Herb Marlow has been featured on TV, radio and in print publications nationwide. He is an established authority on childhood issues, a motivational speaker for children and adults, a professional counselor, copywriter and a rancher. He and his wife presently reside on a small working ranch in East Texas.      Dr. Marlow has published thirty-five books, 23 for children, young adults and adults, and 12 professional works addressing counseling issues, writing and education, and a trilogy of books on parenting. As a freelance writer, Herb’s stories and articles have been published in many national periodicals and professional journals, as well as online blogs.      Herb is a captivating speaker and storyteller whose tales engage children and adults alike. Bringing his own real-life stories of challenge and triumph into each speaking engagement, he helps people see their worlds from a higher point of view.      Taking full advantage of his Western roots, Herb has written Dangerous Ground, a series of eleven short stories, to please readers who are themselves living in the West, as well as those who live there in their imaginations. The descriptions of cattle and horse work in the book come from his own experiences, though the cattle he raises and works today are much tamer than the longhorns of those wild days of yesteryear      For more information about Dr. Marlow, visit his website: http://www.fourseasonsbookstore.com

New Title(s) from Herb Marlow

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	From the fired town marshal who stays on to foil a holdup, to a trapper who rescues an orphan boy, this collection is filled with Western heroes of the old breed. The reader can smell the gun smoke, and chuckle at a man who uses an old corset to beat a bully to the draw. Dangerous Ground is not merely a collection of eleven Western short stories, it is historical fiction at its best. Author Herb Marlow will take you to the West and make you wish you’d lived there in the days of bad horses, worse men, and roaring trail towns.
	Excerpt Word Count: 57,300 Pages to Print: 171 File Format: PDF                  Price: $4.99
	Dr. Jonas Slaton, a busy doctor in Winchester, Virginia, volunteers to help the Confederate 6th Louisiana Regiment’s medical team after the 1st Battle of Winchester in 1862. Later, he travels south up the Shenandoah Valley with the regiment to take part on the bloody fighting at The Coaling, just outside Port Republic. Winchester Doctor is a true picture of the cruelties of the Civil War.
Read the In-House Review(s)	Excerpt Word Count: 33,700 Pages to Print: 109 File Format: PDF                  Price: $4.99

 

EXCERPTS

Dangerous Ground

DANGEROUS GROUND                                                                  Chapter One      He was used to the smell of dust, but in this town it wasn’t the clean smell it was out in the pastures. A passing rider on a single-foot bay had stirred up the grit. He wondered again why he’d ever taken this marshal job, but then his mind always came back to how broke he was when he’d shot Curly Snowdon as he mounted his horse after robbing the Bowie Bank. There was no marshal in the town at that time, and the citizens whose money he’d saved immediately hired him for the job.      It wasn’t a bad job, overall. In the winter he particularly liked the idea of waking up on a cold morning knowing he wouldn’t have to mount a ringy bronc and chase through mesquite thorns after cow brutes, but then came spring, and the temptation to chuck the badge and ride out where the long winds blew was so strong he nearly always fought with himself. And it was spring again.      Jules Harding stepped off the boardwalk and into the street, reflecting that there was no jingle of spurs as there had been for so long. A town man had no need to wear heel cutters, and now with his pants over his boot tops rather than inside them, the spurs would have been an extra nuisance anyway.      As he approached the Alhambra Saloon—there must be one of those in every town in the west—Harding stepped back up onto the boardwalk and paused in the shade to look up and down the street. All was quiet as far as he could see, as late afternoon drew evening toward it. Darkness brought danger, but then danger was what he was paid for. He walked on and looked over the batwing doors and into the saloon. Sooner or later he knew he would probably have to close this place down and run Jake O’Hanlon out of town, but not tonight.      Everything in the saloon seemed quiet, so the marshal moved on to the Lady Gay. This was Bowie’s only gambling house. Sure, the other places had card games going on from time to time, but Bert Mayfield had blackjack and faro tables and chuck-a-luck cages. Women of low reputation ran these games, though they were a step above the dancehall girls at Maude’s or the soiled doves at Madame Lange’s.      Jules went in and wandered around watching the play, and also watching the pretty girl at the faro table. Something about her made him wonder why she was working in the place, for she seemed different from the other women, and she never spoke to the men who played at her table, except to call out cards. She looked up as though feeling his eyes on her and lifted the corners of her mouth in a small smile. He wondered if the nickname came from her creamy complexion. Peaches.      As near as he could tell the games were on the up and up, but not being a gambler he couldn’t know for sure. Mayfield, solid stomach pushing out his flowered vest, pushed through the crowd around Peaches Malone’s faro table and said in an oily voice, “Care for a drink, Marshal?” Mayfield knew Harding never touched the stuff, but it was his normal greeting. The marshal ignored him as if he had never spoken, and the red of anger colored the gambler’s neck and cheeks.      Usually he was careful around Harding, knowing that his business depended on the lawman’s good report, but tonight was different. “I spoke to you, lawman, and it’s only polite for you to acknowledge my question.” He gritted out.      Harding slowly looked the man up and down, from his highly polished shoes to the well-cut black frock coat. Mayfield was bald on top, but he tried to cover it by growing his dark brown hair long on the right side and combing it up over the crown of his head. It didn’t do much to cover his baldness, but it sure showed his vanity. Further, he affected a van dyke beard and mustache. This man was a dandy, and proud of himself; he expected everyone to ask how far when he said jump! “I’m real picky about who I talk to, Mayfield, and I don’t choose to talk to you right now,” Harding replied, looking back at the faro game.      He heard the rustle of clothing behind him and he did the unexpected thing, it was what had kept him alive for a year as marshal, he just bent over and shoved the weight that landed on his back right on over and into chuck-a-luck table, scattering cage, dice, chips and players all over the place. When he straightened he turned and looked first at the large man trying to get out of the mess, and then at the gambler. “Now, I’m talking to you, slicker! I always knew you were too big a coward to fight your own battles, but you put your hired muscle on me again and you’ll share a cell with him, do I make myself clear?” The last five words were said right in Mayfield’s face as Harding had gathered up his expensive cravat and bunched it right under his chin. Looking hard into the gambler’s eyes he saw fear.      Before Mayfield could answer Harding shoved him back through the crowd until his back was pressed against the bar. He shook him once, and then threw him aside like a bag of trash. It was too much for Mayfield. Nobody treated him this way! He whipped his right arm up and a double barreled .44 Derringer filled his hand. Quicker than the eye could follow Harding had his own gun out and crashed the barrel down on the gambler’s wrist, obviously breaking it for the crack of bones could be heard throughout the room. The small pearl-handled gun flew from Mayfield’s hand and skittered under a table. He screamed and grabbed his arm.      The marshal turned to look at the rest of the room, but everyone was frozen in place by the sudden action. Without further words Harding picked up the derringer, took the gambler by his uninjured arm, and led him out the door.                  Back to Dangerous Ground

