Trail Boss: the Quest — Diane Ganzer

With age comes wisdom as well as a longing to turn back time and change the past. Charlie Couter is an old man who, on what he considers to be his last cattle drive, shares the stories of his life with his young drovers, in thehopes they will learn from the events that has nearly destroyed his life.
He is a young man full of dreams and ambitions. All too soon, his dreams become nightmares when his beloved young wife and two children die in a prairie fire. The only reminders that he has are her journal and a steel and diamond encrusted belt buckle that she had made for him. Losing himself in booze, women and cattle driving, he is beaten and left for dead; his precious buckle stolen from him.
Charlie's quest begins: to find that buckle at all costs! His mentor is a mountain man named Buckknife, who is also on an elusive quest, seeking gold in the Black Hills. Through Couter's stories, his drovers learn what it is like to feel emptiness, bitterness and loss as well as to maintain hope that somehow, dreams can become reality!
This quest takes Couter from the booming lumber town of Stillwater, Minnesota to Kansas and the Black Hills during turbulent times when the government was rounding up the native Sioux and Wild Bill was a well known reason to visit the card tables!