Mike Nelson

Broken Cowboy Mike Nelson

Fred Bracken, son of a small-town Montana rancher, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1968 and was sent to the jungles of Vietnam, where he served his time in the elite Marine Force Recon.
Months later, wounded and fraught with nightmares, he returns home to his Montana ranch to face not only the demons of his childhood but also those he brought home with him from the jungle.
His plans? College, marriage, and a normal future. The problem is, after a drunk driver kills his parents in a car crash, Fred is forced to drop out of school to run the ranch now heavily in debt. Worse yet, he's not so welcome in his hometown. The bullies he had to put up with in grade school have grown up, and their fathers pretty much own the valley. They want his ranch but don't want to pay much to get it. What will they do to force him out? What is Fred willing to do to survive?