Showing results by author "Elmer Kelton" in All Categories

For decades, Charlie Flagg has eked out a living by raising cattle and sheep on his modest Texas ranch. Hardworking and old-fashioned, he distrusts federal programs that claim to help struggling farmers and ranchers. But as rainless years continue and others sell their souls for federal handouts, Charlie finds himself under increasing pressure to compromise his principles - and surrender his freedom.

The Buckskin Line tells of Texas' chaotic early years, when a ragtag group of irregular volunteers fought to defend the far edges of settlement from incursion by Indians and frontier outlaws. In time, they would become known as the Texas Rangers.

Ranger's Trail takes listeners back to 1874 for a rousing tale of the legendary Texas Rangers. The Rangers are reorganizing, and they badly want Rusty Shannon to re-enlist. But Rusty has plans for a quiet, married life. Then a terrible tragedy destroys his world, and sends him down the treacherous trail of revenge.

Six-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton was named the greatest Western author of all time by the Western Writers of America. In this novel, 18-year-old farmer Trey McLean aspires to be a cattle rancher. He leaves East Texas with four cows and heads west, but a corrupt sheriff quickly steals the animals. Helpless and confused, Trey finds trouble with a dangerous fugitive. But he also finds comfort and opportunity with a rancher’s lovely daughter.

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.

In 1861, men are enlisting in the Texas Mounted Rifles to keep the land free from Indian raids. There are larger conflicts, however. Texas has seceeded from the union while war brews between the North and the South. Sam Houston Cloud has just joined the Texas Rifles. But he is deeply disturbed by the suffering he sees on all sides: White and Indian, Texan and immigrant. Elmer Kelton has an amazing talent for sweeping away stereotypes and filling his novels with unique, unforgettable men and women who know the ways of the frontier. Audie Award-winning narrator George Guidall's performance is superb.

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.

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.

Caprock, Texas is a sleepy cow town until oil is discovered in the 1920s. Suddenly thousands of people stream in to find their fortune. Some are honest folk like Elise and Victor Underwood, who pray for a little luck with their daily bread. But too many are two-bit swindlers. And then there’s frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty. Sheriff Dave Buckalew faces a whole different set of circumstances as his town springs to life — in good and not-so-good ways.

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.

In Other Men’s Horses, a young 1880s Texas Ranger must track down a fugitive who gunned down a notorious horse thief. Reaching the West Texas town where Donley Bannister was last spotted, Ranger Andy Pickard follows Bannister’s trail across treacherous, unforgiving terrain. But when outlaws ambush Pickard, Bannister risks his life to rescue his pursuer—instead of high-tailing it in the opposite direction—and provides life-saving medical care.

Before he set down his pen, seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton—the Western Writers of America’s “Best Western Writer of All Time”—cut 50 notches on his gunbelt of classics. In this final novel of the Texas Rangers, a young lawman finds his mettle put to the test while bringing justice to a remote settlement. To stop a series of baffling killings and thefts, newly married ranger Andy Pickard is dispatched to a central Texas community where locals are quick to pin the crimes on two feuding cattlemen.

Thomas Canfield descends from a line of Texas's earliest settlers. A proud man with a fierce-eyed 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 Canfield'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.

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....

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.

Nearly 70, Wes Hendricks has led a tough and colorful life as a cowboy and broncobuster, and all he asks now is that he be left alone on his poor, hardscrabble ranch in the West Texas hill country. Not a chance - the powers that be in the little town of Big River (including Wes' old cowboy pal, druggist/Mayor Orville Levitt) have decreed that an artificial lake will be created to generate tourism, and Wes' ranch stands squarely in their way.

Elmer Kelton is hailed as the greatest Western author of all time by the Western Writers of America and has earned six Spur Awards during his impressive career. In Badger Boy, Kelton effortlessly sweeps listeners back to the post-Civil War Texas frontier, where ranger Rusty Shannon hopes to settle down as a respectable farmer. But trouble brews when Rusty captures Badger Boy, a white child raised by the Comanches who murdered his parents.

In Hard Trail to Follow, by seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton, young Texas Ranger Andy Pickard vows to track down the bank robber he thinks killed his friend and mentor. But as he traverses the rugged terrain, Andy's perplexed at the glowing reports of the felon's kindness and integrity.

When Comanches slaughter his parents in 1855 West Texas, eight-year-old Jeff buries their scalped bodies—and the charred remains of his younger brother. Taken in by a homesteading family, Jeff ekes out an existence. But as he dons Confederate gray, he never dreams his brother is alive—or that he’s wearing Union blue.

In The Far Canyon, Kelton masterfully unveils for his listener 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.