The Lost Wagon Train

by Zane Grey

First published 1936

Amazon

3.8(207)

In the aftermath of the Civil War, a disgraced former Confederate drifts west and falls in with men who raid travellers along the Santa Fe Trail and the Cimarron Cutoff. The violence of wartime has followed these men into civilian life, turning a major route of migration and commerce into an arena for robbery, revenge and concealed identities.

Years later, the consequences of those raids continue to shape the people involved. The novel links outlaw adventure with the unsettled post-war borderlands of Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and New Mexico, where former soldiers, migrants and lawmen are all trying to build new lives from a conflict that has not ended cleanly.