Born and reared on a New Mexico ranching and dairy farm, the death of his father forced Paul L. Thompson to quit school three months shy of finishing the eighth grade. His mother sold the homestead down to the wood flooring, and at 13 years of age Paul Thompson left to find work in Texas. He found work on a ranch owned by a man in whom history and myth has so often collided: The very real and legendary Charles Goodnight.
Of his employment under Goodnight, Thompson has remarked, "Nowhere in the world did they feed the men better. At thirteen I received the same wages as the forty or so year-old man riding right beside me. It was none of this 'yer just a kid, you get half wages' as is said today. You did a man's work and got a man's pay. Then again, I don't know very many thirteen year-olds that know how to work, even if they're permitted it."
Following his ranching employment under Goodnight, Thompson moved on to another brush with history that stands uncontested to this day. He rode for the XIT Ranch, which sprawling out at three million acres, was at one time the world's largest range under fence. Texas used the sale of the XIT to pay for it's red granite capitol, which remains the largest on the North American Continent while boasting of a dome standing seven feet higher than that of the U.S. capitol dome.
Thompson moved on into working for other West Texas ranches and by the age of 17 had rode horseback from central New Mexico to Calgary, Canada. His travels via horseback have taken him all over New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and into areas of Utah and Wyoming.
With the last vestiges of the West being replaced by a world of mechanization, the 22 year-old Thompson took stock of his life. Now married, the father of two children and by society's standards, uneducated, he had few employment prospects of any value. So once again he grabbed the reins of responsibility and took a placement test that enabled him to entered high school. Although it had been a little late in coming, three months later he graduated the 12th grade with straight A's. He went into Pasadena City College for two years and followed-up that with four years at UCLA. Thompson graduated with a Mechanical Engineering Degree.
But even long-after his graduation, with the West relegated to little more than celluloid shadows of reality, Thompson was being beckoned by the call of the West--in particularly, the call of the Western lawman. He answered that call by picking up a deputy Sheriff's badge. His horse had become the automobile and the frontier was now the back streets and alleyways of Corrales New Mexico. But after 2½ years, and having almost bled to death from a gunshot wound, Thompson turned in his badge and hung up his six iron.
Having recovered from his brush with death, Thompson made use of his degree in Mechanical Engineering by going on to serve as a consultant for numerous Electric Generating power plants throughout the United States. He retired early in order to concentrate on western epics based upon his exposure to and experiences in the now long-gone Wild West.
Thompson reports that every location in his novels is accurate down to the detail.
"If my characters lead me off where I haven't been or don't remember," he says, "I saddle the horse and go see for myself. In 1992 I rode horseback in the Mogollon, Gila Wilderness area of New Mexico and Arizona doing research on eight novels. This little trip took just over three months..."
Narrating in the authentically seasoned dialect of a southwestern storyteller, Paul L. Thompson is himself a tribute to the thrilling and heartbreaking hardships of our nation's western history. His depiction of the epic old west and the authoritative knowledge with which he writes will have you along for a ride in the 1870s. A ride that you'll swear has you atop a steed and racing across a sweeping panorama while colt dragoons are blazing hot in your hands right now!
