Coyotes I Have Known

Novice rancher John Duncklee saw his share of buzzards during the 1950s while husbanding a herd of cattle through Arizona's worst drought in 400 years, and he told the story of those days in the captivating book Good Years for the Buzzards. Duncklee spend the next dew years buying Mexican steers in Sonora, farming in the Santa Cruz Valley, and raising quarter horses on a small ranch near Nogales, Arizona. During that time he found that he had to cope with a different kind of creature: coyotes-people who weren't necessarily con artists but were sly and cunning like their canine counterparts and who need to be dealt with accordingly. Human coyotes, Duncklee learned, can be a great company, but transacting business with them can be risky.

"Coyotes I Have Known" recalls life along the border in a time that, while fairly recent, has already vanished. Fortunately, for today's readers, Duncklee has captured both the romance and the grittiness of western life as experienced not long ago.