Elmer Kelton Books In Order

Tales of Texas Books In Publication Order

  1. Captain’s Rangers (1968)
  2. Joe Pepper (1975)
  3. Long Way to Texas (1976)

Texas Tradition Books In Publication Order

  1. The Day the Cowboys Quit (1971)
  2. Wagontongue (1972)
  3. Manhunters (1974)
  4. The Wolf and the Buffalo (1980)
  5. Stand Proud (1984)
  6. Dark Thicket (1985)
  7. The Man Who Rode Midnight (1987)
  8. Honor at Daybreak (1991)

Sons of Texas Books In Publication Order

  1. Sons of Texas (1989)
  2. The Raiders (1989)
  3. The Rebels (1989)

Hewey Calloway Books In Publication Order

  1. The Good Old Boys (1982)
  2. The Smiling Country (1998)
  3. Six Bits a Day (2005)

Texas Rangers Books In Publication Order

  1. The Buckskin Line (1999)
  2. Badger Boy (2001)
  3. The Way of the Coyote (2001)
  4. Ranger’s Trail (2002)
  5. Other Men’s Horses (2002)
  6. Lone Star Rising (2003)
  7. Texas Vendetta (2004)
  8. Jericho’s Road (2004)
  9. Hard Trail To Follow (2008)
  10. Texas Standoff (2010)

Buckalew Family Books In Publication Order

  1. Massacre at Goliad (1965)
  2. After the Bugles (1967)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Hot Iron (1956)
  2. Buffalo Wagons (1957)
  3. Bitter Trail (1959)
  4. Texas Rifles (1960)
  5. Donovan (1961)
  6. Pecos Crossing (1963)
  7. Horsehead Crossing (1963)
  8. Shotgun Settlement (1969)
  9. Bowie’s Mine (1971)
  10. The Time It Never Rained (1973)
  11. Barbed Wire (1980)
  12. Eyes of the Hawk (1981)
  13. Llano River (1982)
  14. Shadow of a Star (1984)
  15. Hanging Judge (1988)
  16. Slaughter (1992)
  17. The Best Christmas (1993)
  18. The Indian in Frontier News (1993)
  19. The Far Canyon (1994)
  20. The Pumpkin Rollers (1996)
  21. Cloudy in the West (1997)
  22. Christmas at the Ranch (2003)
  23. Shotgun (2007)
  24. Many a River (2008)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. There’s Always Another Chance, and Other Stories (1986)
  2. The Big Brand (1986)
  3. Legend (1999)
  4. ReadWest (2011)
  5. Wild West (2017)
  6. Hard Ride (2018)
  7. The Cowboy Way (2020)
  8. Law of the Land (2021)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Looking Back West: Selections form the Pioneer News-Observer (1972)
  2. Permian: A Continuing Saga (1985)
  3. Elmer Kelton: 30 Years of Western Fiction (1985)
  4. Living and Writing in West Texas: Two Speeches (1990)
  5. The Art of Howard Terpning (1992)
  6. The Art of Frank C. McCarthy (1992)
  7. The Art of James Bama (1993)
  8. Elmer Kelton Country: The Short Nonfiction of a Texas Novelist (1993)
  9. My Kind of Heroes: Selected Speeches (1995)
  10. Texas (1995)
  11. Texas Cattle Barons: Their Families, Land and Legacy (1999)
  12. Prairie Gothic (By:John R. Erickson) (2005)
  13. Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer (2007)
  14. Tom Lovell: Storyteller with a Brush (2020)

Ralph Compton Western Books In Publication Order

  1. Blood and Gold (By:Joseph A. West) (2004)
  2. For the Brand (By:David Robbins) (2005)
  3. Rio Largo (By:David Robbins) (2006)
  4. Guns of the Canyonlands (By:Joseph A. West) (2006)
  5. Texas Empire (By:Ralph Compton) (2006)
  6. By the Horns (By:David Robbins) (2006)
  7. Deadwood Gulch (By:John Edward Ames) (2006)
  8. The Bloody Trail (By:Marcus Galloway) (2007)
  9. A Wolf In the Fold (By:David Robbins) (2007)
  10. Bluff City (By:David Robbins) (2007)
  11. Blood Duel (By:David Robbins) (2007)
  12. Death of a Bad Man (By:Marcus Galloway) (2008)
  13. Ride the Hard Trail (By:David Robbins) (2008)
  14. Bullet for a Bad Man (By:David Robbins) (2008)
  15. The Convict Trail (By:Joseph A. West) (2008)
  16. Rawhide Flat (By:Joseph A. West) (2009)
  17. Outlaw’s Reckoning (By:Marcus Galloway) (2009)
  18. The Man From Nowhere (By:Joseph A. West) (2009)
  19. Bounty Hunter (By:Joseph A. West) (2009)
  20. Fatal Justice (By:David Robbins) (2009)
  21. Stryker’s Revenge (By:Joseph A. West) (2010)
  22. Death of a Hangman (By:Joseph A. West) (2010)
  23. North to the Salt Fork (By:Ralph Compton,Dusty Richards) (2010)
  24. Rusted Tin (By:Marcus Galloway) (2010)
  25. The Burning Range (By:Joseph A. West) (2010)
  26. The Last Manhunt (By:Joseph A. West) (2011)
  27. The Stranger from Abilene (By:Joseph A. West) (2011)
  28. The Ghost of Apache Creek (By:Joseph A. West) (2011)
  29. Dead Man’s Ranch (By:Matthew P. Mayo) (2012)
  30. Slaughter Canyon (By:Joseph A. West) (2012)
  31. One Man’s Fire (By:Marcus Galloway) (2012)
  32. Tucker’s Reckoning (By:Matthew P. Mayo) (2012)
  33. Down on Gila River (By:Joseph A. West) (2012)
  34. Brimstone Trail (By:Marcus Galloway) (2013)
  35. Straight Shooter (By:Marcus Galloway) (2013)
  36. The Hunted (By:Matthew P. Mayo) (2013)
  37. Hard Ride to Wichita (By:Marcus Galloway) (2013)
  38. The Cheyenne Trail (By:Jory Sherman) (2014)
  39. Double-Cross Ranch (By:Matthew P. Mayo) (2014)
  40. Comanche Trail (By:Carlton Stowers) (2014)
  41. The Dangerous Land (By:Marcus Galloway) (2014)
  42. Vigilante Dawn (By:Marcus Galloway) (2014)
  43. The Evil Men Do (By:David Robbins) (2015)
  44. Straight to the Noose (By:Marcus Galloway) (2015)
  45. Shotgun Charlie (By:Matthew P. Mayo) (2015)
  46. The Law and the Lawless (By:David Robbins) (2015)
  47. Brother’s Keeper (By:David Robbins) (2015)
  48. Texas Hills (By:David Robbins) (2015)
  49. Outlaw Town (By:David Robbins) (2016)
  50. Phantom Hill (By:Carlton Stowers) (2016)
  51. Ralph Compton the Hellbound Posse (By:Robert J. Randisi,Ralph Compton) (2021)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. New Trails: Twenty-Three Original Stories (1994)
  2. A Century of Great Western Stories (2001)
  3. Noah’s Ride (2006)
  4. Lost Trails (2007)
  5. Ghost Towns (2010)

Tales of Texas Book Covers

Texas Tradition Book Covers

Sons of Texas Book Covers

Hewey Calloway Book Covers

Texas Rangers Book Covers

Buckalew Family Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Ralph Compton Western Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Elmer Kelton Books Overview

Captain’s Rangers

In 1875, nearly forty years after the Mexican War, Mexicans and Texans are still spilling blood over ownership of the Nueces Strip a hot, dry stretch of coastal prairie that bushwackers and horse thieves have turned into a lawless hell. Captain L.H. McNelly, a complex and determined Confederate veteran, is brought into the Nueces Strip for one purpose: to keep the peace. His measures are harsh and controversial but McNelly wasn’t sent in to be popular. In this boilerpot of killing and racial hatred, can any man bring lasting peace?

