracks her down and arrives in Abilene to bring her home. At the same time, a rodeo organized by Ben is a disastrous success—and when the dust finally clears, two of Maggie’s suitors will be dead, and the town forever changed. Comments are closed.
|