It was a time before Terlingua Ranch and chili cook-offs, when you could drive a hundred miles without seeing another vehicle or another person. The year was 1961, and the tides of humanity that ebbed and flowed into the lower reaches of the Big Bend were at their historic nadir. It was a vast, empty land spotted by isolated ranch headquarters, a national park with few visitors, and the many ruins of a past shrouded in legend, lore, and improbable truths. There was no television, no daytime radio, few telephones, and very few people.

Six generations of Ben H. English's family have called this enigmatic region "home." With his family headquartered at the old Lajitas Trading Post, he worked and lived on ranches and places now little more than forgotten dots on yellowing maps. He attended the one-room schoolhouse at Terlingua, prowled the banks of the Rio Grande, and crisscrossed the surrounding areas time and again on horseback and by foot.

Some fifty years later he writes about those many decades ago, revealing along the way the history and legends of this singular land he knows so well. English separates fact from fiction and brings the reader into a world that few these days could ever imagine, much less experience. He also explores the lower Big Bend as it is found now, and the extraordinary vistas one can still discover just over the next rise.