Joe Pepper

Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn’t much that Joe hasn’t done in his forty years of living on both sides of the Texas law except face the hangman. Now, convicted of murder, Joe is about to get that privilege. But before he goes, Joe has a few things he wants to say and a few stories that he wants to set straight.

With Joe Pepper, legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton tells a fine and moving tale of the history of his home state of Texas.

Long Way to Texas

Lieutenant David Buckalew and his men had left Texas on a march westward to claim the entire Southwest for the Confederacy. But defeat after humiliating defeat at the hands of the Union army has stranded Buckalew and nineteen battle weary survivors in the New Mexico Territory a territory crawling with hostile Comanches and Union soldiers. As Buckalew and his men make a run for their homeland of Texas, they learn the location of a cache of Union weapons and ammunition. If they could seize the weapons before the Union troops arrive to collect them, they might be able to shift the odds in the South’s favor. However, those keeping the cache for the North have other ideas…

The Day the Cowboys Quit

The Day the Cowboys Quit was inspired by an historic event, a strike against large ranches on the Texas high plains, when the encroachment of an Eastern corporate mentality drove freedom loving cowboys to drastic measures no matter the cost. Elmer KeltonIn later years people often asked Hugh Hitchcock about the Canadian River cowboy strike of 1883. Wagon boss Hugh Hitchcock knows the cowboy life better than most: In 1883 if you re a cowboy, you can t own a cow and you are stigmatized as a drunk. Worse, you are exploited by the wealthy cattle owners who fence the range, replace traditions and trust with written rules of employment, refuse to pay a livable wage, and change things that ought to be left alone. The cowboys working in the Canadian River country of the Texas Panhandle decide to fight back, to do the unthinkable: go on strike. In this celebrated novel, Elmer Kelton uses the true but little known Canadian River incident to focus on the changes brought to ranching by big money syndicates.

Wagontongue

The life of a Texas cowboy is tough especially if he is a black man like Isaac Jefford. Though he is the best at what he does, Isaac is careful not to step ‘over the line’ until his boss hires a vicious Southerner filled with a burning hatred. Now the time for crossing the line has come.

Manhunters

As he flees to the sanctuary of Mexico, Chacho Fernandez is unaware of the fuel he has added to the already simmering racial hatreds in and around the quiet town of Domingo, Texas. Through events set in motion by a misunderstanding, Chacho becomes a folk hero to his people and a dangerous fugitive to a group of zealous lawmen.

First published in 1974 by Ballantine Books, Manhunters, the tale of Chacho’s legendary flight, was inspired by the story of controversial Mexican fugitive Gregorio Cortez. In 1901 Cortez, a young horseman, shot a sheriff during an argument, leading to the largest concerted manhunt in Texas history.

This novel is alive with the idiom of Kelton’s native West Texas and freely punctuated with his trademark wry humor. His characters, both the ignorantly petty as well as the quietly strong, ring true to life.

The Wolf and the Buffalo

From the author of The Far Canyon and The Good Old Boys comes this poignant story of a freed slave who goes west with the army and confronts much more than the hostilities of the Comanche and Kiowa. The Civil War has ended and Gideon Ledbetter is feed from slavery. Like many, he has no land, no money, and no means to make a living. Gideon is drawn into the army by a recruiter who paints an alluring picture of cavalry life out in the west. The Indians called the black men ‘Buffalo’ soldiers, as their tightly twisted hair reminded them of the large animals that they hunted for survival. Gideon is drawn into a conflict with a Comanche warrior, Gray Horse Running, which leads to a shattering confrontation on the plains of west Texas. This is the story of two men drawn together amid the blood and the fury of a conflict not of their making.

Stand Proud

Pain resulting from other men’s follies causes Stand Prouds Frank Claymore to develop an iron will that heeds no man’s judgment except his own, nor any woman’s. Some of his decisions are wrong, and the price of pride proves high. Elmer Kelton

The jarring strike of the clock in the towering cupola drew Frank Claymore’s unwilling eyes to the two story courthouse.

Frank Claymore is not easy to like to admire, maybe, but not to like. He is cantankerous, stubborn, and intolerant the very qualities that make him a success as an open range cattleman on the West Texas frontier.

In one of his most memorable novels, acclaimed Western writer Elmer Kelton follows Frank Claymore’s life from the time of the Civil War to the dawn of the 20th century through marriage, births, deaths, and a creeping change in the society that once hailed him as a hero, but which later has him condemned and tried for murder.

Dark Thicket

One of America’s greatest Western storytellers, Elmer Kelton has been voted the greatest Western writers of all time by the Western Writers of America. Dark Thicket is one of his many classic tales of the history of his home state of Texas. Young Owen Danforth rides home to Texas as a wounded Confederate soldier, at a time when his home state is as savagely divided as his nation. As a grievously wounded America staggers toward the inevitable end of the Civil War, secessionist ‘home guards’ and staunch Union loyalists fight their own bloody battles on a more local scale. For Owen, sick to death of fighting and yearning for peace and recuperation, his homecoming is bittersweet. And when his blood ties force him to choose a side in an unwinnable conflict, Owen begins to wonder if he will ever see peace in Texas again.

The Man Who Rode Midnight

Aging cowboy and bronco buster Wes Hendricks just wants to be left alone on his poor ranch, even when town developers offer him big money to sell it. Wes’s grandson reluctantly tries to convince him to give up his home, but that was before he, too, succumbs to the ranch’s and a young cowgirl’s wild beauty.

Honor at Daybreak

From one of the West’s greatest living storytellers, winner of numerous awards, including the Spur, the Golden Saddleman, and the Western Heritage Award, here is Elmer Kelton’s magnificent new novel of the wildcat West Texas oil boom of the 1920s. It used to be that the worst crime in Caprock was moonshining or lying about your Saturday night date on Sunday morning until someone struck oil. Now the scent of the stuff has brought every dreamer, drifter, and two bit swindler to town. Among them is the frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty, who warns any who’d stand in his way: Get Out or Die. One man will do neither. Sheriff Dave Buckalew is a man too proud to give up and too stubborn to give in. He liked his town the way it was before the bootleggers, brothels, and fortune seeking roustabouts and so did a lot of other hardworking decent folk. Together they’ll fight to win back their town and their future. This is the story of their heroic stand. From the Paperback edition.

Sons of Texas

A Spur Award winning Author In 1816, Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson’s Indian campaigns and battles against the British, moves his family into the western Tennessee canebrakes. Not satisfied with farming, he takes his sons and leads a foray into Spanish held Texas to hunt wild horses. Thus begins this first volume in a trilogy that follows the lives and adventures of the Lewis family through the era of the Alamo and Texas Independence under Sam Houston.

The Raiders

In 1816, Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson’s Indian campaigns and battles against the British, moves his family into the western Tennessee canebrakes. But Mordecai, a born wanderer, is not satisfied with farming, and with his sons Michael and Andrew and some other backwoodsmen, he leads a foray into Spanish held Texas to hunt wild horses and return the mustang herd to sell in Tennessee.
Crossing the Sabine River, Mordecai’s party encounters a Spanish patrol determined to repel all American invaders. After a bloody skirmish leaves their father dead, Michael and Andrew find their way back to their Tennessee farm.
Five years later, after the Spanish government in Mexico City has agreed to permit 300 American families to settle in Texas, the Lewis brothers have their opportunity to re enter Texas. They ride to the frontier town of Natchitoches, Louisiana, where Michael falls in love with Marie Villaret, daughter of a wealthy French landowner, then cross the Sabine to find Stephen F. Austin, a Missouri entrepreneur in charge of the new American colony.
But the Lewises are considered interlopers and horse thieves and are dogged by a patrol led by the same ruthless Spanish offer who killed their father five years before.
Sons of Texas is the first volume in a trilogy that follows the lives and adventures of the Lewis family through the era of the Alamo and Texas Independence under Sam Houston.

