Hard to Have Heroes - Softcover

Mays, Buddy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826352049 ISBN 13: 9780826352040

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, 2012

Synopsis

When fourteen-year-old wannabe cowboy Noah Odell and his widowed mother leave rainy Gold Hill, Oregon, to join Noah's flamboyant uncle Bud on a ranch in New Mexico, they find themselves in the middle of nowhere with daily temperatures in excess of 100 degrees; enough rattlesnakes, buzzards, and hungry coyotes to start a zoo; a dozen scrawny steers; and a smelly outdoor toilet overrun with black widow spiders.

When Bud presents Noah with a cantankerous mule named Brimstone, the adventures begin. Accompanied by his new best friends--an unlikely cowboy philosopher named Marvin Couch and a precocious tomboy prodigy named LaDonna Hawthorne--Noah and his mule encounter some of the Chihuahuan Desert's strangest characters. Green space monsters, eccentric Apache college professors, jackalopes, royal Spanish ghosts, and an inept gang of local bullies assure that the days are never dull, especially when the U.S. Army lawyers and MPs try to confiscate Bud's ranch to expand a top-secret rocket-testing facility at nearby White Sands Proving Ground.

About this title

From the Author:

Believe it or not, most of Noah Odell's adventures in Hard to Have Heroes actually happened....to me, when I was fourteen years old and living with my mother and my Uncle Bud in Tularosa, New Mexico in 1957. For example, I vividly remember hearing radio reports of a saucer shaped craft landing on a remote section of highway between Alamogordo and El Paso, Texas, stopping automobile engiles in the process. And although I never owned a mule, my Uncle Bud did present me with a small, wild-eyed mangy-looking horse--probably stolen from the nearby Apache Indian Reservation--which I used as my main source of transportation for almost a year.

From the Back Cover:

When fourteen-year-old wannabe cowboy Noah Odell moves to his flamboyant uncle's ranch in rural New Mexico, he soon finds himself encountering some of the Chihuahuan Desert's strangest characters. The days are never dull, especially when the U.S. Army tries to confiscated the ranch to expand a top-secret rocket-testing facility.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0826352049
• ISBN 13: 9780826352040
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248