Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn't much that Joe hasn't done in his forty years of living on both sides of the Texas law-except face the hangman. Now, convicted of murder, Joe is about to get that privilege. But, before he goes, Joe has a few things he wants to say, and a few stories that he wants to set straight. With Joe Pepper, legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton tells a fine and moving tale of the history of...

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 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...

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...

When a rivalry between a white rancher and a Mexican cattle baron escalates to deadly levels, young Texas Ranger Andy Pickard teams up with former Confederate soldier Farley Brackett to prevent a violent showdown.

Elmer Kelton writes of his beloved home country of West Texas in these two novels of cowmen and cow country. In Pecos Crossing, two young cowboys, Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, have been cheated of six months' hard-earned salary by their rancher boss Larramore and intend getting what is due to them. In Shotgun, Texas rancher Blair Bishop has to contend with a rival cowman who is turning his herd loose on Bishop's land, and with a mean customer...

"In The Cowboy Way, acclaimed western writer Elmer Kelton chronicles the highs and lows of cowboy life. These sixteen tales, collected together for the first time, brim over with action, adventure, brotherhood, betrayal, and the romance of the American West"--

Ranger's trail: Spring of 1874, Ranger companies are being reorganized and David "Rusty" Shannon is the most sought-after veteran. But he has a new goal, to marry Josie Monahan. He also feels responsibility for Andy Pickard, who he rescued from the Comanche. But tragedy changes Rusty's plans and bent on revenge, he pursues Josie's killer. But the trail he follows may lead him astray. Texas vendetta: Young Andy Pickard is in the midst of a bloody...