Zane Grey made the setting of this novel famous in his Riders of the Purple Sage. He wrote about a world that never existed, of feats that were impossible, and he missed the real people who lived and died trying to tame this wild plain of sage brush.
Over 60 years ago, I roamed these hills and valleys, visited the ruins of houses and the graves that always were near by. I visited the local Indians and became friends with them, ate with them, and we befriended each other.
The Indian grave yard I describe is real, right down to the four inch friendship vase that still held the stems of flowers hundreds of years after they were put there.
As a boy, I helped excavate a number of ruins, mostly places that had been burned to the ground. From those excavations, we learned of the people who had lived in those houses. In two out of three of the places excavated by my team, the bodies of the settlers who used to occupy those cabins before they were burned were buried not more than 50 yards from their house of dreams.
The Anastasia also dreamed, long before the white men came. They tried to conquer and farm this same land. When life came to its end, they still had a dream of a new day. All their graves are placed on a hill top on the west rim of a mile deep canyon, with the feet of the deceased pointing to the east, waiting for the rising sun of the new world in where there will be no sorrow, pain, war, or suffering.
If that sounds familiar, remember it was from a people who lived there a thousand years before the white man came here. Does any man have a copyright on dreams of a better tomorrow? It is as old as mankind.
Mr. Stephenson began writing for hire while in college. For years, he wrote technical books for university or corporate use. One year, he wrote over 40 books. His secretary said she did not count them unless they were an inch thick! He has published over sixty articles in professional magazines, several poems and a short story. In the past year, he has written a biography which he is considering publishing as well as this western novel placed in the 1870s in the badlands of Colorado and Utah. He is married to Anna-Mae. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2005 in Hawaii.
He owns a business insurance brokerage that serves the building and manufacturing industries of Southern California.
Claude Stephenson is a student of the human condition, wielding the written craft to enrapture the mind much like an artist wields a brush. The pages are a blank canvas on which to draw from a talent heralded by many and matched only by an imagination that rises to the task. The Victims of the Sage is the first in a series of recent pursuits, with work progressing quickly on the follow-up. A graduate of the University of Redlands, he has been engaged as a writer for hire for 60 years. He has published over sixty articles and has written nearly a hundred technical books for use in business and industry. He has published several poems prior to releasing this novel about the real Old West he knew sixty some years ago.