Tall's temper is hotter than forked lightning with the cinch off; and the only thing faster is his gun. With those two things working for him he finds himself outside the law, a target for every gunslinger trying to build himself a killer's name in the canyon country. Here is a real western, as a...
Frank Gault arrived in New Boston just a bit late. His horse had come up lame in his efforts to get there and he got off the stage with his saddle rig slung over one shoulder.Wolf Garnett had been buried that morning.His year long hunt was over and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Garnett w...
You sonofabitch, I thought, if you knew what was good for you, you would pull that trigger right now, because five minutes from now it's going to be too late!
He came forward slowly, in that curious toe-heel gait that Indians have. With a big left hand, he grabbed Marta by the hair and jerked her half out of the chair. I hit him in the face and pulled Marta behind me. Keep your damn hands off her if you want to go on living, I said. He was surprised. T...
He trafficked in rum and women, this modern-day Al Capone. Clifton Adam's famous tale of bootlegging in Oklahoma, 20 years after Prohibition's repeal in 47 other states. Legendary to this day for its dark account of a man on the wrong side of the tracks out to get what's his, any way he can.
He had mauled spikes with a railroad construction gang in Missouri, hired out as a soldier with Mexican revolutionaries, trailed cattle to Wichita and Dodge. He had traveled the whole Southwest trading horses, he had served as special marshal at an end-of-track shantytown in Indian Territory. At ...
That year-long afternoon that I spent in my bunk waiting for the sky to fall. The troopers of A Company were out on detail when I got back to the barracks building, and I was glad for that because I wanted to be alone. I lay there on my bunk and waited for the end to come, waited for Weyland to d...
Owen looked up in surprise, watching the white-haired, black-clad figure tramping solemnly down the grassy slope toward the creek. The County Judge was an old-timer in a young country; in 1880 he had been an official in David L. Payne's Boomer organization, advocating settlement of the unassigned...
I couldn't tell what he was thinking or how much of the story he believed. “Dad,” I said tightly, “you hold the lives of three people in your hands. What happens to us now is up to you.”He was hurt, but not nearly as hurt as he would have been if I had told him the truth. He looked at me once, th...