Fools' Frontier

Crossing the Red Man River when it was in full flood wasn’t the wisest thing gambler Duke Benedict and his cowboy sidekick Hank Brazos had ever done. And when the ferry they riding tore free of its ropes, they found themselves driven downstream until their wild ride ended on the banks of Peaceful Valley. Here, a religious order had built itself a town … but the Devil had settled in those parts, too, for one of the townsfolk had just been murdered, and the two newcomers quickly found themselves accused of the killing!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Peaceful Valley was about to get a visit from bad man Chad Irons and his gang of cutthroats. Before he’d been sent to prison, the valley had been Irons’ hideaway. Now he intended to take it back – and kill everyone who stood in his way!
One way or another, it was time for Benedict and Brazos to start fighting back …
 
E. Jefferson Clay was just one of many pseudonyms used by New South Wales-born Paul Wheelahan (1930-2018). Starting off as a comic-book writer/illustrator, Paul created The Panther and The Raven before moving on to a long and distinguished career as a western writer. Under the names Emerson Dodge, Brett McKinley, E. Jefferson Clay, Ben Jefferson and others, he penned more than 800 westerns and could, at his height, turn out a full-length western in just four days.
The son of a mounted policeman, Paul initially worked as a powder money on the Oaky River Dam project. By 1955, however, he was drawing Davy Crockett—Frontier Scout. In 1963 he began his long association with Australian publisher Cleveland Pty. Co. Ltd. As prolific as he was as a western writer, however, he also managed to write for TV, creating shows like Runaways and contributing scripts to perennial favorites like A Country Practice. At the time of his death, in December 2018, he was writing his autobiography, Never Ride Back … which was also the title of his very first western.


Genre: Western