"I've written this book in hopes that its stories--and the incredible people they're about--will pull our country closer together through a shared history of the American West. In its own way the Wild West was a melting post every bit as much as the cities of the East Coast--and maybe even more so. While the American cowboy is, deservedly, a cultural icon and part of our national mythology, what many people don't know, is that a significant percentage of America's cowboys were African American, Latino, and Native American. Many cowboys were even... cowgirls." -- excerpt from author's note page 7.