Ashes on His Boot is based on the history of the American West in the early 19th century, a time before cowboys rode the range and railroads linked America coast-to-coast. Native American and immigrant cultures clashed. Adventurous settlers explored, invented, fought, farmed, lived and died in the lands west of the Mississippi. Lewis and Clark roamed the frontier searching for a Northwest Passage. Eli Whitney's cotton gin changed the face of agriculture and industry, rekindling the slave trade. And central to this story, Samuel Colt's repeating pistols influenced the strategy and tactics of warfare on the Plains.
In 1836, John Coffee (Jack) Hays, not yet twenty years old, left Tennessee and went to Texas to join Sam Houston's militia. He arrived too late to fight at the Alamo or San Jacinto, but still became an early Western hero, his legend larger than life. Hays had the unique strength of body, mind and character, plus the dogged determination and incredible luck that let him live to influence the settlement of the West.
- A 2016 Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards Honorable Mention Winner
- "Wuench's sweeping historical novel...does justice to the idea of the tough, whiskey soaked West...it offers a fun and lively representation of a storied time in the country's past." Excerpt from The Booklife Prize in Fiction review