Audiobooks by Elmer Kelton

'The Buckskin Line tells of Texas' chaotic early years, when a ragtag group of irregular volunteers fought to defend the far edges of settlement from incursion by Indians and frontier outlaws. In time, they would become known as the Texas Rangers.'--Elmer Kelton This is a story of the early days when... An intense, red-haired young man named Rusty Shannon rides into Fort Belknap on the Brazos River and joins the Texas Rangers. Years before, Mike Shannon rescued Rusty from a Comanche war party and became his adoptive father. Not long ago, Mike Shannon, was bushwhacked and killed, and his death still haunts Rusty. Rusty thinks he knows the identity of Mike's killers. But with Texas now in the throes of seceding from the Union, Rusty has his hands full fighting for the law in lawless Texas and for the life of the woman he loves. If that were not enough of a burden, Rusty is also heading for a showdown with the Comanche warrior who killed his family over twenty years ago.

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Far Canyon

Spur-award winning author Elmer Kelton delivers the sequel to his novel Slaughter with this powerful story of one man's search for peace on the war-stricken plains of the Wild West. In The Far Canyon, Kelton masterfully unveils for his reader the finality of the buffalo's demise, the beginning of a time when cattle would replace the American bison on the southern plains and ultimately end the Plains Indian culture. The novel reveals the history of the period, not in a general grand swoop of the pen, but rather, up close and personal, so his readership can judge the impact of the period upon his characters.

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Slaughter

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Cloudy in the West

In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident" that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin--Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute, and a sheepman, become Joey's unlikely partners as he is trailed by their murderous Meacham , in league with Joey's stepmother in their scheme to inherit the Shipman farm.

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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The Man Who Rode Midnight

Nearly 70, Wes Hendricks has led a tough and colorful life as a cowboy and broncobuster, and all he asks now is that he be left alone on his poor, hardscrabble ranch in the west Texas hill country. Not a chance--the powers that be in the little town of Big River (including Wes' old cowboy pal, druggist/mayor Orville Levitt) have decreed that an artificial lake will be created to generate tourism, and Wes' ranch stands squarely in their way. Wes is offered great sums of money and is even threatened by the strong-arm tactics of Sheriff Wally Vincent, but he stands firm.

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Eyes of a Hawk

A six-time winner of the Western Writers of America's Spur Award, Elmer Kelton is the premier Western storyteller of his time. Eyes of the Hawk, winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, is an outstanding tale of Texas--filled with authentic characters and history, and telling the story of the outstanding courage and determination of the men and women who challenged an unyielding wilderness to build a frontier legend. Thomas Canfield descends from a line of Texas's earliest settlers. A proud man with a fierce-eyes stare, he inspires the Mexican of Stonehill, Texas to call him el gavilan--the "hawk". When Branch Isom--an insolent, dangerous newcomer--seeks to build his fortune at Canfeild's expense, an all-out feud ensues. Hurtling the town toward a day of reckoning that will shake the entire town to its very roots. Eyes of the Hawk is a classic tale of Western history, told by one of the most critically acclaimed writers of the American West.

Elmer Kelton (Author), Pete Bradbury, Peter Bradbury (Narrator)

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Dark Thicket

Donovan: Donovan was supposed to be dead. The town of Dry Fork, southern Texas, had buried him years before when Uncle Joe Vickers had fired off both barrels of a shotgun into the vicious outlaw's face as he was escaping from jail. Now, Uncle Joe has been shot-in just the same way. And Judge Upshaw had found a noose hanging on his door. It looked as though Donovan was back-gunning for the people who had tracked him down and tried him. Sheriff Webb Matlock, a stern, quiet man, had more than one reason to find Donovan; Matlock was in love with the woman he had believed to be Donovan's widow; moreover, there were rumors that his hotheaded younger brother Sandy might have joined up with Donovan's gang. For his own peace of mind, and to protect the townspeople who had been threatened, Matlock decided to slip across the border, find Donovan in his Mexican hideout, and bring him back-or kill him. Dark Thicket: One of America's greatest Western storytellers, Elmer Kelton has been voted the greatest Western writers of all time by the Western Writers of America. Dark Thicket is one of his many classic tales of the history of his home state of Texas. Young Owen Danforth rides home to Texas as a wounded Confederate soldier, at a time when his home state is as savagely divided as his nation. As a grievously wounded America staggers toward the inevitable end of the Civil War, secessionist "home guards" and staunch Union loyalists fight their own bloody battles on a more local scale. For Owen, sick to death of fighting and yearning for peace and recuperation, his homecoming is bittersweet. And when his blood ties force him to choose a side in an unwinnable conflict, Owen begins to wonder if he will ever see peace in Texas again.

