Elmer Kelton
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"Sixteen stories, where good meets bad, and everything in between, from the legendary author of the west, Elmer Kelton. Law of the Land chronicles some of his most exciting and dangerous tales of the Old West, collected together for the first time--including the exciting first publication of a never-before published Kelton story, Biscuits for Bandit"--Provided by publisher.
2) Bitter Trail
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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...
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Elmer Kelton writes of his beloved home country of West Texas in these two novels of cowmen and cow country.
In Pecos Crossing, two young cowboys, Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, have been cheated of six months' hard-earned salary by their rancher boss Larramore and intend getting what is due to them.
In Shotgun, Texas rancher Blair Bishop has to contend with a rival cowman who is turning his herd loose on Bishop's land, and with a mean customer...
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In the cattle drives of the Old West, pumpkin rollers were green farm boys, 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...
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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...
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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,...
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This is a story of the early days when...
An intense, red-haired young man named Rusty Shannon rides into Fort Belknap on the Brazos River and joins the Texas Rangers. Years before, Mike Shannon rescued Rusty from a Comanche war party and became his adoptive father. Not long ago, Mike Shannon, was bushwhacked and killed, and his death still haunts Rusty. Rusty thinks he knows the identity of Mike's killers. But with Texas now in the throes of seceding...
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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...
9) Many a River
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In seven-time Spur Award-winning author Elmer Kelton's Many a River, two brothers are orphaned and separated, only to be reunited as enemies on opposing sides of the Civil War.
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,...
10) Six Bits a Day
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Calloway series volume 3
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Hewey Calloway, one of the best-loved cowboys 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...
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Hard Trail to Follow is the seventh novel in Elmer Kelton's acclaimed "Texas Ranger" series from Elmer Kelton
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...
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The Smiling Country, filled with pathos and humor, is set in the last days of the Old West. Hewey Calloway may be pushing 45, but he can still rope and outride most things on four legs. Refusing promotions, he prefers to remain a simple ranch hand. But as he rides the west Texas plains, automobiles are beginning to dot the landscape. When Hewey is critically injured by a wild horse, he must admit that his world-and an age-are passing away.
13) After the Bugles
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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...
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Few would disagree with the assessment 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 eyeglasses 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,"...
15) Donovan
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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,...
16) Llano River
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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...
17) Shadow of a Star
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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...
18) Hot Iron
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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?...
19) Barbed Wire
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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...
20) Hanging Judge
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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.