Texas Rangers
10 primary works • 15 total works
Book 1
In 1999, with Forge's publication of The Buckskin Line, Elmer Kelton launched a series of novels on the formative years of the Texas Rangers. In Texas Justice, the first three of these critically acclaimed books are now brought together in a single volume.
In The Buckskin Line, Kelton introduces the red-haired boy captured by a Comanche war party after the massacre of his family. Rescued by Mike Shannon, a member of a Texas "ranging company" protecting settlers from Indian raids, the boy known as Rusty is adopted by the Shannon family. In 1861, Mike Shannon is ambushed and killed, and Rusty follows in his footsteps and joins the Rangers. In the throes of the coming War Between the States, Rusty searches for the Confederates who lynched his adoptive father and awaits meeting the Comanche warrior who killed his family two decades past.
At the end of the Civil War, Rusty Shannon is thrown adrift when the Rangers are disbanded, and makes his way to his home on the Red River, where he hopes to marry the girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But as Badger Boy, the second novel of the saga, unfolds, Geneva has married another man in Rusty's absence. Faced with this betrayal, he must contend with the hate-filled Confederate and Union soldiers infesting Texas and with the continuing Indian raids against innocent settlers. Rusty's own childhood captivity returns to haunt him when he rescues Andy, a white child called Badger Boy by his Comanche captors.
In The Way of the Coyote, Andy rides with Rusty Shannon as the Rangers are re-formed in postwar turmoil. With Texas overrun with outlaws, disenfranchised Confederate veterans, nightriders, and marauding Comanche bands, Rusty tries to resume his pre-war life. When his friend Shanty, a freed slave, is burned out of his home by Ku Klux Klan and Rusty's own homestead is confiscated by a murderous band of thugs, he must follow perilous trails before he can put the war and its aftermath behind him.
Texas Justice is not only a masterful re-creation of the early years of the Texas Rangers, it is vintage Elmer Kelton, the undisputed master of the Western story.
In The Buckskin Line, Kelton introduces the red-haired boy captured by a Comanche war party after the massacre of his family. Rescued by Mike Shannon, a member of a Texas "ranging company" protecting settlers from Indian raids, the boy known as Rusty is adopted by the Shannon family. In 1861, Mike Shannon is ambushed and killed, and Rusty follows in his footsteps and joins the Rangers. In the throes of the coming War Between the States, Rusty searches for the Confederates who lynched his adoptive father and awaits meeting the Comanche warrior who killed his family two decades past.
At the end of the Civil War, Rusty Shannon is thrown adrift when the Rangers are disbanded, and makes his way to his home on the Red River, where he hopes to marry the girl he left behind, Geneva Monahan. But as Badger Boy, the second novel of the saga, unfolds, Geneva has married another man in Rusty's absence. Faced with this betrayal, he must contend with the hate-filled Confederate and Union soldiers infesting Texas and with the continuing Indian raids against innocent settlers. Rusty's own childhood captivity returns to haunt him when he rescues Andy, a white child called Badger Boy by his Comanche captors.
In The Way of the Coyote, Andy rides with Rusty Shannon as the Rangers are re-formed in postwar turmoil. With Texas overrun with outlaws, disenfranchised Confederate veterans, nightriders, and marauding Comanche bands, Rusty tries to resume his pre-war life. When his friend Shanty, a freed slave, is burned out of his home by Ku Klux Klan and Rusty's own homestead is confiscated by a murderous band of thugs, he must follow perilous trails before he can put the war and its aftermath behind him.
Texas Justice is not only a masterful re-creation of the early years of the Texas Rangers, it is vintage Elmer Kelton, the undisputed master of the Western story.
Book 1
Book 2
The Texas Frontier, 1865: The Civil War is over and Texas is reluctantly yielding to the Union soldiers that are spreading across the state, even into the dangerous Comanche country. David "Rusty" Shannon, proud member of a "ranging company" that protects settlers from Indian depredations, finds that the rangers are being disbanded. He makes his way home to his land on the Red River, hoping to take up the life of a farmer and the hand of the beloved girl he left behind, Geneva Monohan. But Geneva has married in Rusty's long absence and the country has filled with hostiles - not just Indians, but hate-filled Confederates, overbearing Union soldiers, and army renegades. Rusty's youth as a captive of Comanches returns to haunt him when he takes as a prisoner Badger Boy, a white child taken from his murdered parents by a Comanche warrior.
Book 3
Book 4
In the spring of 1874 the Ranger companies that protect settlers against Indian raids and outlaw bands are being reorganized and David "Rusty" Shannon is the most sought-after veteran for reenlistment.
But Shannon has new goals for his life: He is in love with Josie Monahan, daughter of the family that adopted him, and he intends to marry Josie and take her to his farm on the Colorado River. Rusty also feels affection and responsibility for Andy Pickard, a headstrong teenager he rescued from captivity among the Comanche--just as Rusty himself was rescued as a red-haired boy decades before.
Then an unspeakable tragedy--the murder of his beloved Josie--changes Rusty's plans for a quiet farmer's life and alters his peace-loving character. Bent on revenge, he relentlessly trails Corey Bascom, son of an outlaw family and the man Rusty believes is Josie's killer.
But the trail Rusty is following may be leading him to the wrong man.
Set in the tumultuous Reconstruction period of Texas history, "Ranger's Trail "continues Elmer Kelton's chronicles of the origins of the renowned Texas Rangers, told as fiction but historically accurate in every detail and written by a favorite son of Texas.
