Ghosts of the Green Swamp - Lee Gramling

Cracker Westerns are rip-roarin, action-packed, can't-put-'em-down tales set in the frontier days of Florida. They are full of adventure, real heroes, and vivid, authentic details that bring Florida's history to life.

It's 1877 and Tate on his faithful Ole Roan sets out into the vast and ominous swampland west of Orlando. He doesn't get far before he's waylaid and left for dead by some henchmen sent by the ruthless and mysterious Mr. Ravenant. But then Tate meets up with the odd and ornery little bald "perfessor" named Monk, who sells elixirs from his odd contraption of a wagon, which features a rattling, banging collection of pans and kettles as well as "music" from a mechanical box with pipes, drums, chimes and a banjo. Tate and Monk-and an odd assortment of other characters-follow a trail that draws them ever deeper into that vast forbidding swampland near the headwaters of the Withlacoochee River. Can there be any truth to the local legends of "haints" and witches who roam the swamp's dark vastness? Or of travelers and settlers who disappear without a trace, imprisoned by some evil force? This Cracker Western will have your spine tingling as it races on to the all-out showdown at the end.