About W.R. Benton
As a very young child, W.R. remembers sitting on his great-grandma's knee listening to her tell stories of the old west and of all the people she had known. These stories motivated him to tell his own tall tales of the wild-west and the people who settled it.
W.R. Benton grew up in the Missouri Ozark Mountains and retired from the United States military in 1997 with over twenty-six years of active duty. He has an Associates Degree in Search and Rescue, Survival Operations, a Bachelors Degree in Safety and Health, and a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology near completion.
He is now a freelance writer and award-winning cartoonist, specializiing in Country, or Redneck humor and Wilderness Survival writing.
Recently he has devoted most of his time to writing the Drum Series of books, featuring Jeb, Moses, and Faye. This series is about a medically discharged southern war veteran who takes two run-away slaves and turns to the Rocky Mountains for a new life.
The Plains Series are being worked as well and they will eventually result in a number of Mountain Men books featuring the continuing saga of Jarel Wade, Ty Fisher, and others. The time period is near 1825 and the books are action packed.
W.R. Benton currently has three mountain man novels at the publishers and he is still working on proofing and editing two of them.
Mister Benton writes mainly about the mountain man period of U.S. history and the time immediately following it. Additionally, he has attached a chapter of each of his mountain men books on this site to give you an idea of how the finished product may read. Please check back often for a release date of these books.
His first book, "Silently Beats the Drum", is not set in the mountain man period. It is a book about the Civil War and the main character (Jeb) heads to the mountains to forget a love turned sour. Along with him he takes two black runaways (Moses and Faye) that he met during the war. This book can be viewed here and it is set to be released in the spring of 2005.
There will eventually be two series printed within the next two years, The Drum and the Plains Series.
The Drum Series will follow Jeb, Moses and Faye as they struggle to make the mountains a home. Jeb, a man haunted by horrible memories of combat in the Civil War, struggles to live as a one-legged man. Moses and Faye are two black run away slaves that have attached themselves to Jeb.
The Plains Series will follow Jarel Wade (Walks Proudly as the Sioux know him) as he grows up in the mountains and becomes a mountain man starting from the period of about 1825. Found by two old and tough mountain men, Jarel developed into a man who is fully capable to walk his talk.
Click here to download the first three chapters of "Ty Fisher" for FREE!
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