Robert's Story
A Texas Cowboy’s Troubled Life and Horrifying Death
by Stephen G. Michaud
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Pub Date Sep 13 2022 | Archive Date Sep 16 2022
Greenleaf Book Group | Coyote Publishing
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Description
Robert East loved his older brother, Tom, but always resented Tom’s favored role in the family cattle business based at their San Antonio Viejo ranch near Hebbronville, Texas, just north of the Rio Grande.
Tom was a figure to be reckoned with, a cattleman with ambitions to supplant their Uncle Bob Kleberg, head of the enormous King Ranch, as the leading cattle raiser in Texas. Robert, by contrast, was a cowboy who cared little for what occurred beyond the San Antonio Viejo’s main gate. Handsome and ornery, with no head for business, he nevertheless chafed in his brother’s shadow until 1984, when Tom died young of a heart attack, just as their father, Tom East, Sr., had 40 years earlier.
Suddenly Robert was the new and untested patrón of 250,000 acres of East Family ranchland—and the majority owner of the ocean of natural gas pooled beneath East rangeland. It was his turn to issue the orders.
Robert’s contentious nature drove the Easts into bitter intra-family legal hostilities that persisted for a decade. He lost his beloved sister, Lica, to cancer, and as old age advanced, he found himself alone and isolated on a remote ranch with only an unreliable foreman and a scattering of vaqueros and other workers for company.
The physical wear and tear from decades of working cattle on horseback began to show. Robert’s knees gave out, and he developed serious cardiovascular problems. His doctors prescribed pain pills, sedatives, and medications for his chronic depression.
In 2000, drillers hit the most productive gas well in the U.S, if not the world, on East property, making the rich old man suddenly and spectacularly wealthy beyond his comprehension.
Soon enough the wolves began to circle, and Robert’s grotesque final days were at hand.
Advance Praise
“Robert's Story: A Texas Cowboy's Troubled Life and Horrifying Death proves once again that when it comes to crafting gripping, real-life tales of dark, inhuman schemes, nobody does it better than Stephen G. Michaud. After reading about the abominations inflicted on dying Texas rancher Robert East, you may have trouble trusting anyone again. It's typically great storytelling by a master writer."
—Jeff Guinn, author of The New York Times bestseller Manson
“Robert’s Story tells the tale of a Texas rancher who never aspired to be anything other than a real, true-to-life cowboy. Nearing the end of the trail, he finds himself awash in a sea of serious oil money and literally doesn’t know what to do with it. He learns too late that his medical and legal consultants, estate planners—even his foreman—snarling wolves and circling vultures cloaked in benign business suits and Stetsons—have plans of their own. Stephen G. Michaud has once again displayed his signature ability to join engaging prose and sense of story with meticulous research into a read meant for lovers of Western lore.”
—Caleb Coker, author of The News from Brownsville
"Robert’s Story is a fascinating look inside South Texas ranching royal families. Robert East was a cowboy to his soul, first and foremost, to whom his fabulous wealth meant nothing except a way to buy blue jeans and pickup trucks. He was set in his ways, preferred to be on horseback in the rough brush country south of the Nueces River and north of the Rio Grande working cattle with vaqueros, speaking Spanish more than English. Sadly, those closest to him took advantage of his simplicity, and at the end he died a lonely death. Stephen G. Michaud has written an authoritative history of the families that settled the Nueces Strip and of Robert East, who despite the money that his land, cattle, and oil wells brought him, remained a cowboy—vaquero, puro vaquero. A terrific read." —Dick DeGuerin, Houston-based criminal defense lawyer and adjunct professor of law, The University of Texas “Robert’s Story is a timeless tale of folly, duplicity, and greed. A descendant of the cattle baron Richard King, Robert East was an extraordinarily wealthy, but mercurial South Texas cattleman. This page-turning account describes how human coyotes betrayed Robert’s trust, destroyed his health, and conspired to steal his fortune.”
—Walter E. Wilson, Captain, USN (ret.), author of Civil War Scoundrels and the Texas Cotton Trade, The Bulloch Belles, and co-author of James D. Bulloch: Secret Agent and Mastermind of the Confederate Navy
“Stephen Michaud tells the story of Robert East, his family, and their ranches in compelling detail. Overcoming the reluctance of the region's seigneurial families to disclose their internal differences, Michaud recounts the remote landscapes, plain manners, dynastic families, and rigorous work ethic that characterize the borderlands of deep South Texas. He shows how wealth, rather than rewarding lifetimes of hard labor, contaminates and corrupts relationships of loyalty and trust. This is a powerful book, made more so by the economy and incisiveness of Michaud’s writing.”
—Stephen Fox, Fellow, Anchorage Foundation of Texas
"The emotional, psychological, and legal manipulation Robert endured, and which the East family suffered, is a real tragedy.”
—Lloyd J. Jassin, New York City-based publishing and entertainment law attorney
Marketing Plan
- National trade marketing and sales campaign
- Targeted podcast media campaign and interviews
- Advance distribution of Digital ARC via NetGalley to reviewers, bloggers, journalists, librarians, booksellers, and media
- Online marketing campaign including targeted advertising via Publisher's Weekly and Book Riot, and trade advertising via Ingram and Baker & Taylor.
- Watch for author and book updates at www.stephenmichaud.com
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9798985265002 |
| PRICE | $29.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 384 |
