Elmer Kelton

In 1906, cowboy Hewey Calloway realizes that the West is changing and that he must find a new way of life in a new era.

Aging Texas gunfighter Joe Pepper reminisces about his life of adventure throughout the Old Southwest while preparing to face the hangman's noose.

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...

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,...

Frank Claymore is not easy to like -- to admire, maybe, but not to like. He is cantankerous, stubborn, and intolerant -- the very qualities that make him a success as an open-range cattleman on the West Texas frontier. In one of his most memorable novels, acclaimed Western writer Elmer Kelton follows Frank Claymore's life from the time of the Civil War to the dawn of the 20th century -- through marriage, births, deaths, and a creeping change in the...

In 1875, nearly forty years after the Mexican War, Mexicans and Texans are still spilling blood over ownership of the Nueces Strip--a hot, dry stretch of coastal prairie that bushwackers and horse thieves have turned into a lawless hell. Captain L.H. McNelly, a complex and determined Confederate veteran, is brought into the Nueces Strip for one purpose: to keep the peace. His measures are harsh and controversial--but McNelly wasn't sent in to be...

Elmer Kelton sets this prequel to his award-winning classics The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country in 1889 Texas. Hewey Calloway and his kid brother Walter head for West Texas- hoping to live their cowboy dream. But when Walter's crush on a gal threatens the dream, Hewey plots to get Walter back in the saddle again.

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...

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...

Having finished Texas Standoff, seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton-the Western Writers of America's "Best Western Writer of All Time"-took his leave with 50 notches on his gunbelt of classics. When Ranger Andy Pickard is sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts, two prominent cattlemen are prime suspects. But the rise of a gang of masked vigilantes and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman complicate matters....