Elmer Kelton

In Bitter Trail, Kelton tells the story of a tough teamster named Frio Wheeler whose wagons haul cotton from Texas to Mexico. Sounds like a peaceable enterprise? The problem is that the Civil War is raging throughout the South and Wheeler's cotton is to be sold for gold--gold used to buy guns and ammunition for the Confederate army. And, added to his balky mules, the broiling heat, and killing drought of the Mexican dessert, Wheeler has even more...

"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...

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,...

Confronted by the changes of the modern era, Hewey, an open range cowboy, had made decisions he felt would best suit the new world of the early twentieth century, yet four years later, he remains haunted by his choices and struggles to make things right once more.

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...

For Gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt. A year ago he felled sixty-two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican herd before it. In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak is awe of a last great heard to the south--but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory. None but Gage Jameson.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being...

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.

In the cattle drives of the Old West, pumpkin rollers were green farm boys, almost more trouble than they were worth. When Trey McLean leaves his family's East Texas cotton farm and sets off on his own to learn the cattleman's trade, he's about as green as they come. But, Trey learns fast. He learns about deceit when a con man cheats him out of his grubstake and about love when he meets the woman he's destined to marry. And, when luck finally sets...

In later years people often asked Hugh Hitchcock about the Canadian River cowboy strike of 1883. 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...

In the year following the Civil War, Rusty Shannon, hoping to take up life as a farmer, is haunted by memories of being a Comanche captive as a child.