Bøger af Elmer Kelton

Texas Ranger Andy Pickard, newly married and unsure of himself and his choice of career, is given what appears to be a routine assignment: find and arrest a horse trader named Donley Bannister who is accused of murder. The difficulty begins after Andy locates Bannister's West Texas hideout and is shot by one of the trader's cohorts. In an ironic twist, Bannister saves the ranger's life by taking him to a cow camp where his wound can be treated. Then Bannister disappears.This routine assignment gets even more complicated after Andy heals well enough to ride and follows the trader's young wife, hoping she will lead him to her husband. Near Fort Concho the ranger's mission is interrupted when Bannister is shot and left for dead by an outlaw who takes Geneva Bannister hostage and brutally assaults her. Even after Bannister is apprehended, danger lurks; one of the trader's enemies is determined to ambush the ranger and his prisoner. From the experience, Andy Pickard learns a valuable lesson: nothing stirs emotions in Texas as men stealing other men's horses.

In Massacre at Goliad, tensions mount between Mexican authorities and American newcomers. Revolution is in the air, something Thomas Buckalew welcomes but his brother Joshua fears, since Joshua is in love with a Mexican girl. The story touches on the immortal battle of the Alamo but centers on the infamous Goliad massacre, and ultimately the decisive battle of San Jacinto, which made Texas an independent republic.After the Bugles begins where Massacre at Goliad ends-on the battlefield at San Jacinto. Joshua Buckalew tries to put the pieces back together but finds that starting over in the aftermath of war can be as challenging as the war itself. The racial differences that helped foment the conflict have not gone away. And Texas finds that being an independent republic can be more difficult than being a colonial extension of Mexico.

Ranger's Law brings together the fourth, fifth, and sixth of Elmer Kelton's novels on the formative years of the Texas Rangers. Kelton's young heroes, Rusty Shannon, and one-time Comanche captive, Andy Pickard, fight Indians, outlaws, feuding ranchers, smugglers, and all manner of lawbreakers while trying to make lives for themselves in the tumult of post-Civil War Texas. In Ranger's Trail it is 1874 and retired Texas Ranger Rusty Shannon is urged to rejoin the force to assist in protecting settlers from Indian raids and outlaw bands. After the girl he loves dies, Rusty goes on a vengeance trail, determined to find and kill the man who has ruined his life. But the trail Rusty is following may lead him to an innocent man.Texas Vendetta takes the young ranger Andy Pickard into the midst of a hate-filled and bloody post-Civil War feud between two Texas families. Pickard, who survived a childhood as a Comanche captive called "Badger Boy," also becomes involved with the young son of an outlaw, a boy who has been "adopted" by the rangers at their San Saba River camp, earning his way as a cook's helper. The boy's father, now released from prison, comes to take his son back, and into a life on the run.In Jericho's Road, Andy Pickard is assigned to the Texas-Mexico border and finds an ominous notice on the edge of a great tract of ranch land above the Rio Grande: "This is Jericho's Road. Take the Other." The sign signifies Jericho Jackson's land and Jackson is at war with a similarly ruthless cattle baron on the Mexican side of the river, Guadalupe Chavez. The two rustle each others' cattle, raiding and killing on both sides of the border, heading for a bloody showdown -- with the Texas Rangers standing between them.

In Lone Star Rising, Elmer Kelton ("A Texas Legend," according to Texas Governor Rick Perry), brings together the first three books of his acclaimed Texas Ranger saga.The Buckskin Line introduces Rusty Shannon, the red-haired Comanche captive rescued and adopted by Mike Shannon, who is a member of a Texas "ranging company" that protects settlers from Indian raids. In the throes of the War Between the States, Rusty joins the Rangers and searches for the renegades who killed his adoptive father.In Badger Boy, the Rangers are disbanded and Rusty returns to his home on the Red River only to discover that the girl he loves has married another. In a time of personal turmoil as well as the post-war uphheaval in Texas, Rusty's childhood returns to haunt him as he rescues Andy Pickard, called Badger Boy by his Comanche captors.Andy and Rusty ride together in the newly reformed Rangers in The Way of the Coyote, in a time when Texas is overrun with outlaws, Confederate raiders, Ku Klux Klansmen, and marauding Comanches.

Kelton continues the story of the Lewis family and the formative years of the Lone Star state in this second installment of the saga of early Texas.

Hewey is back; older, wiser, and badly banged up trying to break a renegade bronc. His wandering days are over because of his injuries, because of fences that cut up the range, because of trucks and automobiles. But how will Hewey handle the new circumstances of his life? And how will Spring react to his return?

Reprint. Originally published: Garden City, N.Y., 1973.

When Texas Ranger private Andy Pickard is assigned to help patrol the Texas-Mexico border country he rides directly into a deadly feud. At odds are two land and cattle barons - Jericho Jackson, whose great spread lies just north of the Rio Grande, and Guadalupe Chavez, whose domain lies south of the river.The men are alike in only one respect: their hatred for each other, a hate born at the time of the Alamo and the U.S.-Mexican War, when Mexican lands were confiscated by ruthless Americans. The old rivals have turned to preying on each others'' cattle with resulting bloodshed on both sides of the river.Between the two camps, Big Jim McCawley''s ranch seems almost symbolic of the opportunity for the people of the two nations to live together. McCawley is married to Guadalupe Chavez''s sister, Juana -a fact that does not ingratiate him to either the Chavez or Jackson faction.To Andy Pickard, who as a child was taken captive by Comanches, old prejudices are familiar territory, but the Jackson-Chavez war is flaring out of control by the time he reaches the Ranger camp on the border in the company of fellow Ranger Farley Brackett. The two Rangers find themselves caught up in the feud, risking arrest for crossing the river into Mexico, and risking death for not heeding the warning sign at the edge of Jericho Jackson''s domain: This is Jericho''s Road. Take the Other.Inevitably, the cauldron boils over and the forces of Jericho Jackson and "Lupe" Chavez meet in bloody combat. In the midst of this battle on Mexican soil are Andy Pickard -- longing to court and marry Bethel Brackett and live a peaceful life as an ex-Ranger -- and Brackett himself, falling in love with Teresa, Big Jim McCawley''s half-Mexican daughter.Jericho''s Road, sixth book in Kelton''s acclaimed Texas Ranger series, typifies "The right blend of action, drama, romance, humor and suspense" that Publishers Weekly said has made Kelton "a master of both plot and character development."

The life of a Texas cowboy is tough--especially if he is a black man like Isaac Jefford. Though he is the best at what he does, Isaac is careful not to step "over the line"--until his boss hires a vicious Southerner filled with a burning hatred. Now the time for crossing the line has come.

First published in 1995 as a collection of four selected speeches by Elmer Kelton, this revised second edition includes three of those pieces plus two new ones.

The Texas Panhandleits eastern edge descending sharply from the plains into the canyons of Palo Duro, Tule, Quitaque, Casa Blanca, and Yellow House is as rich in history as it is in natural beauty. This work contributes to the historiography of the American West, focusing on the Texas Panhandle.