Winchester Doctor

Chapter One     The shabby, ragged men poured down off the ridge like a turgid brown and gray stream, moving at a high trot, almost running, rifles held across their chests, bayonets winking in the May sunshine. They were silent until they hit the first streets, and then from three hundred and fifty throats poured that awful, hair-raising rebel yell.     General Stonewall Jackson’s plan was to secure the bridges that crossed the two forks of the Shenandoah west of the town allowing him to move his army on up the side of Massanutten Mountain to Winchester, twenty miles away where Union General Banks had his headquarters. Jackson was determined to push the Yankees back across the Potomac and threaten Washington D.C.     The word came along with the first Yankee artillery shells: “The regiment facing us is the Union 1st Maryland.” A growl went through the trotting ranks, for the Confederate soldiers entering Front Royal, Virginia were also from the state of Maryland. The Confederate 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment was about to attack the Federal 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment, perhaps brother against brother. The true cruelty of a civil—uncivil—war was about to unfold.     North of the courthouse square on a knob called Richardson’s Hill, Union Colonel John Kenly had positioned his 1st Maryland infantry around two artillery pieces, firing as they saw the charging Confederates. Explosive shells lit among the Southern troops, but the men did not stop; they swept on through the town as happy civilians came to meet them, trying to hand them food and drink. The streets were quickly cleared of Yankee skirmishers, and the Confederate Marylanders, now reinforced by the Major Wheat’s Louisiana Tigers, streamed on into the wheat fields north of town.     Musket balls filled the air as the men from Maryland and Louisiana charged the dug in Yankees on Richardson Hill. But the fire was too hot to continue the charge, and the cannon were spewing grapeshot, so they dropped to the ground behind what shelter they could find and waited.     Confederate Colonel Johnson’s Marylanders were now pinned down, and he sorely needed artillery support, but it was slow in coming. The Yankees were so well dug in that a continued frontal assault would mean the loss of most of his men, so they hugged the ground. The Union artillery from Richardson’s Hill began to pound the Confederate position, with Yankee skirmishers pouring in rifle fire from behind every stone wall and large tree.     With great care, Johnson sent some of his Marylanders crawling back to a depression in the ground, and then on their feet along the sunken bed of Happy Creek to set up a flank attack on the Federal troops from the east.     General Taylor finally brought his entire Louisiana Brigade up to join Wheat’s Tigers, and Jackson saw his chance. He directed Taylor to send three regiments to support Johnson, and one regiment around Richardson’s Hill to flank the Yankees from the west.     Just when nearly all of the Confederate forces were in position, the infantry was saved from a further attack by Colonel Flourney’s cavalry. After tearing up railroad tracks and ripping down telegraph wires west of Front Royal, at two p.m. Flourney rode up to the battle from the south. When Union Colonel Kenly saw the cavalry regiment headed to cut off his escape, he moved his command back north across the river to new positions and dug in again.     To delay the Confederates from crossing the south fork of the Shenandoah, the Yankees set fire to the bridge, but General Taylor saw what was happening and sent the 8th Louisiana to put the fire out. The Union gunners were dropping shells all around, but Colonel Kelly, the 8th’s commander was not to be denied. Leading his men with a shout, he crossed the railroad span and headed for the burning bridge. Under an intense artillery and musket barrage, the men managed to put the fire out and save the bridge, even though a large hole had been burned in the center. As Taylor’s brigade crossed the river in single file around the hole, they saw the Yankees withdrawing north down the Valley.                                Back to Winchester Doctor