The Rebels

It is the mid 1830s and a growing flow of American pioneers into Mexican Texas has sown the seeds of revolution. In the midst of the turmoil are the Lewis brothers Andrew, Michael, and James scions of Mordecai Lewis, who crossed the Sabine River into Texas a decade past.

Now the news along the Texas frontier is of a young general, a self styled ‘Napoleon of the West,’ named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who wants to stamp out any gringo talk of independence from Mexico and oust the American interlopers from Texas.

Standing in opposition to Santa Anna is the former governor of Tennessee and veteran of Andrew Jackson’s Indian battles, Sam Houston, who is gathering a volunteer army to meet the Mexican forces.

Against the heroic, bloody backdrop of the Texas War of Independence the battles of Gonzalez, San Antonio de Bexar, Goliad, the Alamo and San Jacinto the Lewis men and their families join such rebels as Jim Bowie, James Fannin, Ben Milam, Juan Seguin, James Butler Bonham, William Barret Travis, and David Crockett, in wresting Texas from Mexican rule.

The Good Old Boys

Hewey Calloway has a problem. In his West Texas home of 1906, the land of the way of life that he loves are changing too quickly for his taste. Hewey dreams of freedom–he wants only to be a footloose horseback cowboy, endlessly wandering the open range. But the open range of his childhood is slowly disappearing: land is being parceled out, and barbed-wire fences are spring up all over. As if that weren’t enough, cars and other machines are invading Hewey’s simple cowboy life, stinking up the area and threatening to replace horse travel. As Hewey struggles against the relentless stream of ”progress”, he comes to realize that the simple life of his childhood is gone, that a man can’t live a life whose time has passed, and that every choice he makes–even those that lead to happiness–requires a sacrifice.

The Smiling Country

The Smiling Country is about a footloose puncher who finds out the hard way that cowboys don’t remain young forever and that the inevitable wear and tear of a rugged life forces changes and compromises on the willing and unwilling alike. Elmer Kelton

Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance.

Elmer Kelton introduced Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, one of the most beloved characters in Western fiction, almost thirty years ago in The Good Old Boys. The novel was transformed into a memorable 1995 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek.

Hewey returns in The Smiling Country. It is 1910 and his freewheeling life is coming to an end the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are creeping in even to remote Alpine, in The Smiling Country of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey sees the loneliness that awaits him, and regrets his decision to run away from the only woman he has ever loved, the schoolteacher Spring Renfro.

Six Bits a Day

Hewey Calloway, the best loved cowboy in all of Western fiction, returns in this novel of his younger years as he and his beloved brother Walter leave the family farm in 1889 to find work in the West Texas cow country.
The brothers are polar opposites. Walter pines for a sedate life as a farmer, with wife and children; Hewey is a fiddle footed cowboy content to work at six bits 75 cents a day on the Pecos River ranch owned by the penny pinching C.C. Tarpley. Hewey, who ‘usually accepted the vagaries of life without getting his underwear in a twist’, is fun loving and whiskey drinking. He spends every penny he earns and regularly gets into trouble with his boss and occasionally with the law often dragging innocent Walter along.
When Walter falls in love with a boarding house girl and begins dreaming of a farmer’s life, Hewey jumps at the chance to rescue him from this fate worse than death. He convinces Walter to join him on a mission for Tarpley, driving 600 head of cattle from beyond San Antonio to the Double C ranch on the Pecos.
The journey is both memorable and dangerous: a murderous outlaw is searching for Hewey; and another ruthless character is determined to sabotage the cattle drive. When the drovers reach the Pecos they find Boss Tarpley in the midst of a vicious range feud with Eli Jessup, a neighboring cowman. Hewey and his brother Walter have to get the herd safely across Jessup’s land but how?
The events of Six Bits a Day precede those of Kelton’s best selling The Good Old Boys 1978, transformed into the memorable 1995 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek, and The Smiling Country Forge, 1998.

The Buckskin Line

On the Texas frontier in the 1840s, a red haired child whose family has been massacred is captured by a Comanche war party led by a great warrior named Buffalo Caller. The boy is rescued by Mike Shannon, a Mexican War veteran riding with a ‘ranging company’ of Texans dedicated to protecting settlers against Indian raids, and is adopted by the Shannon family. In 1861 his adoptive father is bushwhacked and murdered and the boy now known as Rusty Shannon follows Mike’s footsteps, riding to Fort Belknap to join the Rangers. Texas is now in the throes of secession and Union sympathizers are treated as traitors. One such ‘traitor’ is Lon Monahan, whose family befriends Rusty. Lon Monahan’s particular enemy is Colonel Caleb Dawkins, a former army officer and Confederate zealot determined to conscript the Monahan boys and drive Lon and all Unionists out of Texas. When the youngest Monahan attempts to escape Texas and wait out the war, Dawkins’s thugs hang him and his father. Rusty Shannon carries heavy burdens. Both of his families are dead; he is haunted by Mike Shannon’s murder, thinks he knows the culprit and intends to kill the man; his new found friends have been lynched; and his duties as a Ranger conflict with his sense of justice. And he is fated to meet again the Comanche warrior whose band killed his family and took him captive over two decades ago: Buffalo Caller.

Badger Boy

The Texas Frontier, 1865: The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country. David ‘Rusty’ Shannon, proud member of a ‘ranging company’ attempting to protect Texas settlers from Indian depredations, finds that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his land on the Red River, hoping to take up the life of a farmer and the hand of the beloved girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But Geneva has married in Rusty’s long absence and the country filled with hostiles not just Indians, but hate filled Confederates, overbearing Union soldiers, and army renegades. Rusty’s youth as a captive of the Comanches returns to haunt him when, in pursuit of Indian raiders, he takes as prisoner Badger Boy, a white child taken from his murdered parents by a Comanche warrior. AUTHORBIO: Elmer Kelton lives in San Angelo, Texas.

The Way of the Coyote

The Civil War has ended, and Union soldiers and federal officials have taken control of Texas as Rusty Shannon rides to his home on the Colorado River. As a child he was a captive of the Comanche, as a young man a proud member of a ranging company protecting settlers from Indian raids. Shannon’s fate is intertwined with the young man accompanying him: Andy Pickard, himself but recently rescued from Comanche captivity and known by his captors as Badger Boy. Texas is in turmoil, overrun with murderous outlaws, lawmen exacting penalties from suspected former Confederates, nightriders, and the ever dangerous Comanche bands. In this tempestuous time and place, Rusty tries desperately to resume his prewar life. His friend Shanty, a freed slave, is burned out of his home by the Ku Klux Klan; his own homestead is confiscated by his special nemesis, the murderous Oldham brothers; and the son of a girl he once loved is kidnapped by Comanches. Elmer Kelton, a master of novelist of the American West, literature, has crafted a satisfying and remarkably accurate tale of Texas life at the end of the Civil War. Elmer Kelton, most honored of all Western writers, writes of the formative years of the Texas Rangers with the knowledge of a native Texan and the skill of a master storyteller. In Rusty Shannon, tough and smart necessary survival attributes on the 1860s Texas frontier Kelton has created one of the most memorable characters in modern Western fiction.

Ranger’s Trail

In the spring of 1874 the Ranger companies that protect settlers against Indian raids and outlaw bands are being reorganized and David ‘Rusty’ Shannon is the most sought after veteran for reenlistment. But Shannon has new goals for his life: He is in love with Josie Monahan, daughter of the family that adopted him, and he intends to marry Josie and take her to his farm on the Colorado River. Rusty also feels affection and responsibility for Andy Pickard, a headstrong teenager he rescued from captivity among the Comanche just as Rusty himself was rescued as a red haired boy decades before. Then an unspeakable tragedy the murder of his beloved Josie changes Rusty’s plans for a quiet farmer’s life and alters his peace loving character. Bent on revenge, he relentlessly trails Corey Bascom, son of an outlaw family and the man Rusty believes is Josie’s killer. But the trail Rusty is following may be leading him to the wrong man. Set in the tumultuous Reconstruction period of Texas history, Ranger’s Trail continues Elmer Kelton’s chronicles of the origins of the renowned Texas Rangers, told as fiction but historically accurate in every detail and written by a favorite son of Texas.

