Short Westerns

Stories of the old West were filled with bad men who lived by the speed of their gun hands. Well, meet Buck Tarrant, who could outdraw them all. His secret: He didn't even have to reach for his weapon. This original blend of the Western tale with a story of the uncanny, "The Draw" was written by Jerome Bixby, an American short story writer, editor, and scriptwriter best known for his work in science fiction, although he also wrote many Westerns.

A motley crew, banished from a Western town, find strength, and weakness, in each other.

In the early 1890s, after the financial panic, Colorado is changing from mining to ranching. A local merchant, Eli, holds most of the money and the power in the county. Then a stranger arrives and starts to court the merchant's daughter - and the problems begin.

As he comes of age, Ed Raleigh disobeys his wealthy rancher father, Pete Raleigh, and escapes to the Bald Eagle Mountains to prospect for ore. When he stops at the town of Sierra Padre, he visits his father's old haunts and meets up with many of his father's old friends. One former friend, Jim Martin, however, is now his father’s sworn enemy who he has vowed to kill Pete Raleigh for taking away the woman they both loved, now Ed Raleigh's mother. Ed Raleigh is shocked and worried, for how will a declared murder attempt on his own father be prevented?

Tonight the bullets will fly and rancher or rustler will die. A mystery man will decide whose blood will stain the sick streets of Star.

A demon coyote that's too fast to shoot and too smart to poison is closing in. Will the Wolf Hunter survive?

When a mysterious man on a white horse robs a series of stagecoaches on their way from the little town of Appleton to the Concord railroad station, everyone in town suspects a young and enigmatic man named Slim Malone. The newly elected mayor decides to bring in outside help, a deadly gunfighter named Lefty Cornwall.

Sometimes a lost gold mine offers up more than just gold. And sometimes a secret should remain a secret. A generational science fiction story from USA Today best-selling writer Dean Wesley Smith. A version of this story by Dean Wesley Smith first appeared in The Secret Prophecies of Nostradamus edited by Cynthia Sternau and Martin H. Greenberg.

Short in size, Two Bit Higgins beats up the much bigger Dandy Barker in a bar fight in an southern Arizona gold-mining town. He is then named a deputy sheriff, also showing how dangerous he is with a gun. Then Barker comes back for revenge. How long will it be before Barker and his gang come looking for Two Bit and the show down?

Nobody welcomed Will Evans when he retired from bounty hunting to start a farm until a vicious cattle baron decided to run off all the farmers.

Entrusted with the delivery of one hundred pounds of gold to his partners, Johnny Potter faces four days of hard riding alone in a land of robbers and treacherous terrain.

To Old Pete's owner, it had always seemed that Pete would be the first to go. At 30 years of age, it even appeared likely. Now Old Pete's owner is confined to a hospital bed, though, and Old Pete is still going strong. But there might be some way that they could get together again for a last ride, prospecting up a mountain, just the two of them, who would have been together for a longer time than most married folks.

One of the most popular settings for romance stories was the Old West, where men were men and women were women. As many a swooning damsel could attest, "There's something about a cowboy." The Western romance became one of the most popular types of magazines sold during the early and mid-20th century. By today's standards, these stories may be considered sweet and wholesome, but there's still a thrill to them, the excitement of action and love waiting along the next trail.

This is the story the led to the classic John Ford and John Wayne 1939 movie of the same name. Listen as a small group of travelers ride their way to their destination, trying to avoid the dangers of the trail, including the famous Geronimo!

Should Tommy Beckworth hang for Liji Evers death? Old Man Coffee and the biscuit shooter will trick the truth out of someone.

Ray Kindred is a fugitive. Most of Kindred's remembered life has involved ignoring danger or fleeing from it. When he jumps off the freight train on which he has been hiding to enter a town at night, he feels he is only ignoring danger, no longer fleeing it.

Emma looks down at the crowd from a hanging platform. Her father was framed, and she took the blame for the crime to save him from execution. Where is her beloved husband, Nate? She looks around and sees her husband on a horse, guns blazing. In a whirlwind rescue, she hops on the back of his horse, and they're off, realizing that they will spend the rest of their lives as outlaws.

A young cowboy joins up with two other would-be bank robbers. The robbery succeeds but in getting away but only the cowboy comes away alive, much richer but not in any way he or anyone else had first expected.

Entrancing Rubie tried all her lovable tricks to hold ranchman Guy spellbound - but all she did was smother his ardor. She had her hombre cut out of the herd - till Guy stampeded. One of the most popular settings for romance stories was the old west, where men were men and women were women. As many a swooning damsel could attest, "There's something about a cowboy." The western romance became one of the most popular types of magazines sold during the early and mid-twentieth century.

In the lawless expanse of the Wild West, Shadow of the Lawman follows the enigmatic Bass Reeves, a relentless and ambiguous lawman, as he confronts a ruthless gang of outlaws who descend upon the town of Pecan Ridge. With justice as his only guiding light, Reeves leaves a place forever changed, its secrets known only to him, as he continues his solitary quest through the unforgiving frontier.