Western Short Stories Collection
2 total works
When it comes to boiling up a pot of coffee or stirring up a pot of stew, Old Laramie's about as good a man as you're going to find. But other than cooking three squares a day for the cowpunchers over at the Lazy G ranch, Laramie's not good for much. He's about as heroic as Walter Brennan on a bender. But Laramie's luck-and life-are about to take an amazing turn. Quite by accident, he somehow manages to save a family of Mexicans from bandits, and as a token of their gratitude they give him The Magic Quirt-a horsewhip that he's told will turn him into a new man. The transformation is indeed magical. Suddenly Laramie is performing feats of ingenuity and courage that would make even the Lone Ranger proud. But magic is a funny thing-and as Laramie's about to discover, sometimes it's all an illusion. L. Ron Hubbard wrote of his childhood: "The weather of Montana is, of course, brutal. The country is immense and swallows up men rather easily, hence they have to live bigger than life to survive. There were still Indians around living in forlorn and isolated tepees. Notable among them was Old Tom, a full-fledged Blackfoot medicine man." Hubbard and Old Tom became blood brothers, and the medicine man shared with him the kind of lore that make stories like The Magic Quirt as compelling as they are. Also includes the Western adventures, "Vengeance Is Mine!", the story of a young man who sets out to avenge his father's death only to commit an act beyond redemption, and "Stacked Bullets," in which a game of chance is fixed, a whole town is cheated, and nothing but a stack of bullets can make things right. "Pure entertainment from first page to last with that L. Ron Hubbard touch giving this tale an enduring reading engagement from beginning to end." -Midwest Book Review
As a young man Monte Calhoun was as wild as they come, thinking the measure of a man was how hard he could drink and how straight he can shoot. But several years of schooling back East have changed him. Now, as steadfast and principled as a young Jimmy Stewart, Monte has become The No-Gun Man. The East Coast has civilized him, and he's bringing some of that civilization home to Superstition, Arizona ... even if it means refusing to avenge the murder of his own father. Monte's come back for one reason-to rescue his younger brother from this lawless land and take him back East. But out here in a land of frauds and outlaws and ambushes, a man's principles have a way of folding under pressure-especially in the face of gunfire. And Monte's no different. It's only a question of how far he'll be pushed before he starts pushing back ... with a vengeance. Hailing from the western states of Nebraska, Oklahoma and Montana, Hubbard grew up surrounded by grizzled frontiersmen and leather-tough cowboys, counting a Native American medicine man as one of his closest friends. When he chose to write stories of the Old West, Hubbard didn't have to go far to do his research, drawing on his own memories of a youth steeped in the life and legends of the American frontier. Also includes the Western adventure, Man for Breakfast, in which the victim of a robbery will leave no stone unturned and no outlaw alive in his search for justice-even as he faces bullets, a hanging rope, and a startling revelation.