Elmer Kelton
1) 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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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.
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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,"...
4) 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...
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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...
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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.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software...
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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...
8) Shotgun
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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...
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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...
10) Joe Pepper
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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...
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Texas Rangers (Elmer Kelton) volume 7
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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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Written by the most honored Western writer of all time, Ranger's Law presents three novels from Elmer Kelton's acclaimed saga of the formative years of the Texas Rangers.
In Ranger's Trail, set in the decade following the Civil War, young David "Rusty" Shannon hopes to join the "ranging companies" being formed to curb depredations by Indian bands and renegade outlaws. Waiting will give him time to find and kill the man who murdered his fiancée -...
13) 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,...
14) 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...
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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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From rodeos to rustlers, from ranch life to the outlaw trail, Elmer Kelton's take on the human condition shows us life in Texas as it was back then: simpler, but harder, with danger always present. Readers will meet several unforgettable characters, including a young veteran who overcomes his PTSD to fight a fire ravaging his town, a sheriff who continues to chase bandits despite having lost his job, and a frontier housewife who refuses to let her...
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To Elmer Kelton, the brush country of southwest Texas is home. Nobody knows Texas's history, people, beauty, and dangers as well as this greatest of Western writers.
Barbed Wire, the first novel in this omnibus, is the story of one-time cowboy Doug Monahan, who runs a fencing crew outside the town of Twin Wells. Monahan, a likeable, hard-working Irishman, and his workers dig post-holes and string red painted barbwire for ranchers as protection against...
18) Eyes of the Hawk
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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...