Best Shot in the West: The Adventures of Nat Love

Nat Love is a formerly enslaved African American who survived amid great danger through his marksmanship and horsemanship, showing talent, skill, resourcefulness, and resilience. And after his days as a cowboy ends, he goes on to a successful career on the railroad as a Pullman porter. The authors show that African Americans played a vital role in taming the frontier, and the story puts Love's life into the greater context of the African American experience.

Life in the Old West was dangerous and unforgiving. Nat endures stampedes, shootings, stabbings, and attacks by natives. A few discreet splashes of red in the painted pages are usually enough to suggest an injury or sudden loss of life. The depictions of bloodshed are unlikely to disturb any but the most sensitive readers.

When Love is captured by Native Americans, the chief gives him his daughter for marriage. The clear implication is that girl is under age, and Love escapes from the village before the exact nature of the "marriage" can be detailed.

Nat and his fellow cowboys spend a night carousing in Dodge City, but the impressionistic illustrations of the temptations to be found in the local saloons leave the details obscured.