Frank Claymore is not easy to like -- to admire, maybe, but not to like. He is cantankerous, stubborn, and intolerant -- the very qualities that make him a success as an open-range cattleman on the West Texas frontier. In one of his most memorable novels, acclaimed Western writer Elmer Kelton follows Frank Claymore's life from the time of the Civil War to the dawn of the 20th century -- through marriage, births, deaths, and a creeping change in the...

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 "Barbed Wire, " former cowboy and Irish fencing master Doug Monahan is unwittingly drawn into a barbed wire war, and in "Llano River, " Dundee works to stop a cattle-rustling operation and gets caught in the middle of a deadly feud.

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,...

Deputy Sheriff Jim-Bob McClain isn't sure he's ready to follow in his father's footsteps as the law in Coolridge County. In fact, he has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks in the local saloon. But with tough Sheriff Mont Naylor to back him up he figures he can handle whatever comes his way. Jim-Bob's first real assignment is no piece of cake. He must escort a ruthless outlaw into the hands of justice. All seems well with the lawless...

When his brother, Walter, decides he wants to settle down with a girl he just met and become a farmer, fun-loving Hewey Calloway saves him from this "fate worse than death" by getting them both hired on a cattle drive, taking them into the exciting world of cattle barons, rival cowboy gangs, and rustling.

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...

The three Lewis brothers, Andrew, Michael, and James, join with rebels such as Jim Bowie, William Barret Travis, and Davy Crockett to fight for the independence of Texas from Mexico in the 1830s.

After learning of the defeat at the Alamo, the Buckalew brothers and the rest of the garrison at Goliad are determined to defeat Santa Anna.

Teamster Frio Wheeler's efforts to haul cotton from Texas to Mexico in the midst of the Civil War are hindered by dangerous weather conditions, violence, and betrayal.