"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.

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In 1999, with Forge's publication of The Buckskin Line, Elmer Kelton launched a series of novels on the formative years of the Texas Rangers. In Texas Justice, the first three of these critically acclaimed books are now brought together in a single volume.
In The Buckskin Line, Kelton introduces the red-haired boy captured by a Comanche war party after the massacre of his family. Rescued by Mike Shannon, a member of a Texas "ranging company" protecting settlers from Indian raids, the boy known as Rusty is adopted by the Shannon family. In 1861, Mike Shannon is ambushed and killed, and Rusty follows in his footsteps and joins the Rangers. In the throes of the coming War Between the States, Rusty searches for the Confederates who lynched his adoptive father and awaits meeting the Comanche warrior who killed his family two decades past.
At the end of the Civil War, Rusty Shannon is thrown adrift when the Rangers are disbanded, and makes his way to his home on the Red River, where he hopes to marry the girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But as Badger Boy, the second novel of the saga, unfolds, Geneva has married another man in Rusty's absence. Faced with this betrayal, he must contend with the hate-filled Confederate and Union soldiers infesting Texas and with the continuing Indian raids against innocent settlers. Rusty's own childhood captivity returns to haunt him when he rescues Andy, a white child called Badger Boy by his Comanche captors.
In The Way of the Coyote, Andy rides with Rusty Shannon as the Rangers are re-formed in postwar turmoil. With Texas overrun with outlaws, disenfranchised Confederate veterans, nightriders, and marauding Comanche bands, Rusty tries to resume his pre-war life. When his friend Shanty, a freed slave, is burned out of his home by Ku Klux Klan and Rusty's own homestead is confiscated by a murderous band of thugs, he must follow perilous trails before he can put the war and its aftermath behind him.
Texas Justice is not only a masterful re-creation of the early years of the Texas Rangers, it is vintage Elmer Kelton, the undisputed master of the Western story.



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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.

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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 Cordell and get justice for Tom Blessing.

Cordell is something of an enigma to Andy, especially since the pursuit slowly reveals that he is very likely not the killer of Tom Blessing. Even so, Cordell and his cohorts must be brought to Ranger justice first and the whodunit sorted out later.

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Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned what appears to be a routine duty. Donley Bannister, a West Texas horse trader, has killed a thug named Cletus Slocum, who stole one of Bannister's horses. Ranger Pickard is ordered to find and arrest Bannister and bring him to trial.

The Bannister case turns out to be anything but routine. Pickard picks up Bannister's trail and finds him holed up with some cohorts who wound and vow to kill the young Ranger. Ironically, Bannister saves Pickard's life by fending off the would-be killers and taking Andy to a cow camp where his injury can be treated. When he is able to ride, Andy locates and trails Geneva Bannister, Donley's young wife, hoping she will lead him to the wanted man. The trail takes unexpected turns and detours: Near Fort Concho Andy's mission is interrupted by an ugly racial incident in which a black soldier is killed; Bannister is shot by outlaw Curly Tadlock and left for dead; and Tadlock brutally assaults Geneva.

Andy Pickard, newly married, still unsure of himself and his choice of Rangering as a career, must unravel this tangled series of events and accomplish his mission of bringing an accused killer to justice.



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Sons of Texas and The Raiders: Sons of Texas offers two classic novels of the Old West for one low price, by renowned Western writer Elmer Kelton.

It’s 1816. Mordecai Lewis, a veteran of Andrew Jackson’s campaigns who’s thirsting for action, leads his two sons and a band of backwoodsmen to Spanish-held Texas on a campaign to hunt wild horses. Their plan is to sell the mustangs back in Tennessee, but tragedy strikes when a bloody skirmish leaves Mordecai dead, and brothers Michael and Andrew are forced to fend for themselves.

Sons of Texas and The Raiders: Sons of Texas follow the lives and adventures of the Lewis family through the era of the Alamo and Texas Independence under Sam Houston. From stealing horses to falling in love to being dogged by the ruthless Spanish officer who killed their father, Michael and Andrew endure enough trials and tribulations to fill the whole of Texas.

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"The Smiling Country is about a footloose puncher who finds out the hard way that cowboys don't remain young forever and that the inevitable wear and tear of a rugged life forces changes and compromises on the willing and unwilling alike."— Elmer Kelton

Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance.

Elmer Kelton introduced Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, one of the most beloved characters in Western fiction, almost thirty years ago in The Good Old Boys. The novel was transformed into a memorable 1995 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek.

Hewey returns in The Smiling Country. It is 1910 and his freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are creeping in even to remote Alpine, in the "smiling country" of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey sees the loneliness that awaits him, and regrets his decision to run away from the only woman he has ever loved, the schoolteacher Spring Renfro.



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Hanging Judge and Bowie's Mine offers two classic novels of the Old West for one low price, by renowned Western writer Elmer Kelton.

Hanging Judge

Justin Moffitt is eager to help keep the peace as a deputy marshal in small-town Texas. That is, until Justin is assigned to the wrong marshal--a "hanging judge" who is as famous for his ruthlessness as he is for his commitment to justice. When Justin's boss hangs a controversial criminal, Justin must defend himself against an army of friends and relatives, desperate for revenge.

Bowie’s Mine

Daniel Provost is the son of a farmer. Living up to his father's high standards for the farm is very hard work, but his life is basically comfortable and a loving woman is waiting to become his wife.
When a well-traveled stranger, bearing a story of Jim Bowie's legendary silver mine, appears at the farm, Daniel might just throw away everything for the chance at adventure he thought had passed him by.


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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 his home state of Texas.



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With Captain's Rangers and The Day the Cowboys Quit, this omnibus by legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton offers two novels of the American West at one low price

Captain’s Rangers

In 1875, nearly forty years after the Mexican War, Mexicans and Texans are still spilling blood over ownership of the Nueces Strip—a hot, dry stretch of coastal prairie that bushwackers and horse thieves have turned into a lawless hell. Captain L.H. McNelly, a complex and determined Confederate veteran, is brought into the Nueces Strip for one purpose: to keep the peace. His measures are harsh and controversial, but McNelly wasn’t sent to be popular. In this boiler pot of killing and racial hatred, however, even his methods may not be enough to bring lasting peace.

The Day the Cowboys Quit

1833. Canadian River cowboy country is changing as a different breed moves in—big outfits backed by Eastern syndicates and run by power-hungry “managers” who figure to make a profit, even if it means crowding a cowboy too far. Wagon boss Hugh Hitchcock tries to keep the peace between rancher and cowboy. But when the ranchers steal his cattle, lynch his friend, and hire a back shooter to put him in his grave, he joins the fight himself. They may take everything he has, but they cannot touch his pride—or his willingness to fight to the bloody end.

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No one writes the old west like Seven-time Spur Award-winning author Elmer Kelton. In The Cowboy Way, Kelton captures the action, adventure, brotherhood and betrayal of the old west, chronicling the highs and lows of cowboy life in these sixteen stories, collected together for the first time.

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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 Hewey's simple cowboy life, stinking up the area and threatening to replace horse travel. As Hewey struggles against the relentless stream of "progress", he comes to realize that the simple life of his childhood is gone, that a man can't live a life whose time has passed, and that every choice he makes--even those that lead to happiness--requires a sacrifice.



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