Other Men’s Horses

Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned what appears to be a routine duty. Donley Bannister, a West Texas horse trader, has killed a thug named Cletus Slocum, who stole one of Bannister’s horses. Ranger Pickard is ordered to find and arrest Bannister and bring him to trial. The Bannister case turns out to be anything but routine. Pickard picks up Bannister’s trail and finds him holed up with some cohorts who wound and vow to kill the young Ranger. Ironically, Bannister saves Pickard’s life by fending off the would-be killers and taking Andy to a cow camp where his injury can be treated. When he is able to ride, Andy locates and trails Geneva Bannister, Donley’s young wife, hoping she will lead him to the wanted man. The trail takes unexpected turns and detours: Near Fort Concho Andy’s mission is interrupted by an ugly racial incident in which a black soldier is killed; Bannister is shot by outlaw Curly Tadlock and left for dead; and Tadlock brutally assaults Geneva. Andy Pickard, newly married, still unsure of himself and his choice of Rangering as a career, must unravel this tangled series of events and accomplish his mission of bringing an accused killer to justice.

Lone Star Rising

he undisputed master of the Western story, Elmer Kelton, presents in Lone Star Rising three full length novels on the formative years of the Texas Rangers. In The Buckskin Line, Badger Boy, and The Way of the Coyote, Kelton relates the story of Rusty Shannon, a red haired boy captured by a Comanche war party which had massacred his family. He is later rescued by Mike Shannon, member of a Texas ‘ranging company’ protecting settlers from Indian raids. In 1861, with Texas in the tumult of secession, Rusty follows his adoptive father’s footsteps and joins the Rangers, vowing to find the men who have lynched his adoptive father and the Comanche warrior who killed his parents. Rusty relives the pain of his youth when he rescues Andy Pickard, called Badger Boy by his Comanche captors. The two men ride together when the Rangers are reconstituted following the Civil War a time when Texas is infested with marauding Indians, outlaws, footloose Confederate and Union soldiers filled with hate, and Ku Klux Klan night riders. As an added bonus, Lone Star Rising features introductions to each novel by Elmer Kelton. No writer knows Texas and Texas history better than Elmer Kelton, the state’s most honored writer. Lone Star Rising is proof of the accuracy of the honor be stowed on Kelton by the Western Writers of America, which named him the greatest Western writer of all time.

Texas Vendetta

Ranger privates Andy Pickard, the onetime Comanche captive called Badger Boy, and the war anguished Farley Brackett, are assigned to deliver a prisoner to the sheriff of a county some distance from the ranger camp on the San Saba River. The prisoner, Jayce Landon, has recently killed a man named Ned Hopper and is to stand trial for murder. The rangers quickly learn that the Landon and Hopper families are involved in a blood feud and that Jayce Landon is the target of both clans: the Landons want to rescue him and the Hoppers want to kill him. Worse, Jayce is to be delivered, jailed, and tried for murder in Hopper’s Crossing, a settlement owned, populated, and run by the family dedicated to killing Jayce and all his Landon kin. The young rangers soon encounter the main figures in the hate filled Hopper clan Big’un, a huge lout who is deputy sheriff at Hopper’s Crossing, and Judd Hopper, county judge and patriarch of the family. And when Jayce escapes, hell breaks loose with the rangers caught between the warring factions. Andy Pickard, reunited with his old mentor, retired ranger Rusty Shannon, has another problem or two to deal with. He is worried about Scooter Tennyson, a young son of an outlaw who has been ‘adopted’ by the rangers at their San Saba River camp and who earns his way as a cook’s helper. Scooter’s father, now released from prison, has come to take his son back and into a life on the run. And Andy has a growing affection for Bethel Brackett, sister of his worrisome partner, Farley. Texas Vendetta, fifth in Elmer Kelton’s memorable and critically acclaimed Texas Rangers series, is filled with the author’s always engaging characters and is set against the historically accurate backdrop of the turmoil of post Civil War Texas.

Jericho’s Road

When Texas Ranger private Andy Pickard is assigned to help patrol the Texas Mexico border country he rides directly into a deadly feud. At odds are two land and cattle barons Jericho Jackson, whose great spread lies just north of the Rio Grande, and Guadalupe Chavez, whose domain lies south of the river. The men are alike in only one respect: their hatred for each other, a hate born at the time of the Alamo and the U.S. Mexican War, when Mexican lands were confiscated by ruthless Americans. The old rivals have turned to preying on each others’ cattle with resulting bloodshed on both sides of the river. Between the two camps, Big Jim McCawley’s ranch seems almost symbolic of the opportunity for the people of the two nations to live together. McCawley is married to Guadalupe Chavez’s sister, Juana a fact that does not ingratiate him to either the Chavez or Jackson faction. To Andy Pickard, who as a child was taken captive by Comanches, old prejudices are familiar territory, but the Jackson Chavez war is flaring out of control by the time he reaches the Ranger camp on the border in the company of fellow Ranger Farley Brackett. The two Rangers find themselves caught up in the feud, risking arrest for crossing the river into Mexico, and risking death for not heeding the warning sign at the edge of Jericho Jackson’s domain: This is Jericho’s Road. Take the Other. Inevitably, the cauldron boils over and the forces of Jericho Jackson and ‘Lupe’ Chavez meet in bloody combat. In the midst of this battle on Mexican soil are Andy Pickard longing to court and marry Bethel Brackett and live a peaceful life as an ex Ranger and Brackett himself, falling in love with Teresa, Big Jim McCawley’s half Mexican daughter. Jericho’s Road, sixth book in Kelton’s acclaimed Texas Ranger series, typifies ‘The right blend of action, drama, romance, humor and suspense’ that Publishers Weekly said has made Kelton ‘a master of both plot and character development.’

Hard Trail To Follow

Former Texas Ranger Andy Pickard, called ‘Badger Boy’ when he lived with Comanches as a child, is following the plow on West Texas land until he learns that his friend, Sheriff Tom Blessing, has been killed during a jailbreak. The escaped bank robbers are led by a man calling himself Cordell. Andy gets reinstated as a Ranger so he can catch Cordell and get justice for Tom Blessing. Cordell is something of an enigma to Andy, especially since the pursuit slowly reveals that he is very likely not the killer of Tom Blessing. Even so, Cordell and his cohorts must be brought to Ranger justice first and the whodunit sorted out later. Hard Trail To Follow is the seventh novel in Elmer Kelton’s acclaimed ‘Texas Ranger’ series.

Texas Standoff

In Texas Standoff, Ranger Andy Pickard and his partner, Logan Daggett, are sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts. The two biggest cattlemen in the area blame each other for the violence, but it seems to Andy that neither man may be guilty. The case is complicated by the rise of a gang of ‘regulators’-masked vigilantes-and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman whose employer is unknown. The murder of a captured regulator and a standoff in the county jail wind up bringing to justice the men responsible for the killings and thievery. Among the culprits is a man whose guilt no one would have guessed, and among the ironies of the case is a telegram to the Rangers from the State of Texas notifying them that their services are no long required.

Massacre at Goliad

When Texan born Josh Buckalew met Teresa, a young and beautiful Mexican woman, it was love at first sight. But with the Alamo recently sieged and destroyed, Josh knew this rosebud love would be unobtainable on account of the war thorns harrowing the country. So the Buckalew brothers, Josh and Thomas, along with Josh’s friend Muley, the man child, come together with other Texans to protect their land at Goliad against the Mexicans who have just ravished the Alamo. But what’s at stake for Josh? Will he listen to his brother and become a war hero, eradicating Mexican control? Or will he follow his heart and take Teresa far, far away from all of the bloodshed?

