Rathuun: King of the Prairie places a buffalo—not a cowboy, scout, or settler—at the center of a western shaped by violent change. Rathuun survives the grizzly attack that kills his twin, only to grow into the animal every hunter wants to claim as wagons, telegraph lines, railroads, and rifles transform the plains around him. By giving its most dangerous frontier to the creature being pursued, David Fitz-Gerald approaches familiar western history from a strikingly different direction.
Rathuun: King of the Prairie
Author: David Fitz-Gerald
Frontier & Pioneer Western Fiction; US Historical Fiction; Action/Adventure
Date Published: March 20, 2026
With all the swagger of a classic western, a legendary buffalo claims his rightful place among the genre's most iconic heroes.
Meet Rathuun. Born in an idyllic canyon, tragedy strikes on his first day. A grizzly bear scatters the herd, devours his twin, and leaves him to shiver and die. But the buffalo calf with a white spot on his chin survives.
The plains are changing fast. Wagons roll west in endless streams. Telegraph wires stretch across the horizon. Locomotives scream down polished rails, slicing through the earth. Extinction seems imminent when everyone wants to kill the biggest buffalo on the prairie.
Native people shoot arrows and drive herds over cliffs. Hide hunters slaughter millions. An obsessed buffalo assassin is determined to wipe them all out and change the world forever. There's an army of barking rifles, and they're all pointed at Rathuun.
Will the hunters take Rathuun's head and leave his carcass to rot on the prairie?
This sweeping epic thunders across the American West, taking listeners to unforgettable western landmarks. If you like classic westerns, thrilling action, and high-stakes historical adventures, grab your copy by the horns.
Welcome to the prairie!
Rathuun’s perspective changes the scale of the traditional western. Telegraph wires, locomotives, wagon traffic, and rifles are not merely signs of expansion here; they are forces closing in on a living creature whose survival has become inseparable from the fate of the prairie itself. The combination of an animal protagonist, a relentless pursuit, and a landscape undergoing permanent transformation gives the novel a distinctive tension. Its classic-western swagger remains intact, but the largest presence on the plains is also the one with the most to lose.
This novel is suited to western readers interested in the land and its wildlife as much as its human conflicts. The buffalo-centered viewpoint should also appeal to those who value survival stories, pursuit narratives, and historical fiction that examines westward expansion through its consequences. Readers drawn to large-scale action, changing frontier landscapes, and protagonists forced to endure overwhelming odds will find Rathuun’s struggle especially compelling.
David Fitz-Gerald writes frontier and pioneer western fiction from the wilds of western Vermont—about as far west as you can get without slipping into New York.
Though he’s never wrangled beeves to market, Dave was a top hand on his grandfather’s dude ranch in the Adirondack Mountains… before he turned ten. He’s lived most of his life on dirt roads. Whenever he gets the chance, he travels west to recharge his spirit on the windswept prairies.
He’s an Adirondack 46’er which means that he’s hiked to the top of every mountain in the park. In 2018, Dave completed the 1960s fitness craze by hiking 50 miles in one day. That’s one heck of a long walk, but not nearly as grueling as the iconic trails that he chases in his fiction.
Even after all these years, Dave still has his head in the clouds like Ken from MY FRIEND FLICKA, and a quiet, self-reliant spirit like Sam from THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN. That blend of wonder, heart, and spirit runs through the characters he portrays. His editor states he is “exceptionally good at creating real moments between characters”—and readers seem to agree.
Dave’s breakthrough series, Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail won Chanticleer’s Grand Prize for Book Series. He’s now the author of nearly twenty novels and counting, and as long as there’s coffee in the kitchen, Dave will be plotting one adventurous story after another.
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Rathuun’s strongest hook is also its boldest choice: the legendary figure at the heart of this western is the buffalo being hunted. His fight to survive turns the advance of rails, wires, wagons, and rifles into an immediate threat rather than distant historical scenery. That shift in viewpoint gives the adventure both its momentum and its weight, inviting readers to see the changing prairie through the eyes of the creature who stands to lose it.
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