Wild West: Short Stories

From rodeos to rustlers, from ranch life to the outlaw trail, Elmer Kelton offers us tales of the American West, both modern and mythical. Readers will meet a rodeo clown who seeks redemption through romance, a recently-released prisoner trying to reform himself via ranch work, and an embattled veteran with just enough courage left to conquer his last foe - when a town and the love of his life are at stake. Every bit as important as the men are Kelton’s powerful women - a cattle buyer’s daughter who can hold her own with any man on the trail, a renowned outlaw who rules her gang with her gun, and a judge’s daughter who is determined to end local mob rule now that “the day of the gun is almost over.” These are characters whom you’ll never forget, every one of whom shows us how life was back then: simpler, but harder, with danger always present.

As in all of Elmer Kelton’s work, readers will, once again, encounter the timeless strength of the human heart and the human spirit when everything else has gone awry. Filled with adventure and imbued with a love of the time, the people, and the place, these stories take us from the earliest days of the Wild West well into the twentieth century, each one embodying a passion for life that’s as wide as Texas sky.