Elmer Kelton (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

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Honor at Daybreak

From one of the West's greatest living storytellers, winner of numerous awards, including the Spur, the Golden Saddleman, and the Western Heritage Award, here is Elmer Kelton's magnificent new novel of the wildcat West Texas oil boom of the 1920s. It used to be that the worst crime in Caprock was moonshining or lying about your Saturday night date on Sunday morning--until someone struck oil. Now the scent of the stuff has brought every dreamer, drifter, and two-bit swindler to town. Among them is the frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty, who warns any who'd stand in his way: Get Out or Die. One man will do neither. Sheriff Dave Buckalew is a man too proud to give up and too stubborn to give in. He liked his town the way it was--before the bootleggers, brothels, and fortune-seeking roustabouts--and so did a lot of other hardworking decent folk. Together they'll fight to win back their town--and their future. This is the story of their heroic stand.

Elmer Kelton (Author), Jack Garrett (Narrator)

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Long Way to Texas: Three Novels

Long Way to Texas brings together three rare Kelton novels, all with Texas roots. In Joe Pepper, the titular character, while awaiting a hangman's noose, tells the story of how he discovered a propensity for violence while seeking revenge. The irony is that Joe's keen sense of justice puts him on the wrong side of the law. Long Way to Texas, taking place just after the Civil War battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico, is the story of Lt. David Buckalew, whose remnant of Confederate riflemen is under siege and low on rations and water. Complicating matters is the young officer's self-doubt and fear of failure. Thomas Canfield of Eyes of the Hawk, known to the Mexican citizens of his town of Stonehill, Texas, as "El Gavilan"-the Hawk-is not a man to forgive a wrong. He sets out to prove this to an insolent ranchman rival who intends to build a fortune at Canfield's expense. The Hawk has a radically different idea: he will destroy the town before yielding to his enemy. This omnibus edition of three novels by Elmer Kelton features an introduction by Dale L. Walker, author of twenty-three novels and a past president of the Western Writers of America.

Dale L. Walker, Elmer Kelton (Author), Pete Bradbury, Peter Bradbury (Narrator)

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Joe Pepper

Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn't much that Joe hasn't done in his forty years of living on both sides of the Texas law-except face the hangman. Now, convicted of murder, Joe is about to get that privilege. But before he goes, Joe has a few things he wants to say-and a few stories that he wants to set straight. With Joe Pepper, legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton tells a fine and moving tale of the history of his home state of Texas.

Elmer Kelton (Author), Pete Bradbury, Peter Bradbury (Narrator)

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Honor at Daybreak [Dramatized Adaptation]

Caprock, Texas, is a sleepy cow town until oil is discovered in the 1920s. Suddenly thousands of people stream in to find their fortune. Some are honest folk like Elise and Victor Underwood, who pray for a little luck with their daily bread. But too many are two-bit swindlers. And then there's frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty. Sheriff Dave Buckalew faces a whole different set of circumstances as his town springs to life-in good and not-so-good ways. The town of Caprock is loosely based on Crane in West Texas, where Kelton grew up, although Crane did not exist until the oil boom. Honor at Daybreak represents a departure for Kelton. There is no single dominant figure. Although Sheriff Buckalew represents a quiet strength that binds his town together, this is a book in which an entire community joins together to save itself.

Elmer Kelton (Author), A Full Cast, Alejandro Ruiz, Alyssa Wilmoth, Amanda Forstrom, Andy Brownstein, Bradley Smith, Catherine Aselford, Chris Genebach, Christopher Graybill, Christopher Scheeren, Christopher Walker, Colleen Delany, David Jourdan, Drew Kopas, Dylan Lynch, Eric Messner, Evan Casey, J.W. Rone, Jacob Yeh, James Konicek, James Lewis, Jeff Allin, Jonathan Lee Taylor, Karen Novack, Ken Jackson, Kimberly Gilbert, Lily Beacon, Michael Glenn, Michael John Casey, Mort Shelby, Nanette Savard, Nick Depinto, Nora Achrati, Patrick Stratton, Richard Rohan, Rose Elizabeth Supan, Ryan Carlo Dalusung, Scott Mccormick, Steve Wannall, Terence Aselford, Thomas Keegan, Tia Shearer, Tim Carlin, Todd Scofield, Tracy Olivera (Narrator)

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Wagontongue

As a slave, Isaac Jefford went to war and saved the life of his master, Major Lytton. As a free man, Isaac became one of the major's top cowhands, respected-but never totally accepted-by fellow cowboys: when they gathered around the fire to eat their dinner, Isaac took his food and sat on the wagontongue alone. When Pete Runyan, a bitter southerner, joins the crew, Isaac has to swallow his rage more than once. But then Pete and Isaac are assigned the task of getting cash-profits from the sale of the herd-safely to the Fort Worth bank before a foreclosure deadline. Time and three gunmen on their trail are against them, and their journey becomes a race to prove who is the best man. First published in 1972 by Bantam as a mass market paperback, Wagontongue is one of Elmer Kelton's classic novels, exploring racial relations on the West Texas plains in the low-key, wry, and compassionate voice that characterizes Kelton's novels. The novel grew from a short story, included in this volume.

Elmer Kelton (Author), Jack Garrett (Narrator)

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