Mostrando resultados por autor "Elmer Kelton" en Todas las categorías

A Comanche war party raids settlements and steals horses. A young warrior named Buffalo Caller kills a young couple, then abducts their red-haired little boy. The boy is rescued by a volunteer defender of the white settlers named Mike Shannon, who raises the boy as his own and calls him Rusty.

Elmer Kelton, beloved chronicler of the Old West and recipient of an unprecedented seven Spur Awards, recounts the story of Santa Anna's lesser known massacre through the eyes of a lone survivor. Even in his old age, Josh Buckalew sometimes awakens in a cold sweat as he relives those horrifying moments at Goliad so long ago. And yet every time he retells the tale, his heart fills with gratitude for those brave Texans who gave their lives so others might live free.

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 10 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' daughter, Jessie, and Bishop's son, Allan, are in love.

Young Andy Pickard, known among the Comanches as Badger Boy, is now a teenager, and has been learning to live with the Texans from whom he was stolen years before. His divided loyalties between the Comanches and the whites lead to another kidnapping. Five-year-old Billy Gifford is taken by a warrior named Fights With Bears. Andy must save his honor by trying to recover Billy.

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.

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!

As a slave, Isaac Jefford went to war and saved the life of his master, Major Lytton. As a free man, Isaac became one of the major's top cowhands, respected - but never totally accepted - by fellow cowboys: when they gathered around the fire to eat their dinner, Isaac took his food and sat on the wagontongue alone. When Pete Runyan, a bitter southerner, joins the crew, Isaac has to swallow his rage more than once.

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?

Long Way to Texas brings together three rare Kelton novels, all with Texas roots: Joe Pepper, Long Way to Texas, and Eyes of the Hawk.

Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn't much that Joe hasn't done in his 40 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.

When a ruthless cattle baron and his men destroy Doug Monahan's property, his old friend and mentor is gunned down. Pistol whipped and now flat broke, Monahan finds refuge on the sprawling homestead of Noah Wheeler and his virtuous daughter. But Monahan refuses to quit.

In the Texas backlands in 1885, 12-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 and three other characters 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.

Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, young, hardworking 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, 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".

Winner of a record seven Spur Awards, Elmer Kelton pens fast-paced stories with well-developed characters and unbeatable excitement. In the midst of a long-standing family feud, three Rangers must fight to keep order in the tenuous state of post-Civil War Texas.

Donley Bannister shot and killed Cletus Slocum for stealing and crippling one of his best horses. He ran, leaving his wife Geneva behind. She sets off to find him, with Ranger Andy Pickard on her trail, hoping she’ll lead him to Donley. Cletus’ brothers are on the road, too, seeking revenge. Along the way, Andy discovers that the innocent and devoted Geneva may have made the mistake of marrying the wrong man, and that her husband may be a moral man in some ways, but he has no difficulty with taking other men’s horses.

Thirty years after the Battle of San Jacinto, Texans and Mexicans are still spilling blood over control of the Nueces Strip. And Horse thieves and bushwhackers transform this hot, dry stretch between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers into a lawless inferno. Despite long odds, Captain McNelly and his small band of Texas Rangers strive to bring lasting peace to this swirling vortex of murder and racial hatred.

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 bring the mustang herd to sell in Tennessee. Crossing the Sabine River, Mordecai's party encounters a Spanish patrol determined to repel all American invaders.

In post-Civil War Texas, Andy Pickard, once known to his Comanche "family" as Badger Boy, is now in his mid-20s and riding with the Texas Rangers. While delivering a prisoner for trial, he becomes entangled in a feud between the Landon and Hopper families. Andy works to help Jayce Landon, while at the same time keeping the boy Scooter Tennyson from being pulled into a life of crime. Lives are at stake, loyalties tested, and the worst aspects of human nature are exposed, in Texas Vendetta.

Rusty Shannon has left the Rangers and feels the need to settle down. He has brought up Andy Pickard, once a captive of the Comanches, now in his 20s and eager to see more of the world. Rusty's dream of marrying Josie Monahan and living the life of a farmer seems like paradise, compared to the Civil War and the evils of Reconstruction. His dreams and plans, and the lives of the Monahans, are shattered by tragedy, and Rusty seeks revenge. By his side are Andy and an old friend from Ranger days, Len Tanner.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here's the most varied collection of short stories, by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.