Showing results for "The Standoff" in Westerns

Before he set down his pen, seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton—the Western Writers of America’s “Best Western Writer of All Time”—cut 50 notches on his gunbelt of classics. In this final novel of the Texas Rangers, a young lawman finds his mettle put to the test while bringing justice to a remote settlement. To stop a series of baffling killings and thefts, newly married ranger Andy Pickard is dispatched to a central Texas community where locals are quick to pin the crimes on two feuding cattlemen.

Ranger Andy Pickard and new partner Logan Daggett become involved in an investigation of killings and stolen cattle, and find themselves in the middle of a four-way fight, among two powerful cattlemen, a group of masked vigilantes called "regulators", and a hired assassin. Old resentments, mixed loyalties, and misplaced trust feed the flames of battle. Andy and Logan may lose their jobs, even their lives, before their work is done.

Stuart Brannon heads home to his Arizona Ranch, but he finds it occupied by interlopers from the Casa Verde Land Corporation claiming to hold a Spanish land grant on the property. Enraged, Brannon drives them off. Stuart is soon joined by several friends and neighbors in defending his home, including a contingent of soldiers tracking down a band of Apaches, and Miss Harriet Reed who makes her attraction to the ex-lawman obvious. They are soon under siege by Casa Verde's 50 hired gunmen and a cannon sent to take back the property.

Caswell McCarthy was no hero. The very idea of such a thing had never crossed his mind. Yet he had cheated to give himself the short straw when the five exhausted men had drawn to see who would stay behind. He felt he was the only one who had the slightest chance of slowing down the pursuing war party of Chiricahua Apaches.