Short Westerns

Bret Harte (1836 - 1902) was an American writer and poet, most famous for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. The Idyll of Red Gulch portrays an incident in a town in California involving the town drunk, a prostitute, and the schoolmistress.

"A Convert of the Mission" is about a California minister in need of rehabilitation to regain the health of his body and spirit. He follows the orders of his doctor to go somewhere and change his habits and way of life. And he succeeds in his quest, but in a way that displeases his former brothers in the faith.

In its heyday, the southwestern town of Ambition was bustling with enterprise. For the first 50 years the town prospered and expanded in an ever widening circle, away from the freshwater well the town’s founder dug. The well gave life while the people searched out their fortunes, and fortune gave them a reason to call Ambition home. Prosperity eventually fell prey to complacency, and Ambition withered away. It was an incremental decline, unintentional and unavoidable once set into motion.

Poker Flat is cleaning house. John Oakhurst is allowed to leave of his own accord along with a few others who didn’t quite match society’s ideals. Maybe they got off good. Others had been hung from nearby sycamore trees. Who was good? Who was bad? Who was innocent? Questions to ponder as you listen to this classic short story narrated by Glenn Hascall.

Peter, a disgraced meteorologist and chronic wanderer, has traveled the country for years in his Winnebago, in search of the only thing that gives his life meaning. He's just arrived in the middle of nowhere-Hokie, Kansas-for the same purpose, but when he meets a waitress named Melanie, another sufferer, he's faced not only with his first real human contact in years, but perhaps someone who can save him.

During General Woll's invasion of Texas, the phrase, 'Remember the Alamo' is a powerful bond for some of those who face him and his army at the Battle of Salado Creek.

The Idaho Territory gold mines and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom come together for a wilderness-dwelling drifter in this tale of the Weird West.

"The whip had cut him like a knife in a dozen places...." But the friar still won't talk about church gold. Is there any chance of mercy from the horrifying leader of the tomb robbers?

If you are planning to go to Amsterdam for vacation or business, and you only have two or three days and you want to make the best of your short stay, then you have come to the right place. The focus of this book is to make your short stay one of the most memorable experiences of your life. The goal of this book is not to squeeze everything the city has to offer into two or three days. The goal is to show you the best of the city in a short time. I know people like different things, but Amsterdam is such an incredible city that even in a small area you will find a variety of things that will fascinate or interest you.

Andy Adams is one of the few writers of the American West who had knowledge based on experience that enabled him to record cowboy life authentically. In the early 1880s, at the age of 20, Adams traveled to Texas and remained there for 10 years, eight of which he spent trail driving, becoming a foreman before he left the trail in 1890. Because he knew the real West, he was able to write with remarkable legitimacy - a quality he maintained without compromise, making him an honest interpreter of Western culture.

This set contains two of Andy Adams' enjoyable tales of life on the cattle trail of the American West. Adams was one of the most authentic of the classic western writers, bringing firsthand experience to his depictions of cowhands, rogues, and other remarkable characters on the frontier. Volume two includes two tales that highlight Adams unique and subtle brand of humor.

Penniless, homeless, and virtually lifeless, the vagrant “Doughface” Jack is about to discover that where medical marvels meet the mysteries of the human mind, amazing things happen. The Tramp acquires a capability beyond his imagination and without equal on Earth. Riding the rails, Jack runs afoul of a local sheriff and ends up with a crushed skull. He’s as good as dead until a savvy country doctor performs a bit of medical magic.

Pa and the boys run into an unforeseen situation. The decisions of one man are creating ripple effects in the lives of others, with two young girls caught in the middle. Can they just wash their hands of it and go about their lives?

He grabbed a broken axe handle and circled around Matt Hobart. Rustlers are at work, hidden in the chill darkness of a prairie December. It's bad news for the Hobarts - losing their calf could mean starvation. Can Matt fight alone?

James Gerald Melrose, better known as Bad-Eye, was a big-headed, bad-drunk transplanted Easterner who was accidentally killed in a barroom fight in Masters’ bar and hotel. One day, Jane Melrose arrives in search of him. She is one very determined woman, and Masters does everything he can to keep her from learning the truth. The task comes with a price, a high one, that Masters realizes that he will pay, but only when it is too late!

A disillusioned doctor and a brave woman join forces in a dangerous deception. It had better work.

After a brutal feud, the survivors of the Adams family retreat to Texas. Too bad the Averysons want a final showdown.

Romantic story set in the rural Texas. A rich girl and a farm hand are in love, they are very young. And then the girl goes to the city for her studies, meets a slick city guy and her youthful love suddenly doesn't seem so perfect and so worthy of her love. Then a couple of things happen...

Blonde Truly couldn't keep her kiss-ban against that cowboy Dave - not even when sultry Garnet ran engaging interference. She thought Dave's kisses delightfully habit-forming - and so did his sultry fiancee. 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."

Provocations of the spirit world leave us no alternative but to welcome the modern Western prose of David Randall Shorey, and his story about the legendary anti-hero known as Mojave Miles. This tale tells us that the only war worth fighting is for the protection of wayward ladies and no-good horses! Never officially ordained as a vigilante, his vengeance on the Amargosa was accepted as having been handed down by sage angels.