The alias
The Story
Jay Tanner is a central Texas cattleman and—by 1887—the first sheriff of a new county forming around Goldthwaite.
Born the same year Texas won its independence, Tanner grows up working cattle in the pine country, rides through a war, and follows the trade west to Lampasas. He learns early that feuds consume the men who keep them alive.
The name Bison Jay comes much later, on a northbound cattle drive and a night when dry lightning puts three thousand head on the run. He returns to Texas with the name, builds a herd in the Big Valley bottoms, and is elected sheriff as railroad, wire, and drought begin remaking the range.
The story is a researched fiction built to give a cowboy action shooting alias roots: not a costume floating outside history, but a life shaped by a particular place and time.