After the Bugles

In the aftermath of a bitter and bloody war for independence, Texans have finally claimed their freedom from Mexico but they don t have much else to brag about. Joshua Buckalew has left behind the deserted battlefields that claimed his brother Thomas. The war has cost him much but it has also given him a strong bond to the land and to the Mexican families who stood with him against the tyrannies of Santa Anna. Josh is travelling with Ramon Hernandez his best friend and the man who had fought with him, side by side. Where they are going, he isn t quite sure. His home is ashes burned by either the retreating Texans or the advancing Mexican army and the land is full of bandits and opportunists who would happily shoot Ramon simply because he is Mexican. Exiles in the land they had fought to liberate, Josh and Ramon struggle to rebuild their lives After the Bugles.

Hot Iron

In the early days of the Texas panhandle, starting a new life is hard but keeping it is even harder.

Espy Norwood is a troubleshooter who’s got troubles of his own and more troubles find him when he lands a job on a ranch on the Texas plains. Bitter landowners plot against him, determined cattle thieves sneak right under his nose, and his own son refuses to trust or even know him. Can he catch the thieves, save the ranch, and win his son’s love?

Buffalo Wagons

For Gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt. A year ago he felled sixty two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican herd before it. In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak is awe of a last great heard to the south but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory. None but Gage Jameson…
.

Bitter Trail

In Bitter Trail, Kelton tells the story of a tough teamster named Frio Wheeler whose wagons haul cotton from Texas to Mexico. Sounds like a peaceable enterprise?The problem is that the Civil War is raging throughout the South and Wheeler’s cotton is to be sold for gold gold used to buy guns and ammunition for the Confederate army. And, added to his balky mules, the broiling heat, and killing drought of the Mexican dessert, Wheeler has even more serious matters to contend with: His wagons are attacked, his cotton bales are burned, he is captured and tortured by bandidos in league with Union sympathizers, and he is betrayed by his best friend his former partner and brother of the woman he loves!

Texas Rifles

The new Confederacy, facing into the Union cannon, had too much on its hands to send troops to the Texas frontier to hold back the Indians. Instead, it authorized the State of Texas to raise its own troops. Many kinds of men drifted into the Texas Mounted Rifles. Some thought it might be safer than fighting in far off Virginia. Many were merely young men a thirst for adventure. Some were settlers who saw this as the best way to protect their families and homes against the murderous thrusts of the Comanche. And some were men who still loved the Union, who had lived too long under that gallant flag to turn their guns against it now. Such a man was Scout Sam Houston Cloud…

Donovan

Donovan was supposed to be dead. The town of Dry Fork, southern Texas, had buried him years before when Uncle Joe Vickers had fired off both barrels of a shotgun into the vicious outlaw’s face as he was escaping from jail. Now, Uncle Joe has been shot in just the same way. And Judge Upshaw had found a noose hanging on his door. It looked as though Donovan was back gunning for the people who had tracked him down and tried him. Sheriff Webb Matlock, a stern, quiet man, had more than one reason to find Donovan; Matlock was in love with the woman he had believed to be Donovan‘s widow; moreover, there were rumors that his hotheaded younger brother Sandy might have joined up with Donovan‘s gang. For his own peace of mind, and to protect the townspeople who had been threatened, Matlock decided to slip across the border, find Donovan in his Mexican hideout, and bring him back or kill him.

Pecos Crossing

Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, young, hard working cowboys from Fort Concho, Texas, have worked six months at $20 a month on the Devil’s River. Their boss, a hawk faced cow trader named Larramore, reneges on the money he owes the boys and sneaks out of the cow camp and heads for San Angelo. Fristo is tall and thin, his mind a hundred miles away; Quitman is short, bandy legged, and ‘bedazzled by the flash of cards and the slosh of whiskey.’ The two are as different as sun and moon but are inseparable and now they have a mission: find Larramore and extract the money he owes them.

Bowie’s Mine

Daniel Provost is the son of a farmer. Living up to his father’s high standards for the farm is very hard work, but his life is basically comfortable and a loving woman is waiting to become his wife.

When a well traveled stranger, bearing a story of Jim Bowie’s legendary silver mine, appears at the farm, Daniel might just throw away everything for the chance at adventure he thought had passed him by.

The Time It Never Rained

The Time It Never Rained was inspired by actual events, when the longest and most severe drought in living memory pressed ranchers and farmers to the outer limits of courage and endurance. Elmer KeltonRio Seco was too small to afford a professional manager for its one room Chamber of Commerce. And Rio Seco, meaning dry river in Spanish, symbolizes the biggest enemy of the ranchers and farmers in 1950s Texas, an enemy they can t control: drought. To cranky Charlie Flagg, an honest, decent rancher, the drought of the early 1950s is a battle that he must fight on his own grounds. Refusing the questionable assistance of federal aid programs and their bureaucratic regulations, Charlie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again if it ever rains again. Charlie Flagg, among the strongest of Elmer Kelton’s memorable creations, is no pasteboard hero. He is courageous and self sufficient but as real as his harsh and unforgiving West Texas home country. His battle with an unfathomable foe is the stuff of epics and legends.

Barbed Wire

Irishman Doug Monahan runs a fencing crew outside the south Texas town of Twin Wells, digging post holes and stringing red painted Barbed Wire for ranchers as protection against wandering stock, rustlers, and land hungry thugs.
Monahan’s fencing operation is opposed by Captain Andrew Rinehart, a former Confederate officer and an old school open range baron of the huge R Cross spread.
With his brutal foreman, Archer Spann, assigned to the violent work, Rinehart wages a Barbed Wire war against Doug Monahan. And neither side takes prisoners!

Eyes of the Hawk

A six time winner of the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award, Elmer Kelton is the premier Western storyteller of his time. Eyes of the Hawk, winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, is an outstanding tale of Texas filled with authentic characters and history, and telling the story of the outstanding courage and determination of the men and women who challenged an unyielding wilderness to build a frontier legend. Thomas Canfield descends from a line of Texas’s earliest settlers. A proud man with a fierce eyes stare, he inspires the Mexican of Stonehill, Texas to call him el gavilan the ‘hawk’. When Branch Isom an insolent, dangerous newcomer seeks to build his fortune at Canfeild’s expense, an all out feud ensues. Hurtling the town toward a day of reckoning that will shake the entire town to its very roots. Eyes of the Hawk is a classic tale of Western history, told by one of the most critically acclaimed writers of the American West.

Llano River

When former cattle man Dundee wanders into the town of Titusville, he’s broke, tired and itching for a fight. Instead, he gets a job offer…
from none other than the top man in town, John Titus. Titus recruits Dundee to find out who’s rustling his extensive herd of cattle. But for Titus, it isn’t enough that Dundee find the missing cattle. He wants to place the blame on a specific person…
Blue Roan Hardesty, a one time friend turned sworn enemy of the powerful Titus clan. All Titus needs is hard proof, and Dundee is just the man to get it. What Dundee uncovers creates a shooting war out of a simmering feud…
with him in the middle.

Shadow of a Star

Deputy Sheriff Jim Bob McClain isn’t sure he’s ready to follow in his father’s footsteps as the law in Coolridge County. In fact, he has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks in the local saloon. But with tough Sheriff Mont Naylor to back him up he figures he can handle whatever comes his way. Jim Bob’s first real assignment is no piece of cake. He must escort a ruthless outlaw into the hands of justice. All seems well with the lawless killer firmly in Jim Bob’s custody. But nothing prepares him for an angry mob, determined to take the law into their own hands and provide their own brand justice: a hangman’s noose. Shadow of a Star is a gripping tale by Elmer Kelton, voted one of the best Western Writers of all time by Westerns Writers of America, Inc.

Hanging Judge

Elmer Kelton, voted ‘The Greatest Western Writer of All Time’ by the Western Writers of America, is a legend in the field of Western literature. Famous for his realistic characters and accurate depictions of the history of his home state of Texas, Elmer Kelton continues to write exceptional novels of American history.

In Hanging Judge, Justin Moffitt is eager to help keep the peace as a deputy marshal in small town Texas. That is, until Justin is assigned to the wrong marshal a ‘Hanging Judge‘ who is as famous for his ruthlessness as he is for his commitment to justice. When Justin’s boss hangs a controversial criminal, Justin must defend himself against an army of friends and relatives, desperate for revenge.

