Showing results by author "Louis L'Amour" in All Categories

"Medicine Ground" is a short story from L'Amour's hardcover, Valley of the Sun, - previously unavailable anywhere!

The twelve stories in this collection run the spectrum of human emotions as they transport us from the fading majesty of the Old West to a small-town football field to the lonely canyons of one man’s mind. These classic tales of adventure, mystery, mysticism, and suspense epitomize the uniquely American yearning for connection and roots, justice and love, as only L’Amour can. Here is a diverse group of heroes and traitors, outlaws and lawmen—the innocent, the guilty, and those who operate in the shadowy territory outside the reach of justice.

Rafe Caradec had been raised to a hard life in a hard land where death lurked behind every bush and in most men's eyes. Only his courage and his gun had sustained him. That and the unflinching honor that had earned him the respect of every man. Now, that honor was about to lead him into deadly danger against the greatest odds he had ever faced. For Rafe had given his word to a dying man and could not go back on it. The man had been murdered by a cabal of greedy ranchers who wanted his land, and Rafe had sworn to protect that land for the man's wife and infant daughter.

Lawman, manhunter, peacemaker - it takes a hard breed of man to survive as a Texas Ranger, but Chick Bowdrie stands head and shoulders above the rest. The rough trails are his home. He's dried by the desert sun and wind, scarred and toughened by uncounted gun battles, and when you look into his black eyes it's like looking down the barrels of two .44s. He rides in the name of justice, but he lives by his own law. And if you're thinking about walking on the wrong side of Bowdrie’s Law, you'd better start running. Fast.

From a South Seas island paradise to the icy reaches of the Arctic, from the dark, gritty streets of urban America to the rugged landscape of the untamed West, the stories gathered in With These Hands combine razor-sharp characters with breathtaking action and historic detail. Here are tales of adventure, mystery, passion, suspense, and the Old West as only L’Amour can tell them. The result is a collection that profoundly echoes the highs and lows of the human experience, while proving that life’s most vital moments can occur when and where we least expect them.

Jim Sandifer had run Grey Bowen's ranch for years in the rancher's absence. When Bowen reappears with his new wife, Rose Martin, and Rose's grown son. Lee, Sandifer is happy to see his boss. But then scheming Lee Martin turns Bowen against his foreman and his neighbors. Can Jim stop the range war that's brewing without losing his job? And what are the Martins really after?

For the westerner trouble came with the territory. Long grass valleys, merciless deserts, sheer rock cliffs, icy streams, hidden trails, dusty towns: These were the proving grounds of daily life. At any time violence could explode and on the frontier there was no avoiding its sudden terrible impact. In this collection of his stories Louis L’Amour guides us to some of these untamed places where men and women faced the challenge of survival. And for the first time, L’Amour also presents a selection of riveting scenes from western history that are every bit as exciting as his stories.

Man Riding West starts out innocently enough when Jim Gary comes upon the trail camp of three men pushing a herd of cattle. One of the men has a shotgun, something usually not carried by men on a trail drive, but Jim asks for coffee anyway. Red Slagle, the ramrod of the outfit, is friendly enough - and even offers Jim a job riding herd. Jim can use the money, and the herd is moving the same direction as Jim, who is on his way to work for Mart Ray, an old saddlemate, now foreman for the Double A brand. It’s the same brand as that on this herd....

Arthur Fordyce is an ordinary man blessed with a budding career, a lovely fiancee, and a sunny future. He is hardly a criminal - until he finds a wallet stuffed with money at the racetrack. In one "unguarded moment" he removes the cash and throws the billfold away - unaware that he is being watched by a petty crook named Bill Chafey.

Two men in the isolated town of Tucker want the XY ranch, Jim Walker and the ruthless Wing Cary, and one of them wants it badly enough to kill for it. The Black Rock Coffin Makers is a tale of suspense and danger, with chases, posses, shootouts, and double-crosses, all for possession of the XY ranch.

Steve Mehan had done the impossible: driven a herd of cattle from the Nevada range to California in the dead of winter! To the north the passes were blocked with snow, to the south lay miles of trackless and nearly waterless desert. But now the cattle the five ranchers had entrusted to him were sage. And he was back in time to pay off Jake Hitson, the moneylending rancher who'd stop at nothing to get their land.

To clear the name of an innocent man, Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie pursues a murderous gang of bank robbers and cattle rustlers.

Banker Tom Lindsay made a bad decision when he decided to do business with Ross Yerby. Yerby convinced Tom to print a few extra greenbacks to help him trade some cattle in exchange for half the profit. What Tom hadn't figured into the equation was Ross losing the money, and returning - desperate - for more. An argument between the two men goes bad, Lindsay is killed, and Yerby flees with a bundle of Lindsay's cash in tow.

Cattleman Jum Gatlin isn't the kind of man who goes looking for a fight. But he never turns away when one comes looking for him. And that's just what happens when he finds himself mistaken for another man - a man who has some very dangerous enemies.

Ruth Gurney arrived home to find her late father's cattle ranch in debt, and their trail-boss, Lonigan, missing. As luck would have it, there is a conveniently available replacement - Hoey Ives. The ranch hands are uneasy with Ives's place on the drive, but the money is desperately needed, and there's no time to wait for Lonigan. After days on the trail with no sign of water, weak cattle, and restless men, Ruth can't help but have second thoughts about the seemingly trustworthy Ives. When he suddenly proposes and asks for more than her hand in marriage, Ruth knows she has to find out what he's really up to - and fast.

Jeff Kurland didn't have a gun. Jeff Kurland didn't have a chance. The rancher knew that even as he scanned the cabin for a weapon, any weapon. He was trapped with a killer who had a pistol in his hand and a bounty on his head. And outside, the pogonip swirled and fell, an icy blanket of fog that settled like a shroud over every living thing. Death would creep into the cabin with the bone-chilling cold or slice through him with the speed of a bullet. Either way, time was running out: for both of them.

Tack Gentry has been away for a year when he returns to the familiar buildings of his uncle John Gentry's G Bar ranch. To his amazement, the ranch has a new owner, who is unimpressed when Tack explains that his uncle was a Quaker, didn't believe in violence, and never carried a gun. His advice to Tack is to make tracks. But Tack has other plans.

Few travelers happen by Lee's Canyon. But when Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie suddenly appears at Moby Fosdick's door looking for Shad Tucker, slowly brewing trouble begins boiling over fast. Before the sun sets, bullets are flying. And by the time it rises again, Bowdrie's badly outnumbered, 16-year-old Lily Fosdick is trapped in a cave with a cold-hearted killer, and it's high time for 19-year-old Jerry Fosdick to decide which side of the law he's one.

Folks far and wide know that the Cactus Kid can handle a pistol with the best of them. But for all his skill and coolness under fire, there's jut one small weakness he can't seem to overcome - and it may prove the death of him.

On the trail of a ruthless killer named Carl Dyson, Ranger Chick Bowdrie finds the body of a rough-riding Californian, dry gulched and left to rot in the sun. With the dead man's horse in tow, Bowdrie ambles into the middle of a dispute between the H&H ranch and the Darcy spread. Seems some H&H hired guns are giving Jack Darcy a hard time...and leading the troublemakers is ranch owner Rack Herman, strangely in the middle of many a run-in.