Mark Warren

“Back at the oak the men lounged in the shade and finished up their meal. Watching Clayt down at the creek, Nestor threw out a quiet question for anyone who would listen.
“How come Clayt don’t wear no spurs?”
“Don’t need ’em,” Lou said. “You seen him ride. He can purty much control a horse with just his knees and neck-reinin’.”
Nestor lay back and propped on both elbows. Lifting a leg, he turned one boot in profile and spun the rowel with the toe of his other boot.
“Hell, I like the way it sounds when I walk.”
Lou stood and brushed off his trousers. “He don’t need that neither.”
― Mark Warren, Indigo Heaven

“In the dark pre-dawn quiet he lay facing the window by his bed and stared at the stars hanging in the western sky. They floated over the land like the dust of jewels strewn across black water. These stars had become the milestones that marked his coming passage, and he gazed at them this one last time for the sake of preserving a memory, he supposed. One last view through the windowglass of his youth.”
― Mark Warren, The Long Road to Legend

“In those days a man could pick up, head out West, and start a new life . . . choose any name he wanted. But the man who made his mark in the history books is probably one who stayed true to who he was . . . no matter what he called himself.”
From "Last of the Pistoleers”
― Mark Warren

“Every plant you see around you has a God-given purpose...some to cure a disease, others to keep off the skeeters, and plenty to nourish you. If people tell you a plant has no value, it just means they have forgot the old ways."
From "Song of the Horseman”
― Mark Warren