Slaughter

In the 1870s, buffalo hunters moved onto the High Plains of Texas. The Plains Indians watched hunters Slaughter the animals that gave them shelter and clothing, food and weapons. The battles at and near the ruins of a trading fort, Adobe Walls, became symbolic of the struggles between hunters and the Comanche.

In this aptly titled novel, Texas novelist Elmer Kelton shows his uncanny ability to present both sides of a clash between cultures. With a firm grasp of Comanche life, Kelton presents The People as very human and very threatened. Equally clear is the picture of Anglos found on the high plains in those days Jeff Layne, a Confederate veteran and now a fugitive; Nigel Smithwick, an English ‘second son’ and gambler; Arletta, the lone woman among these men one woman was at Adobe Walls.

The Far Canyon

The Far Canyon‘, the sequel to ‘Slaughter’ was published in 1994 and won Elmer Kelton his sixth esteemed Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. By 2002 Kelton had not only earned his seventh Spur Award with Way of the Coyote, but had also won three Western Heritage Awards. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honored Kelton for ‘The Time it Never Rained’ in 1974, ‘The Good Old Boys’ in 1979, and ‘The Man Who Rode Midnight’ in 1988. With such accomplishments, it is easy to understand why, in 1995, the Western Writers of America voted Elmer Kelton the greatest western writer of all time. In ‘The Far Canyon‘, Kelton masterfully unveils for his reader the finality of the buffalo’s demise, the beginning of a time when cattle would replace the American bison on the southern plains and ultimately end the Plains Indian culture. The novel reveals the history of the period, not in a general grand swoop of the pen, but rather, up close and personal, so his readership can judge the impact of the period upon his characters. The novel’s first chapter introduces Comanche warrior Crow Feather, whose situation is emblematic of a common recurring theme in all of Kelton’s works…
change. Protagonist Jeff Layne is faced with the very same dramatic problem, the devastating threat to one’s self concept inherent in change. Layne, the hide hunter from Slaughter is weary of killing and death. He decides to return to South Texas, determined to earn his living with the newest resource on the plains, cattle. And the cultures collide. Kelton eloquently reveals the impact of hide hunters on Plains Indian culture. Crow Feather realizes that no matter how many whites the Comanche kill, there will always be more ‘coming back’. Crow Feather also understands that his life and the lives of his wives and children will never be easy again. Are Layne and Crow Feather of a character that will allow them to escape a predetermined fate by reaching that far canyon, or will they simply perish under the cultural dictate of their historical time?

The Pumpkin Rollers

In the cattle drives of the Old West, pumpkin rollers were green farmboys, almost more trouble than they were worth. When Trey McLean leaves his family’s East Texas cotton farm and sets off on his own to learn the cattleman’s trade, he’s about as green as they come. But Trey learns fast. He learns about deceit when a con man cheats him out of his grubstake and about love when he meets the woman he’s destined to marry. And when luck finally sets him on a cattle drive to Kansas, Trey learns the trade from veteran drover Ivan Kerbow, but he also learns the code of violence and death from outlaw Jarrett Longacre, a man who will plague his life at every turn.

Cloudy in the West

In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve year old Joey Shipman’s father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another ‘accident’ that almost takes Joey’s life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey’s unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey’s stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.

Christmas at the Ranch

‘We four Kelton boys were rich. It was not because we had money, for we didn’t. Money was always a short commodity in the 1930s and early 1940s. We were rich because we got to do for free what many people would have been glad to pay good money for, to live on a ranch with horses and cattle and cowboys.’ So begins Elmer Kelton’s story about what Christmas was like on a ranch in far West Texas during the Great Depression. Actually, he experienced Christmas on two ranches the one where his father was foreman, and the one his paternal grandfather operated. His grandparents’ home lacked electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing, but it was full of cousins, delicious food, and a warm glow that reflected more than just the heat generated by the pot bellied stove in the living room. This heart warming little book includes accounts of Kelton’s last Christmas at home before shipping out for war in Europe, his first Christmas after the war, and a special Christmas in Austria more than thirty five years later. Families will want to read this book together and then share their own experiences about the ‘good old days,’ however they are defined.

Shotgun

Rancher Blair Bishop of Two Forks, Texas, has too many enemies…
and they are closing in on him. Macy Modock, whom Bishop sent to prison ten years ago, is out of the hoosegow. Modock is returning to Two Forks along with his sidekick, who is known to be a mean gunman. Also arrayed against Bishop is rival cowman Clarence Cass, who is running his animals on Bishop’s land. Complicating matters, Cass s daughter, Jessie, and Bishop s son, Allan, are in love. Macy Modock, determined to get even with the man who sent him to prison, schemes with Cass to ruin Bishop. The black hearted pair lay claim to untitled lands Bishop uses to graze his cattle a plan that leads to a deadly confrontation in which two men will die.

Many a River

The Barfield family, Arkansas sharecroppers, are heading west with their sons Jeffrey and Todd. In far West Texas their camp is attacked by Comanche raiders and the elder Barfields are killed and scalped. The younger boy, Todd, is taken captive by the Indians. The older son, Jeffrey, manages to hide and is rescued by the militia men. Jeffrey is taken in by a home steading family, while Todd is sold, for a rifle and gunpowder, to a Comanchero trader named January.

Both become caught up in the turbulence of the Civil War, which even in remote West Texas, the border country with New Mexico, pits Confederate sympathizers against Unionists. The brothers, separated by violence, are destined to be rejoined by violence. Will they meet as friends or deadly enemies?

The Art of Howard Terpning

More than one hundred color reproductions accompanied by an illuminating text by Elmer Kelton capture the rich history and culture of native Americans in artwork inspired by the traditions of the Crow, Sioux, Apache, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and other native American groups.

The Art of Frank C. McCarthy

To view McCarthy’s artwork is to be right in the middle of the action. The artist creates heroic images of the American West that have been honored with retrospectives and one man exhibitions in some of the country’s most prestigious museums and galleries, including the Favell and Gilcrease museums. This beautiful book is an exciting overview of his work, splendidly reproduced in 75 full color plates. Shrinkwrapped.

The Art of James Bama

Renowned Western artist James Bama presents the West as it once was, and now is, in richly authentic action portraits. Kelton’s award winning writing perfectly complements the brilliantly executed, sensitive paintings of old timers, contemporary cowboys, and rodeo riders. Full color throughout.

My Kind of Heroes: Selected Speeches

My Kind of Heroes was first published by State House Press in 1995 as a collection of four selected speeches by Elmer Kelton. This revised second edition, or Signature Edition, includes three of those pieces plus two new ones. The five essays are: ‘My Kind of Heroes,’ ‘Real Cowboys,’ ‘Oil Boom Days in West Texas,’ ‘The Truth of Fiction,’ and ‘Politically Correct or Historically Correct?’ The signature on the front cover is Elmer Kelton’s. As an author, he has always been generous about autographing books for his thousands of fans. This time we asked him to put his signature right up front. In many ways, these speeches, essays, or stories are his signature statement about many of the things he believes about the West, about writing, about history. Kelton fans, old and new, will cherish this keepsake edition.

Texas

Around the world, Texas conjures legendary images. Parent offers them to readers with profound beauty and clarity, from the splendor of the Trans Pecos region to the grandeur of the East Texas woods and the vastness of the northern prairies. 120 photos. 1 color relief map.

