Short Westerns

Finding out what really happened to Gunplay Maxwell was not easy. He was a bank and train robber known for the skill with which he pulled off every job. Yet, when one of those explosions in a baggage car left him hard of hearing and nearly blind in one eye, there seemed to be no future for him. He was reduced to raiding backyard chicken coops to stay alive. But his last ride would make him a rich man and remain alive to tell about it.

Alice came to Robber's Roost to write a story - and found herself the kiss-besieged heroine of a big bad wolf...and a guitar-strummin' ghost. She got first-hand savvy on romantic plots - when a phantom desperado haunted her house...and her heart. One of the most popular settings for romance stories was the old west, where men were men and women were women. As many a swooning damsel could attest, "There's something about a cowboy."

Sycamore Smith has been moving from town to town in search of his brother and his girl for nearly a year. Now, while working a cattle-wrangling job with a motley crew of riders, further details of his brother’s disappearance are about to become known.

Lovely Lucky made a reckless bet with conniving Caleb - hoping to find a way to handsome Sid's arms. Her betting folly won her a kiss - and an unwelcome sweetheart.

Beth didn't mind being an empty-headed flirt - if her arms were full of Jimmy. Jimmy's intoxicatin' caressin' had her dizzy in the head - until she learned the luscious reason why he was practicin' his technique. One of the most popular settings for romance stories was the old west, where men were men and women were women. As many a swooning damsel could attest, "There's something about a cowboy."

Stories of the old West were filled with bad men who lived by the speed of their gun hands. Well, meet Buck Tarrant, who could outdraw them all. His secret: He didn't even have to reach for his weapon. This original blend of the Western tale with a story of the uncanny, "The Draw" was written by Jerome Bixby, an American short story writer, editor, and scriptwriter best known for his work in science fiction, although he also wrote many Westerns.

A massive swarm of grasshoppers threatens every ranch in the area. There's only one way to save everyone - set fire to one man's land. But they may have to shoot him first.

A motley crew, banished from a Western town, find strength, and weakness, in each other.

In the early 1890s, after the financial panic, Colorado is changing from mining to ranching. A local merchant, Eli, holds most of the money and the power in the county. Then a stranger arrives and starts to court the merchant's daughter - and the problems begin.

As he comes of age, Ed Raleigh disobeys his wealthy rancher father, Pete Raleigh, and escapes to the Bald Eagle Mountains to prospect for ore. When he stops at the town of Sierra Padre, he visits his father's old haunts and meets up with many of his father's old friends. One former friend, Jim Martin, however, is now his father’s sworn enemy who he has vowed to kill Pete Raleigh for taking away the woman they both loved, now Ed Raleigh's mother. Ed Raleigh is shocked and worried, for how will a declared murder attempt on his own father be prevented?

Tonight the bullets will fly and rancher or rustler will die. A mystery man will decide whose blood will stain the sick streets of Star.

A demon coyote that's too fast to shoot and too smart to poison is closing in. Will the Wolf Hunter survive?

When a mysterious man on a white horse robs a series of stagecoaches on their way from the little town of Appleton to the Concord railroad station, everyone in town suspects a young and enigmatic man named Slim Malone. The newly elected mayor decides to bring in outside help, a deadly gunfighter named Lefty Cornwall.

This is a tale of a gentle gunfighter “Slope" Dugan, his pal the roughneck Blondy, and the fugitive boy Red. Slope had walked halfway across the country to sell what he thought was worthless mining stock back to Bonanza Chris, but when Bonanza offered to pay $1,500, they smelled a rat. They concocted a plan to explore the Christabel mine for themselves. If the rumors were true, they would end up millionaires. But they might also wind up dead!

Sometimes a lost gold mine offers up more than just gold. And sometimes a secret should remain a secret. A generational science fiction story from USA Today best-selling writer Dean Wesley Smith. A version of this story by Dean Wesley Smith first appeared in The Secret Prophecies of Nostradamus edited by Cynthia Sternau and Martin H. Greenberg.

In a desert with no trees, it's hard to find a good spot for a hanging. Even harder to find your way home. The story of Canyon in the Clouds twists and turns like a desert rattlesnake and is just as deadly. In this thrilling western tale a moribund sheriff, Clay, discovers the damage done not just to the condemned, but to the man holding the noose.

Short in size, Two Bit Higgins beats up the much bigger Dandy Barker in a bar fight in an southern Arizona gold-mining town. He is then named a deputy sheriff, also showing how dangerous he is with a gun. Then Barker comes back for revenge. How long will it be before Barker and his gang come looking for Two Bit and the show down?

Nobody welcomed Will Evans when he retired from bounty hunting to start a farm until a vicious cattle baron decided to run off all the farmers.

Entrusted with the delivery of one hundred pounds of gold to his partners, Johnny Potter faces four days of hard riding alone in a land of robbers and treacherous terrain.

To Old Pete's owner, it had always seemed that Pete would be the first to go. At 30 years of age, it even appeared likely. Now Old Pete's owner is confined to a hospital bed, though, and Old Pete is still going strong. But there might be some way that they could get together again for a last ride, prospecting up a mountain, just the two of them, who would have been together for a longer time than most married folks.