Short Westerns

Collected here are 10 Western short stories by Richard S. Wheeler, the award-winning author who makes storytelling look easy. In "Mugs Birdsong's Crime Academy", celebrated criminal Mugs Birdsong decides to found an academy that will instruct lawmen on the ways and means of lawlessness. "The Last Days of Dominic Prince" is the tragic tale of a cattle baron and his final conflict with the forces of political correctness. "Dead Weight" introduces us to a coffin maker who constructs a work of art.

Phil Evarts is dead, and the Hatchet Range is up for grabs. That's 70,000 acres of prime turf just waiting for the man rich enough to buy it . . . or the gunman crazy enough to kill for it. Every schemer in town has his eyes on Hatchet, and Bide Mariner leads the charge. An unscrupulous rancher who'll stop at nothing for cash, Mariner has the money and the guns to take whatever he wants. Only Will Ballard stands in his way—and that means Ballard is marked for death.

Imagine: a fantasy world, but not one based on medieval/Dark Ages European culture and myth, but rather on the tropes of the spaghetti Western and Chinese Wuxia. Add steampunk elements. Mix well.

Finding Home with The Lord's Help, is a love story about two families traveling West along the Oregon Trail - both have lost their matriarchs and one has lost their faith on God. One young woman looks across at the other family - full of love and faith - then up to her gruff father who has lost his. It's through faith and unselfishness that they are able to face their daily challenges both on the trail, and off it, and find love in all things.

The army wagon train carried rifles, ammunition, and a chestful of gold through Apache territory, where every white man was a target. With the soldiers rode a single stagecoach carrying the woman whom Chris Danning planned to marry. When the train passed through Karnes Canyon, an Apache raiding party stormed out of the shadows, and the creek ran red with blood. For 18 months now, Danning has searched for the Apache who attacked the wagon train and killed his fiancée. He’s also hunting the corrupt white man who sold the soldiers out.

After 10 years of hard fighting and harder living, Will Danning is coming home to Yellow Jacket. His arrival is anything but celebrated, however - the last time he cast a shadow here, he wasn’t exactly walking the straight and narrow. Danning has returned to buy the Pitchfork Ranch, where he used to work cattle that weren’t always legally his. For his neighbors, that’s cause for concern; Angus Case still remembers when his herds were ravaged. What’s more, Danning’s friends can’t understand why he’d want such a dried-up parcel of land.

Frank Christian and Morg Wheelon were going to build something great. After the two veteran cattle punchers saved up enough to start their own outfit, Frank was to ride down to Texas and buy whatever herd he could, then bring them up the Chisholm Trail through Indian country to the rich grasslands of the Cheyenne in Wyoming. Morg would be waiting with the grazing rights in hand. It was a risky plan, but Frank and Morg weren’t about to give up their dream.

Blaze of Love is the complete boxset of the Firefighters of Long Valley series. Come on down to Long Valley, where the firemen are damn fine....

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

Vienne is trying desperately to support herself and her six-month-old baby when she is threatened with having baby Cooper taken away. A promising mail order bride advertisement causes her to flee to Oregon.

Giff Dixon doesn't remember how he got to the town of Corazon. All he knows is that some cowboys found him way off the beaten path in Oklahoma cattle country, barely alive, and carrying a belly full of buckshot. Now, he's broke, friendless, and at the end of his rope. Everything changes when, out of the blue, he's offered a job guiding a government expedition to investigate reports of homesteaders being forced off their land by the all-powerful Torreon Cattle Company. It seems an easy enough ride until Grady Sebree, the iron-fisted boss of Torreon, approaches Dixon.

When he learns of his parents' death in a train crash, Sam Dana makes his way home to the Bar D ranch—not to claim it, but to settle the estate and move on. He has no need for the hard life of a cattleman after finally striking it big as a prospector. But what Sam finds is far from the home he remembers. The ranch has become an armed camp led by his cantankerous half-brother, Walt, who's been hiring men more skilled with a six-gun than a lasso. In Sam's absence, things have gone downhill in all ways possible.

Frank Chess didn’t care for much in this world. Especially himself. So taking a job for local big shot Rhino Hulst was an easy choice. Each day drifted into the next: running Rhino’s crooked errands and blowing his meager pay on poker and the saloon. All because Rhino killed a man in cold blood, pinned it on Frank, and now holds the hangman’s rope over him. And who would give a damn? Frank came into town a drifter - a fiddlefoot. And when he finally remembers what it’s like to care about something, the town has no idea how much hell he’s about to bring down on them all.

Ward Kinsman has done all he can to escape civilization, spending the summer in a desert mountain range, deep in Apache territory, sifting for gold and praying he never sees another settler again. After a month of backbreaking work, he sees a trail of dust in the distance and knows a white man has come to find him...which means the Apache are right behind.

Andrea Clementine has a wonderful vacation planned. Nine whole days away from work, from home, from everything but fun. Right up until her car conks out, not even halfway to her destination. Her vacation is ruined, and she’s stranded on the side of the road.

On April 3, 1961, 38-year-old former vocalist Ella Mae Cooley was beaten to death in her home in Willow Springs, an unincorporated area located in Kern County, California. The cruelty of the crime was shocking to local residents in the normally idyllic community. A greater shock was that the murder was committed by the victim's 50-year-old husband, Donnell Clyde Cooley, a well-known big-band leader, musician, actor, host of a television variety show, and businessman. See how this tragic story of celebrity, suspicion, and homicidal rage unfolds in the historical crime of passion.

Discover these tales of frontier justice and life and death struggles by transporting yourself to a bygone era of adventure and excitement. Originally published in 1907, Bat Masterson's gripping collection of short biographies introduces you some of the most famous lawmen and notorious outlaws of the Wild West, including cattle rustlers, sharpshooters, and gunslingers.

Lazarus County has yet to be tamed. There’s drought, bandits, and natives to contend with. People have moved out there hoping to better themselves, have a chance at the kind of life they could never hope for back East. Of course plenty of the settlers are lonely and willing to take a chance on love, even with someone that they’ve never met. This boxed set includes She Has to Stop Running Sometime, Western Redemption, Western Freedom, and The Sheriff Needs a Bride.

These three short stories give listeners a dog’s-eye view of the action and adventure associated with the American West. From an award-winning poet, these stories provide a window into the sometimes fickle relationship between man and dog. Barbara Nelson Blinn used writing as a way to escape her abusive marriage, and these stories are indeed an escape, as listeners will have the opportunity to befriend three different canines, each with their own story filled with mystery, adventure, and the underlying message that controlling the pet population is of utmost importance.

Published in 2000 to critical acclaim, The American West: A New Interpretive History quickly became the standard in college history courses. Now Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher offer a concise edition of their classic, freshly updated. Lauded for their lively and elegant writing, the authors provide a grand survey of the colorful history of the American West, from the first contacts between Native Americans and Europeans to the beginning of the 21st century.