Plot summary
This book is the story of a cowboy, Jack Burns, who lives as a transient worker and roaming ranch hand much as the cowboys of old did, and refuses to join modern society. He rejects much of modern technology, prefers to cut down any fence he comes across, will not carry any kind of modern identification such as a driver's license or Social Security card, and refuses to register for the draft. When his friend Paul Bondi, who is a philosophical anarchist, is jailed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for refusing to register for the draft, Burns deliberately gets himself arrested in an attempt to break his friend out of jail, but winds up on the run from the law himself.
Bondi has been tried and is awaiting transport from county jail to federal prison but refuses to escape with Burns. As police have discovered that Burns has also never registered for the draft, authorities are intent on sending Burns to trial and eventually federal prison for violation of the Selective Service Act of 1948. Burns eventually escapes reluctantly leaving his friend behind. After a brief stop to say goodbye to Paul's wife, Jerry, and son, Seth, Jack heads into the Sandia Mountains, just east of Albuquerque, on horseback.
The police mount a manhunt and pull out all the stops to capture Burns, including helicopters on loan by the Air Force. If Burns can scale the mountain range, he figures he can escape under the cover of the forest on the other side. The police know this as well, so they position themselves to prevent that from happening.
Links to other work
Many casual fans of Abbey might consider George Washington Hayduke as the author's favorite character, but it was John W. "Jack" Burns who Abbey kept writing about. Burns is introduced in The Brave Cowboy. He is also a major character in Abbey's science fiction novel, Good News . Burns makes cameo appearances in both The Monkey Wrench Gang and Hayduke Lives! .
The Brave Cowboy also contains elements of future books, though the relationship between them is unclear. The Brave Cowboy explains that Burns is the grandson of Henry Vogelin, whose ranch Burns spent time on as a child. The ranch, currently in the hands of the US Air Force is part of a base commanded by General DeSalius. Vogelin and DeSalius will be characters six years later in Abbey's 1962 work Fire on the Mountain , the story of a boy from the East Coast who visits his grandfather's ranch and falls in love with the desert and ranch life just in time to see both destroyed by development. However, Burns's time on the ranch is well detailed in Brave Cowboy and the only characters the stories share are Vogelin and DeSalius. Though the book is written as a memoir, Jack seems too old to have been the boy staying on the ranch at the moment of dispossession. Having written Fire On The Mountain after The Brave Cowboy, Abbey chose to write about the child "Billy" rejecting the option of using the novel to explain the past of Jack Burns. Yet it is still possible that the novels are directly linked, as the number of Vogelin's children is never revealed. Jack and Billy may be cousins or brothers, and the Vogelin and ranch in question may indeed be the same in both novels.
Lonesome Dove is a 1985 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series and the third installment in the series chronologically. It was a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1989, it was adapted as a TV miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, which won both critical and popular acclaim. McMurtry went on to write a sequel, Streets of Laredo (1993), and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997), all of which were also adapted as TV series.
Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire.
The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1975.
Hayduke Lives!, written in 1989 by Edward Abbey, is the sequel to the popular book The Monkey Wrench Gang. It was published posthumously in 1990 in a mildly unfinished state, as Abbey did not complete revision prior to his death. Thus, the book retains much of its author's unrefined musings.
George Washington Hayduke is a fictional character in Edward Abbey's novels The Monkey Wrench Gang and Hayduke Lives! Hayduke is portrayed as a rugged individualist in the books by Abbey, and has a predilection for working independently when protecting the environment. He is at first skeptical of working with the rest of the monkey wrench gang early in the first book, but soon collaborates with them.
Hayduke is a term and verb used among environmental activists and people who cite cult "revenge" books. It is the name of George Washington Hayduke, a fictional character based on Edward Abbey's friend Doug Peacock in Abbey's cult classics The Monkey Wrench Gang and Hayduke Lives!. The Hayduke character personified the "no compromise in defense of the Earth" approach to environmentalism, made real in early Earth First! activism.
