Elmer Kelton

The Buckskin Line tells of Texas' chaotic early years, when a ragtag group of irregular volunteers fought to defend the far edges of settlement from incursion by Indians and frontier outlaws. In time, they would become known as the Texas Rangers....

Rusty Shannon has left the Rangers and feels the need to settle down. He has brought up Andy Pickard, once a captive of the Comanches, now in his 20s and eager to see more of the world. Rusty's dream of marrying Josie Monahan and living the life of a farmer seems like paradise....

Young Owen Danforth rides home to Texas as a wounded Confederate soldier, at a time when his home state is as savagely divided as his nation....

Thomas Canfield descends from a line of Texas's earliest settlers. He is a proud man with a fierce-eyed stare. When Branch Isom - an insolent, dangerous newcomer - seeks to build his fortune at Canfield's expense, an all-out feud ensues....

David "Rusty" Shannon is the member of a "ranging company" attempting to protect Texas settlers from Comanche depredations. He learns that the rangers are being disbanded....

Donley Bannister shot and killed Cletus Slocum for stealing and crippling one of his best horses. He ran, leaving his wife Geneva behind. She sets off to find him, with Ranger Andy Pickard on her trail, hoping she’ll lead him to Donley....

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...

Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn't much that Joe hasn't done in his 40 years of living on both sides of the Texas law....

Chosen by his peers as the best Western writer of all time and honored with an unprecedented seven Spur Awards, Elmer Kelton is “one of the giants of the Western genre” ( Booklist).....

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....

The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country.

Hewey Calloway is between a rock and a hard place: The open range and simple life of his childhood are disappearing. He can't live a cowboy life whose time has passed and he's not ready yet for the new challenges of the 20th century....

Espy Norwood is a troubleshooter who's got troubles of his own, and more troubles find him when he lands a job on a ranch on the Texas plains....

Joshua Buckalew has left behind the deserted battlefields that claimed his brother Thomas. The war has cost him much, but it has also given him a strong bond....

When former cattle man Dundee wanders into the town of Titusville, he's broke, tired, and itching for a fight. Instead, he gets a job offer...from none other than the top man in town, John Titus....

Changes have come to 1910 Texas and Hewey Calloway doesn't like them. An injury signals the end of his freewheeling life and he begins to see the loneliness of the road ahead, if he doesn't take action to change his direction....

In the 1870s, buffalo hunters moved onto the High Plains of Texas. The Plains Indians watched hunters slaughter the animals that gave them shelter and clothing, food, and weapons....

A Comanche war party raids settlements and steals horses. A young warrior named Buffalo Caller kills a young couple, then abducts their red-haired little boy....

Sheriff Jim-Bob McClain isn't sure he's ready to follow in his father's footsteps as the law in Coolridge County. He has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks....

By 1873, the great buffalo herds have been all but wiped out, and the hide hunters are looking for other work. But Gage Jameson hears of one remaining herd....