Heston Price is a man shaped by fire — by the one that consumed his childhood cabin in the winter of 1867; by the flames of revenge that’ve burned inside him since; and by those that forged him on the Wyoming plains.
“Plainsman Afire” — my debut novel — is coming soon. And I’d like to tell you what it’s about before you even turn the first page.
The Day That Everything Changed
Heston was a boy when four riders showed up at his family’s two-room cabin outside of Liberty, Missouri. They asked to water their horses; he let them in to warm by the fire.
What happened next changed his life: They left his mother dead on the dirt floor, the cabin in flames, and Heston and his little sister, Becky, riding into a cold February morning with nothing but the horses they grabbed from their barn.
Before fleeing over a hill, one of the riders — a well-dressed man on a black horse — pauses, tips his hat and rides away. No urgency, no guilt. Just a hat tip. And gone.
That image has never left Heston Price. Nor have the names of those men: Frederic Frye. Mitchell Goode. Elliot Mince. August Vance Junior. And the fifth one — the man on the hill — whose name remains unknown.
He’s going to find them. All of them. And when he does, he’ll kill. Each. One.
He’s neither hero nor villain. He’s something more honest: a man consumed.
Heston Price is among the finest gunmen on the Wyoming plains in 1888, and he knows it. His Remington Model 1875 speaks before most men can think, and he unleashes it the way a surgeon operates: with steadiness and precision. He has killed men in saloons and on open roads. He’ll tell you he doesn’t enjoy it. He’ll also say that a man who can’t kill another within five shots has no business carrying a firearm.
But hidden within all that gun smoke is something remarkably human: a boy who watched his mother die, who raised his sister in a relative’s home, and has spent over twenty years seeing the faces of five vicious men in a recurring nightmare.
He is, in others’ whispered words, a plainsman afire — burning with a purpose that’s both worthy and frightening.
Why I Wrote This Story
For nearly forty years, I worked as a journalist covering people at their best, their worst, and every complex label in between. What I’ve learned is that the most powerful stories aren’t about good guys or bad guys — they’re about people who contain bits of both.
Heston Price is exactly that: His quest for revenge is just, his methods are brutal and his loneliness is real. I wanted to write a Western that felt neither nostalgic nor sanitized, but gritty, honest and alive with details that put you in the saddle, riding through the Wyoming foothills, smelling the pine trees and black powder in the brisk morning air.
The Trail Awaits
“Plainsman Afire” will be available at major retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Indigo, Everand, Booktopia, Goodreads, and more. A publication date will be announced soon — stay connected at chriscoxwriter.com. If you know someone who loves Westerns and revenge stories, or a riveting protagonist, this book is for them. Share this post. Get them ready.
So, saddle up. And let’s ride.
Chris Cox
Spring 2026.