Prairie Gothic (By:John R. Erickson)

‘Prairie Gothic’ is full of Texas lore. Erickson tells the story of people in the context of a specific place. This place, instrumental in shaping their lives, is the flatland prairie of northwestern Texas that has gone by various names High Plains, South Plains, Staked Plains, and Llano Estacado, as well as the rugged country on its eastern boundary, often referred to as the ‘caprock canyonlands.’ One branch of Erickson’s family arrived in Texas in 1858, settling in Parker County, west of Weatherford. Another branch, sturdy Quaker farmers from Ohio, helped establish the first Anglo settlement on the Llano Estacado in 1881, near present day Lubbock. Erickson’s family interacts with significant historical figures, such as Cynthia Ann Parker, and includes members of the Estacado Quaker colony. There is the story of Martha Sherman, who died at the hands of the Comanche, and the tale of the notorious outlaw Tom Ross. ‘Prairie Gothic’ also includes Erickson’s encounters with famous Texas writers, such as John Graves and J. Evetts Haley. Burrowing deep into his West Texas roots, Erickson discovered people of substance and strong character, made that way in part by the challenges they faced in a harsh environment. He has created a fascinating blend of family and regional history. Excerpts from journals, letters, and other original sources enrich the narrative.

Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer

One thing is certain, a reviewer in True West Magazine recently said, as long as there are writers as skillful as Elmer Kelton, Western literature will never die.
Few would disagree with the as*sessment of the man whose peers voted the Best Western writer of all time and whose 50 novels form a testament and tribute to the American West. But who is that Texas gentleman with the white Stetson and rimless eyeglas*ses whose friendly face appears on so many book jackets? Sandhills Boy is Kelton’s memoir, a funny and poignant story of a freckle faced country boy, green as a gourd, a sheep ready to be sheared, growing up in the wild, dry, sandhills of West Texas. The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Elmer was expected to follow in father’s footsteps but learned at an early age that he had no talents in the cowboy s trade. Buck Kelton called Elmer Pop, said he was slow as the seven year itch, and reluctantly supported his son s decision to become a student at the University of Texas, and, eventually, a journalist and writer. Kelton s life in ranch and oil patch Texas during the Great Depression is told with warm nostalgic humor animated with stories of the cowboys and their wives and kids who gave the time and place its special flavor. He writes with great feeling of his service in WW2 in France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and the romantic circumstances in which his life changed in the village of Ebensee, Austria.

Blood and Gold (By:Joseph A. West)

An inexperience cowpuncher with a solid work ethic, Dusty Hannah has earned the respect of his boss. Entrusted with $30,000 of the cattle rancher’s gold, he must take the fortune across Texas’s Red River by way of Indian territory, where the Apaches still reign. But the Apaches are the least of Dusty’s concerns once word of the money reaches the eras of every desperado in the Southwest. Saddled wit the gold, and suddenly responsible for protecting a father and daughter lost in hostile country, Dusty has to keep his wits about him and his aim steady if he hopes to see the trail’s end.

For the Brand (By:David Robbins)

Willis Lander was the T Bar ranch’s best bronc buster until a stallion shattered his leg. Unable to work as a cowboy, Willis was forced to mind a line shack forty miles from the ranch, secluding himself in the Wyoming wilderness. But when the T Bar is sold, Willis wonders whether the new owner will want to keep him on. Laurella Hendershot is a Texan rancher grateful for the opportunity to build a new life for herself. And she just may be Willis’ last chance.

Rio Largo (By:David Robbins)

FEUDING FRI: S For years, the Circle T ranch and the D/P ranch have existed in Sweet Grass Valley. Separated by the Rio Largo river, both ranches have managed to prosper mostly due to the ranch owners Kent Tovey and Dar Pierce, who are the best of friends. But all that is about to be challenged. Two new ranch hands are fomenting a cycle of violence between the ranches with a ruthless gang waiting to pick their bones clean after they destroy one another. One loyal cowboy caught in the carnage knows the truth. And when the Circle T and the D/P can no longer be protected, they must be avenged.

Guns of the Canyonlands (By:Joseph A. West)

The Gunfighter series continues.

Gunfighter Chance Tyree never looks for trouble. But in the Utah hills, he unknowingly rides into a war between small landowners and local rancher Quirt Latham. Now, with Latham determined to take him down, and a cold blooded corrupt sheriff out for blood, Tyree’s lightning fast draw is the only chance of stopping a tyrant from taking over.

Deadwood Gulch (By:John Edward Ames)

New in the bestselling gunfighter series Bounty Hunter Cas Everett’s family was slaughtered by outlaws. He has followed their bloody trail to Deadwood the most lawless town in the West and will stop at nothing to see that justice is served.

The Bloody Trail (By:Marcus Galloway)

Jeremiah Correy is leading his family in a wagon train to Oregon when his plans are waylaid by a group of bounty hunters led by Sam Madigan, who take a man from Correy’s party the quiet, unassuming Emmett Natham, who is actually a known fugitive. But Madigan also aims to nab the rest of the travelers and ransom them off.

Now, Jeremiah must stop Madigan and his greatest ally may be the mysterious and dangerous Emmett Natham, whose skills could save them all or lead them to their deaths…

A Wolf In the Fold (By:David Robbins)

EVEN BAD MEN CAN DO GOOD. Lucius Stark is just about the meanest mongrel in West Texas. But when Stark grows too fond of a woman he is hired to kill in a range war, his client shoots him in the back. He is saved by the very ranchers he was paid to eliminate. But when they end up slaughtered, Stark finds himself out to deliver his own brand of vengeance free of charge.

Bluff City (By:David Robbins)

Bluff City is a prosperous silver mining town and a place of opportunity for those willing to exploit its hard working citizens. Harve Barker is the wealthiest man in the territory, offering irresistible vices to anyone willing and able to afford them. Outlaw Jesse Stark has grown fond of the town’s surrounding mining camps, leading a gang of desperadoes on a violent spree of robberies and staying one step ahead of the law at all times. Between the megalomaniacal entrepreneur and the brutal bandit stands the enigmatic Clay Adams. And he has a score to settle with both of them.

Blood Duel (By:David Robbins)

Unable to read about his bloody exploits in the newspaper, serial killer Jeeter Frost finds a teacher to help him, while the townsfolk of Coffin Varnish, hoping to cash in on his infamy, put his victims on display, to which he strongly and violently objects.

Death of a Bad Man (By:Marcus Galloway)

The USA Today bestselling sundown rider series continues when the student is ready, the outlaw will appear…
When Solomon Brakefield decides living the straight and narrow just doesn’t pay, he seeks out Nestor Quarles, known killer and train robber, to teach him the tricks of the outlaw trade. The old outlaw has plenty to teach the new outlaw, but there’s a price to be paid and the currency is Solomon’s soul…

Ride the Hard Trail (By:David Robbins)

A national bestselling PhenomenonWanted brothers Lin and Chancy Bryce are hiding out from the law as cowpunchers on a widow’s ranch only to find themselves in the midst of an encroaching range war against a greedy cattle baron and his band of vicious gunmen…

Bullet for a Bad Man (By:David Robbins)

Boone and Eppley Scott are the sons of a prosperous Arizona ranching family and they couldn t be more different. Boone has a talent for the six shooter, but is content to raise cattle. Eppley is far more ambitious and deadly.

When Epp sends a killer after his unsuspecting younger brother, Boone’s lightning quick hands leave six dead men behind.

On the run, facing peril from all sides, Boone must fight to survive if he s ever going to make it to the final showdown with his own flesh and blood.

The Convict Trail (By:Joseph A. West)

Transporting six cold blooded convicts caged in a prison wagon across hard country, Deputy Marshal Logan Kane needs to watch his back and keep his Colt close at hand. There are rustlers, lynch mobs, and a New Orleans gang to contend with not to mention the convicts cronies looking to bust them loose.

Kane is about to have his own cage rattled as he tries to keep this ride from being his last…

Rawhide Flat (By:Joseph A. West)

U.S. Deputy Marshal Augustus Crane must escort convicted bank robber Judah Welsh to Virginia City. But the townsfolk of Rawhide Flat still want their $30,000 back from Welsh even if it means taking on Marshal Crane…

Outlaw’s Reckoning (By:Marcus Galloway)

When bandits Gus McCord and Doyle Hill stumble on the kidnapping of a shipping mogul’s daughter, they decide to do the unexpected the right thing.

