A Place of Stones

About the Book

In 1899, Jake Beder, a cowboy turned professional gunman, thinks he will not only escape his enemies but also find a new frontier of open range, when he books passage for South Africa. Little does he know that, Beatrice Sands, the girl whose life he saved twenty years ago will finally end her search for him when they both unknowingly wind up in Mafeking, South Africa, as the Boer War commences.

He accepts an offer as a firearms instructor for a British officer, Colonel R.S.S. Baden-Powell, who is raising and training a couple of secret regiments. She enters into a partnership with a saloon owner as 'hostess', employing her talent as a singer which Jake awoke so many years before.

The two displaced Americans discover each other and are faced with the opportunity to rekindle a love once denied them.

But while she wonders if he could ever measure up to the man she has placed on so high a pedestal, he questions what an aging gunslinger has to offer any woman.

Has the love that changed the life of one forever, become just a memory to the other? And what type of future is offered either of them as the Victorian age ends and the 20th century begins.

To find out, they must weather a seven month siege, enduring daily bombardment and deprivations. The tiny township, outnumbered eight to one and heavily outgunned, is called upon to 'brass it out' with 'pluck and bluff', as the star crossed twosome struggle through each night, assessing their innermost feelings, trying to answer the most important question in life.

What chance does love have to reblossom amid warfare in an invested settlement on the edge of the Kalahari Desert?

About the Author

Mr. Potter is a Marine Corp Viet Nam veteran, husband and father, and self employed construction consultant. This is his first novel.