Elmer Kelton

"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...

The Barfield family, Arkansas sharecroppers, is 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 and later sold to a Comanchero trader. Jeffrey, who manages to hide, is rescued by militia men and taken in by a family. Caught up in the turbulence of the Civil War, the brothers, separated by violence, are...

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...

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,...

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...

When Owen Danforth returns to Texas, the war between the states is nearly, but he finds himself in the middle of another civil war--between the murderous Home Guards and the supporters of Sam Houston, who opposed secession.

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...

In the spring of 1874 the Ranger companies that protect settlers against Indian raids and outlaw bands are being reorganized and David "Rusty" Shannon is the most sought-after veteran for reenlistment. But Shannon has new goals for his life: He is in love with Josie Monahan, daughter of the family that adopted him, and he intends to marry Josie and take her to his farm on the Colorado River. Rusty also feels affection and responsibility for Andy Pickard,...

Texas Sunrise brings together two of Elmer Kelton's acclaimed novels, Massacre at Goliad and After the Bugles, and tells the story of the Texas Revolution as experienced by brothers Thomas and Joshua Buckalew of Tennessee.

Aging cowboy and bronco-buster Wes Hendricks just wants to be left alone on his poor ranch, even when town developers offer him big money to sell it. Wes's grandson reluctantly tries to convince him to give up his home, but that was before he, too, succumbs to the ranch's--and a young cowgirl's--wild beauty.