Black Sun is a 1971 novel by Edward Abbey about a fire lookout who falls in love with an American girl and is wrongly blamed when she mysteriously disappears in the Grand Canyon National Park.
The Fool's Progress is a novel written by American author Edward Abbey (1927–1989), published in 1988.
Fire on the Mountain is a 1962 novel by Edward Abbey. It was Abbey's third published novel and followed Jonathan Troy and The Brave Cowboy.
Lonely Are the Brave is a 1962 American black and white Western film adaptation of the Edward Abbey novel The Brave Cowboy directed by David Miller from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and starring Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands and Walter Matthau.
Doug Peacock is an American author, filmmaker, wildlife activist, and Vietnam War veteran. He is best known for his work dedicated to grizzly bear recovery in the lower-48, his book Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness and serving as the model for the well-known character George Washington Hayduke in Edward Abbey's novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. Doug is the co-founder of several conservation organizations including Round River Conservation Studies and Save The Yellowstone Grizzly.
Jack Twist is a fictional character in the short novel "Brokeback Mountain", by Annie Proulx, and the 2005 film adaptation of the same name where he is portrayed by American actor Jake Gyllenhaal. Jack's story primarily follows the complex sexual and romantic relationship he has with Ennis Del Mar in the American West from 1963 to 1983.
George Hayduke is the pen name of a prolific anonymous author of prank books. The name is believed to be based on the character George Washington Hayduke III, created by Edward Abbey in his 1975 book The Monkey Wrench Gang, and 1990 book Hayduke Lives!. Often in collaboration with perhaps equally pseudonymous co-author M. Nelson Chunder, Hayduke has authored numerous guides to pranks and practical jokes, primarily intended for vengeance. Activities suggested range from the merely annoying and mischievous to the illegal and extremely dangerous. Hayduke's book Getting Even: The Complete Book of Dirty Tricks was found in the locker of a man accused of the USS Iowa turret explosion, which killed 47 people.
Lonesome Dove is a 1989 American epic Western adventure television miniseries directed by Simon Wincer. It is a four-part adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry and is the first installment in the Lonesome Dove series. The novel was based upon a screenplay by Peter Bogdanovich and McMurtry. The miniseries stars an ensemble cast headed by Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call. The series was originally broadcast by CBS from February 5 to 8, 1989, drawing a huge viewing audience, earning numerous awards, and reviving both the television Western and the miniseries.
Public Cowboy No. 1 is a 1937 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and Ann Rutherford. Based on a story by Bernard McConville, the film is about a singing cowboy who chases down rustlers who are using airplanes, shortwave radios, and refrigerated trucks to steal cattle.
Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge is a 1937 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and Betty Bronson. Based on a story by Jack Natteford, the film is about the son of a Southeastern cattleman who becomes entangled in a war between the cattlemen and "turpentiners" who make their living harvesting pine tree sap.
Colorado Sunset is a 1939 American Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and June Storey. Written by Betty Burbridge and Stanley Roberts, based on a story by Luci Ward and Jack Natteford, the film is about a singing cowboy and his buddies who discover that the ranch they bought is really a dairy farm—and worse, it's subject to intimidation from a protection racket that prevents dairy products from safely reaching the market.
The Hayduke Trail is an 812-mile (1,307 km) backpacking route across southern Utah and northern Arizona. It begins in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, before heading through the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park and ending in Zion National Park.
Along the Navajo Trail is a 1945 American Western film directed by Frank McDonald and starring Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes and Dale Evans. The film's story was based on a William Colt MacDonald novel. The film marked the debut of the Cuban actress Estelita Rodriguez, who Republic Pictures then began to build up into a star. Its title song is Along the Navajo Trail, an instrumental version of which appears with the opening credits, with a brief vocal version during the last twenty seconds of the film. The first few bars of the song are used as background music in several chase scenes.
Seldom Seen may refer to:
