Elmer Kelton

On the Texas frontier in 1865, David "Rusty" Shannon attempts to protect settlers from Comanche raids. When the rangers are disbanded, Rusty makes his way home to his land on the Red River. When his past returns to haunt him, Rusty takes as a prisoner Badger Boy, a white child taken from his murdered parents by a Comanche warrior.

"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...

Hewey Calloway has a problem. In his West Texas home of 1906, the land of the way of life that he loves are changing too quickly for his taste. Hewey dreams of freedom--he wants only to be a footloose horseback cowboy, endlessly wandering the open range. But the open range of his childhood is slowly disappearing: land is being parceled out, and barbed-wire fences are spring up all over. As if that weren't enough, cars and other machines are invading...

Andy Pickard felt ready to settle down, until the violent death of a good friend sends him on the road again, to bring a killer to justice. His trail takes him away from Bethel Brackett, but reunites him with old friends Rusty Shannon and Len Tanner. The bank-robbing fugitive he seeks may not even be the killer, but justice must be served. For many reasons, it's a hard trail to follow.

A different kind of range war erupts between cowboys and ranchers in The Day the Cowboys Quit from seven-time Spur Award-winning author Elmer Kelton. The time is 1883, the place is the Texas Panhandle. Cowboys refuse to be stigmatized as drinkers and exploited by the wealthy cattle owners who don't pay liveable wages. Those very same ranchers want to take away the cowboys' right to own cattle because this ownership, the ranchers believe, would lead...

When his adoptive father is bushwhacked and killed in Texas in 1861, Rusty Shannon rides to fort Belknap on the Brazos River and joins the Texas Rangers. Mike Shannon's death haunts him; he owed his life to Mike, who rescued him from a Comanche War party when he was a child, and rusty thinks he knows the killer's identity. With Texas now in the throes of secession, Union sympathizers are regarded as traitors and it is Rusty's fate to fall in love...

Young Andy Pickard, known among the Comanches as Badger Boy, is now a teenager, and has been learning to live with the Texans from whom he was stolen years before. His divided loyalties between the Comanches and the whites lead to another kidnapping. Five-year-old Billy Gifford is taken by a warrior named Fights With Bears. Andy must save his honor by trying to recover Billy. Rusty Shannon must defend his home against men who hold a grudge from the...

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...

Nothing stirs up emotions in Texas like men stealing other men's horses. Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned what seems to be a routine duty. West Texas horse trader Donley Bannister has killed a thug named Cletus Slocum who stole one of his horses. Ranger Pickard is to find and arrest Bannister, and bring him to trial. But the case turns out to be anything but routine. When Pickard finds him holed up with some cohorts, Bannister saves the Ranger's...

Set in Texas during the aftermath of the war with Santa Ana, this story shows the struggle of men to make a place for themselves in a world they fought to create.