Hot Iron and The Time It Never Rained


Book Description

With Hot Iron and The Time It Never Rained, this omnibus by legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton offers two complete novels of the American West at one low price Hot Iron In the early days of the Texas panhandle, starting a new life is hard, but keeping it is even harder. Espy Norwood is a troubleshooter already wrestling with a slew of problems when he lands a job on a ranch on the Texas plains—and more trouble finds him. Bitter landowners plot against him, determined cattle thieves sneak right under his nose, and his own son refuses to trust or even know him. Can he catch the thieves, save the ranch, and win his son’s love? The Time It Never Rained To the ranchers and farmers of 1950s Texas, man’s greatest enemy is one he can’t control. With entire livelihoods pegged on the chance of a wet year or a dry year, drought has the ability to crush whole enterprises, to determine who stands and falls, and to rob workers and their families of food. To Charlie Flagg, an honest, decent, and cantankerous rancher, the drought of the early 1950s is a foe he must fight on his own grounds. Refusing the questionable “help” of federal aid programs, Charlie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again—if it ever will. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Time it Never Rained


Book Description

Repub. of Doubleday 1973 edition, with new introductions by Kelton and an afterword.




The Time It Never Rained


Book Description

"The Time It Never Rained was inspired by actual events, when the longest and most severe drought in living memory pressed ranchers and farmers to the outer limits of courage and endurance."—Elmer Kelton, Seven-time Spur Award-winning author Rio Seco was too small to afford a professional manager for its one-room Chamber of Commerce. And Rio Seco, meaning "dry river" in Spanish, symbolizes the biggest enemy of the ranchers and farmers in 1950s Texas, an enemy they can't control: drought. To cranky Charlie Flagg, an honest, decent rancher, the drought of the early 1950s is a battle that he must fight on his own grounds. Refusing the questionable "assistance" of federal aid programs and their bureaucratic regulations, Charlie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again—if it ever rains again. Charlie Flagg, among the strongest of Elmer Kelton's memorable creations, is no pasteboard hero. He is courageous and self-sufficient but as real as his harsh and unforgiving West Texas home country. His battle with an unfathomable foe is the stuff of epics and legends. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Hot Iron


Book Description

In the early days of the Texas panhandle, Espy Norwood is a troubleshooter who's got troubles of his own. Bitter landowners plot against him, determined cattle thieves sneak right under his nose, and his own son refuses to trust or even know him. Can he catch the thieves, save the ranch, and win his son's love? Reissue.




Hot Iron


Book Description

In the early days of the Texas panhandle, Espy Norwood is a troubleshooter who's got troubles of his own. Bitter landowners plot against him, determined cattle thieves sneak right under his nose, and his own son refuses to trust or even know him. Can he catch the thieves, save the ranch, and win his son's love? Reissue.




Six Bits a Day


Book Description

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 C.C. Tarpley. Hewey, who "usually accepted the vagaries of life without getting his underwear in a twist", is fun-loving and whiskey-drinking. He spends every penny he earns and regularly gets into trouble with his boss--and occasionally with the law--often dragging innocent Walter along. When Walter falls in love with a boarding house girl and begins dreaming of a farmer's life, Hewey jumps at the chance to rescue him from this fate worse than death. He convinces Walter to join him on a mission for Tarpley, driving 600 head of cattle from beyond San Antonio to the Double-C ranch on the Pecos. The journey is both memorable and dangerous: a murderous outlaw is searching for Hewey; and another ruthless character is determined to sabotage the cattle drive. When the drovers reach the Pecos they find Boss Tarpley in the midst of a vicious range feud with Eli Jessup, a neighboring cowman. Hewey and his brother Walter have to get the herd safely across Jessup's land-but how? The events of Six Bits a Day precede those of Kelton's bestselling The Good Old Boys (1978, transformed into the memorable 1995 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek), and The Smiling Country (Forge, 1998). At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Day the Cowboys Quit


Book Description

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 to thieving. So the dictum is set: If you're a cowboy, you can't own a cow. When rumors of such legislation travel from wagon to wagon, the cowboys decided to rally and fight for their rights--they gather together and strike. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Badger Boy


Book Description

The Texas Frontier, 1865 The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country. David "Rusty" Shannon, proud member of a "ranging company" attempting to protect Texas settlers from Indian depredations, finds that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his land on the Red River, hoping to take up the life of a farmer and the hand of the beloved girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But Geneva has married in Rusty's long absence and the country is filled with hostiles—not just Indians, but hate-filled Confederates, overbearing Union soldiers, and army renegades. Rusty's youth as a captive of the Comanches returns to haunt him when, in pursuit of Indian raiders, he takes as prisoner Badger Boy, a white child taken from his murdered parents by a Comanche warrior. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Man who Rode Midnight


Book Description

Aging cowboy and bronco-buster Wes Hendricks just wants to be left alone on his poor ranch, even when town developers offer him big money to sell it. Wes's grandson reluctantly tries to convince him to give up his home, but that was before he, too, succumbs to the ranch's--and a young cowgirl's--wild beauty.




Cloudy in the West


Book Description

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, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.