Showing results by author "Elmer Kelton" in All Categories

Gray Horse. The magnificent young Comanche warrior made strong by the medicine of the wolf, skilled at stealing horses and counting coup in the war raids of his people. Through his bravery and his wisdom, he would rally his beleaguered tribe against the tide of white settlers that swept over their land.

Gray Horse. The magnificent young Comanche warrior made strong by the medicine of the wolf, skilled at stealing horses and counting coup in the war raids of his people. Through his bravery and his wisdom, he would rally his beleaguered tribe against the tide of white settlers that swept over their land.

In "Pecos Crossing", two young cowboys, Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, have been cheated of six months’ hard-earned pay by their rancher boss, Larramore and intend to get what is due to them. In "Shotgun", Two Forks, Texas, rancher Blair Bishop must contend with a mean customer named Macy Modock, who Bishop sent to prison 10 years past. Modock is out of the hoosegow and has returned to Two Forks determined to get even with the man who sent him up the river.

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.

Changes have come to 1910 Texas and Hewey Calloway doesn't like them. An injury signals the end of his freewheeling life and he begins to see the loneliness of the road ahead, if he doesn't take action to change his direction. Can his past hold the key to improving his future?

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 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.

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...

In Stand Proud, one of his most controversial novels, legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton takes on a character who is not as easy to like as he is to admire. Frank Claymore is cantankerous, stubborn, and intolerant--just the qualities that make him a success as an open-range cattle rancher on...

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...