Buck Gallant and Gridiron Gold

A mysterious Civil War veteran is gunned down on a beach by an angry mob searching for gold. Staring out at the desolate sea, he utters these dying words: "They stole it." One hundred and fifty years later, a rich young heiress vanishes on the night of her high school graduation. A woman claiming to be her, one of many, emerges decades later. Could she be the one?

In the small Southern town of Anderson, home of the historic Belhaven Plantation, fourteen-year-old Buck Gallant prepares to begin high school. On his first day of football practice, ghosts from his family's past haunt him, and this is only the beginning. He cannot know that other events from the past are about to plunge him, his sister Victoria, and their friends into a life-and-death struggle to save their dad and solve a Civil War mystery. Buck Gallant and Gridiron Gold follows the adventures of Buck and Victoria Gallant as they juggle the everyday challenges of high school academics, sports, and relationships. Their comfortable and predictable lives are abruptly upended when they learn that a woman has returned from the dead and that they possess a legendary treasure map, which desperate people are desperately looking for. Thus begins a race for answers.

They are aided along the way by their faith in Jesus Christ and the support of their family and friends. Buck, a football player and distance runner, learns that winning championships requires preparation, commitment, teamwork, and sacrifice. He also learns that overcoming obstacles requires courage when facing gun-wielding kidnappers, perilous rescues, aggressive bullies, bruising running backs, and his first love. On many occasions, he learns that escaping dangerous situations, or solving a historic mystery, such as finding lost gold, requires quick thinking, calmness under pressure, a good education, and, speaking of the past, a little help from Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy.

Buck Gallant and Gridiron Gold chronicles a story of the eternal values of faith, family, and friends, a story of a teenage boy growing into manhood doing hard things by the grace of God.

-- Al Powell