The Man From Nowhere (By:Joseph A. West)

National bestselling Phenomenon When the Apache surrounded the settlement of Alma, New Mexico, the ‘respectable’ townsfolk began hanging those who weren’t. Town drunk E ddie Oates was lucky to be banished from the town, left for the Apaches to kill. Oates never thought he was a survivor. But now, he’s discovered a reason to go on and he’s about to unleash a raging fury upon those who would prey on the helpless, the hopeless, and those who others think aren’t worth fighting for…

Bounty Hunter (By:Joseph A. West)

Bounty hunter John Tone is good at his job. Some would say ruthless. If there’s killing to be done, he shows no mercy. In another time, far across the ocean, Tone lost the only person he’s ever loved — and he’s been dead inside ever since. That’s the hand fate dealt him, and he’ll play it out. But then a powerful criminal from San Francisco’s notorious Barbary Coast makes him an offer he can’t refuse, and Tone has to draw out six of his client’s worst enemies.

Fatal Justice (By:David Robbins)

Years ago Marshal Asher Thrall shot mad dog killer Ben Sharkey. And he’s just repaid the favor in spades. With a bullet still in his chest, Ash knows he’s a walking dead man. But he’s going to make sure Sharkey takes his last step first…

Stryker’s Revenge (By:Joseph A. West)

USA Today Bestselling Phenomenon Lieutenant Steve Stryker has a score to settle with Rake Pierce, who’s running guns to the Apaches. Pierce left him a scarred man and ruined his life. Now it’s payback time…

Death of a Hangman (By:Joseph A. West)

USA Today bestselling Phenomenon Charlie Pike is fulfilling Judge Henry Dryden’s dying wish by escorting him to Texas. But an outlaw out for revenge is on their trail, determined that they will never reach their destination…

North to the Salt Fork (By:Ralph Compton,Dusty Richards)

USA Today bestselling phenomenon Captain Jack Starr served the Confederate cause with honor for four years. The town of Lost Dog Creek promised an opportunity for the war veteran to rebuild his life and a woman to share it with. But not everyone is willing to roll out the welcome wagon…

Rusted Tin (By:Marcus Galloway)

Lawdog or Lapdog? Zeke Wolpert is sheriff of Keith County, Nebraska. But he turns a half drunk blind eye to outlaws who pay him for the privilege. Now the outlaws have set their sights on a Wells Fargo shipment. It’s a chance for Zeke to get enough money to retire from this unsavory business once and for all. But it’s also an opportunity for him to honor the badge he wears one last time…

The Burning Range (By:Joseph A. West)

A plague of killings has descended on Green Meadow, Oklahoma. A villain called the Fat Man wants the town and the black gold beneath it and he’s willing to wipe out every man, woman, and child to get it. Only two underdogs stand in his way: seedy gambler Chauncey Drake, and scrappy Pinkerton agent Reuben Withers. Together they’ll need to force feed the Fat Man a steady diet of hot lead, or Green Meadow will flow red.

The Last Manhunt (By:Joseph A. West)

Reporter Lester Booker joins legendary gunfighter Rance March on the trail of a dangerous outlaw to learn how the West was really won.

Slaughter Canyon (By:Joseph A. West)

Deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Battles has to discover why Hatfield J. Warful is gathering every notorious gunslinger in the West at his home in Slaughter Canyon. And if his mission fails, it could result in a second Civil War.

A Century of Great Western Stories

John Jakes, 1 New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical novels as North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles has long been both a fan and a distinguished author of novels and stories of the American West. Now, with the turning of the millennium, he has compiled in one volume a century’s worth of his favorite Western fiction. To illustrate the evolution of the genre, Jakes has included such legendary authors as Owen Wister, Louis L’Amour, and Zane Grey along side their more contemporary peers such as Loren Estleman and Elmer Kelton. While the stories have changed over the years, certain timeless themes of Western fiction remain constant. At the heart of the stories are ideas that have become synonymous with the American dream the frontier spirit, individual freedoms, and man’s relationship with the land. A Century of Great Western Stories is essentially a retrospective of western writing over the past century, but Jakes also sets out to give readers a glimpse of what the future might hold for western fiction. While trends in publishing might not always be promising, the current crop of contemporary Western authors show that the old west will always have a place in the world of fiction. Like the American dream which it celebrates, Western fiction will perservere. Featuring classc stories by:John Jakes, Mantiow and IronhandJohn M. Cunningham, The Tin Star, which became the classic Western film, High NoonJack London, All Gold CanyonLouis L’Amour, The Gift of CochiseThomas Thompson, Gun JobElmer Kelton, The Burial of Letty StrayhornLoren D. Estleman, Hell on the DrawJack Schaffer, author of Shane, Sergerant Houck

Noah’s Ride

Naked Came the Stranger set the format, but not always the tone or subject matter, for a whole string of books that appeared in the 1970s. Called collaborative or serial novels, the multi author works were set in the suburbs, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Florida, the American West, but never in Texas. Now a dozen Texas authors have gotten together to create a good old fashioned western novel. Each contributing author will write a chapter that builds on the work that precedes his or her chapter. The plot features Noah, a plantation slave who escapes and makes his way to the Union forces and, finally, Texas, where he establishes a small ranch, runs a few cattle, and, with wife Nelly, begins to raise a family. But Noah, who has taken the name Freeman and named his ranch Free Land, cannot leave his past behind. The slave catcher Quint Carpenter is the local sheriff, and he’s out for blood specifically Noah’s blood after Noah’s sister kills Quint s younger son. And carpetbagger Bear Coltrain, who once wanted to kidnap Noah and sell him back into slavery, now wants Noah’s land. And then John Malone comes along Noah once saved the former cavalry officer s life, and he wants to repay his debt. Can he help when someone kidnaps Noah s baby girl? Can he help save the ranch and, finally, save Noah s life? At press time for this catalog, half the chapters remain yet to be written, so the plot may change some but that’s the magic of a project such as this one. In cooperation with TCU Press, the Fort Worth Star Telegram announced a contest in which the winner became one of the contributing authors. Entries were posted on the Star Telegram web page, where the best three entries were chosen by popular vote. The staff of TCU Press chose the winner from among those entries. She is Mary Dittoe Kelly, and this will be her first published writing. A celebration at Fort Worth’s Bass Hall will bring all the authors together onstage to talk about the work, and the joys and problems of working in collaboration. Former Star Telegram book editor Jeff Guinn will moderate.

Lost Trails

They are the stuff of legend, thundering out of the harsh landscapes and stunning vistas of the American West, vividly lodged in our collective imaginations. From Buffalo Bill to Billy the Kid, from Cochise to Jesse James, these names and so many others screamed across newspaper and magazine headlines while the Wild West was won. ‘Lost Trails‘ features inventive, hard riding, action packed stories by America’s best Western writers. Louis L’Amour, Elmer Kelton, William W. Johnstone, Loren Estleman, Johnny Boggs, Don Coldsmith, and many more, share tales of the legends born out of the wild frontier. So sit a spell and listen to a good ol’ yarn about Mark Twain’s meeting with Buffalo Bill, a man who shoed horses for Jesse James, or a little known nugget about Cochise by the legendary Louis L’Amour…
and for a time, you can find yourself riding those ‘Lost Trails‘ with the real people that make the legends of the West come alive today.

Ghost Towns

The sound of a crowded saloon…
The cry of a train coming through the night…
The pounding of horses ridden by friends or foe…
From the searing sun to snow steeped winters, towns called Sentinel, Iron Mountain, and St. Elmo stood strong and fierce before they finally died. Now, these Ghost Towns return to life under the spell of such great Western tale tellers as Louis L’Amour, Elmer Kelton, William W. Johnstone, Bill Brooks, Loren D. Estleman, Johnny D. Boggs, and ‘New York Times’ bestseller Margaret Coel. From a soldier on the run from the fires of war…
From a gambler who has long since played his last hand…
To a solitary, singing rifle man protecting a besieged town…
With dreamers and schemers, with men and women of courage, conscience, and faith, here is an unforgettable round up of astounding adventures fuelled by a passion for the West the way it really was and the way it lives on forever.

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