But Shannon has new goals for his life: He is in love with Josie Monahan, daughter of the family that adopted him, and he intends to marry Josie and take her to his farm on the Colorado River. Rusty also feels affection and responsibility for Andy Pickard, a headstrong teenager he rescued from captivity among the Comanche--just as Rusty himself was rescued as a red-haired boy decades before.
Then an unspeakable tragedy--the murder of his beloved Josie--changes Rusty's plans for a quiet farmer's life and alters his peace-loving character. Bent on revenge, he relentlessly trails Corey Bascom, son of an outlaw family and the man Rusty believes is Josie's killer.
But the trail Rusty is following may be leading him to the wrong man.
Set in the tumultuous Reconstruction period of Texas history, "Ranger's Trail "continues Elmer Kelton's chronicles of the origins of the renowned Texas Rangers, told as fiction but historically accurate in every detail and written by a favorite son of Texas.
Book 5
With the War Between the States ended and most of the Indian tribes of Texas on reservations, the rangers are assigned to domestic law enforcement - chasing killers, bank robbers, thieves, and border-jumping bandits in the hill country north of the Llano River. Andy Pickard and ranger Farley Brackett, a former Confederate soldier, are assigned to deliver prisoner Jayce Landon to the sheriff of a neighbouring county to stand trial for killing Ned Hopper. The seemingly simple assignment quickly becomes complicated: the Landon and Hopper families are in a blood feud, the Landons are gathering to free Jayce and the Hoppers are gathering to kill him.
Book 6
When a rivalry between a Mexican-hating white rancher and an equally prejudiced Mexican cattle baron escalates to deadly levels, young Texas Ranger Andy Pickard teams up with former Confederate soldier Farley Brackett to prevent a violent showdown. 30,000 first printing.
Book 7
Prolific Spur Award-winner Kelton knocks out the seventh western in his "Texas Ranger" series, following 2005's "Jericho's Road". In the 1870s, former Texas Ranger Andy Pickard, now a restless farmer, drops his plow and straps on his guns when the local sheriff is murdered during a jailbreak. The dead sheriff, Tom Blessing, had been a father figure to Andy, who vows revenge for his killing. The escaped outlaw is Luther Cordell, a dangerous bank robber and leader of a small gang of desperate owlhoots. The search is long and arduous, and the posse Andy has assembled melts away until only Andy, now a fully reinstated Ranger, remains in solo pursuit. Cordell, meanwhile, is trying to recover the stolen bank loot he'd hidden when captured. Add in Cordell's disgusting relatives, two unlucky saloon stick-up artists, some kindly travelers, fancy gunplay and a remarkably surprising conclusion, and Kelton once again turns in an exciting and satisfying western tale.
Book 8
Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned what appears to be a routine duty. Donley Bannister, a West Texas horse trader, has killed a thug named Cletus Slocum, who stole one of Bannister's horses. Ranger Pickard is ordered to find and arrest Bannister and bring him to trial. The Bannister case turns out to be anything but routine. Pickard picks up Bannister's trail and finds him holed up with some cohorts who wound and vow to kill the young Ranger. Ironically, Bannister saves Pickard's life by fending off the would-be killers and taking Andy to a cow camp where his injury can be treated. When he is able to ride, Andy locates and trails Geneva Bannister, Donley's young wife, hoping she will lead him to the wanted man. The trail takes unexpected turns and detours: Near Fort Concho Andy's mission is interrupted by an ugly racial incident in which a black soldier is killed; Bannister is shot by outlaw Curly Tadlock and left for dead; and, Tadlock brutally assaults Geneva. Andy Pickard, newly married, still unsure of himself and his choice of Rangering as a career, must unravel this tangled series of events and accomplish his mission of bringing an accused killer to justice.
Book 9
In "Texas Standoff", Ranger Andy Pickard and his partner, Logan Daggett, are sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts. The two biggest cattlemen in the area blame each other for the violence, but it seems to Andy that neither man may be guilty. The case is complicated by the rise of a gang of 'regulators' - masked vigilantes - and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman whose employer is unknown. The murder of a captured regulator and a standoff in the county jail wind up bringing to justice the men responsible for the killings and thievery. Among the culprits is a man whose quilt no one would have guessed, and among the ironies of the case is a telegram to the Rangers from the State of Texas notifying them that their services are no long required.
In 1875, nearly forty years after the Mexican War, Mexicans and Texans are still spilling blood over ownership of the Nueces Strip - a hot, dry, stretch of coastal prairie that bushwackers and horse thieves have turned into a lawless hell. Captain L. H. McNelly, a complex and determined Confederate veteran, is brought into the Nueces Strip for one purposes: to keep the peace. His measures are harsh and controversial - but McNelly wasn't sent in to be popular. In this boulerpot of killing and racial hatred, can any man bring any lasting peace?
In "Rangers Trail", set in the decade following the Civil War, young David "Rusty" Shannon delays joining the "ranging companies" being formed to curb depredations by Indian bands and outlaw marauders to find and kill the man who murdered his fiancee. The trail, however, may be leading to the wrong man. "Texas Vendetta" pairs Rusty Shannon, now a Ranger private, with Farley Brackett, a Civil War veteran, to deliver a prisoner to the sheriff of a distant county. The prisoner, Jayce Landon, has killed a member of the Hopper family and Rusty and his partner are riding into a blood feud between the two families. In "Jericho's Road", Ranger Andy Pickard, who as a child was taken captive by Comanche's and called "Badger Boy," is assigned to ride patrol on the Texas-Mexico border and finds his few miles along the Rio Grande in the centre of a range war.
