Showing results by author "Max Brand" in All Categories

Smoke Bellew enters a remote Mormon settlement only a jump ahead of a posse. Finding employment as a ranch hand working for a dowager Mormon, Smoke finds that his life undergoes a transformation and he is able to make her ranch a financial success, at the same time falling in love with her wanton daughter, Rebecca. But it is too good to last. The law follows him.

Peter Dunstan is a big rancher who wants to become bigger, to control more land. So when he buys Dr. Henry Morgan's ranchland that has been unsuccessfully converted to farming, it is his intention to return it to open range. The only stipulation the doctor makes is that Dunstan must retain Sandy Sweyn, who has more or less been Dr. Morgan's ward. Though the man is of age, he is generally considered a half-wit, even by the doctor. Still, Sandy has a fabulous gift: He can communicate with animals.

A collection of timeless Westerns from some of the most well-known authors of the genre, including Zane Grey and Max Brand: "The Little Gold Miners" by Joaquin Miller, "Bulger's Reputation" by Bret Harte, "The Leaf of Red Rose" by W.H.H. Murray, "The Secret of Macarger's Gulch" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain, "Twelve O'Clock" by Stephen Crane, "The Vengeance of Padre Arroyo" by Gerturde Atherton, "A Deal in Wheat" by Frank Norris, "The Caballero's Way" by O. Henry, and more.

A collection of classic Western tales including Tappan's Burro by Zane Grey, Jargan M by Max Brand and The Trail to Crazy Man by Louis L'Amour.

A collection of classic Western tales including From Missouri by Zane Grey, Over the Northern Border by Max Brand and Riders of the Dawn by Louis L'Amour.

He was still a young man, but he'd used that handful of years effectively, building a bad reputation that spanned the West, his villainy taking different forms everywhere it took roost. Denver knew him as the Doctor; Texans called him Montana; and folks in Idaho called him Texas. On account of his youth, most everywhere else called him the Lonesome Kid.

Every fall Tom Reynard, ramrod for the Bar L, had a hard time finding cowpunchers willing to work the winter range in the bleak badlands near the Sioux reservation. So when Jigger Bunts, an 18-year-old from New York who was familiar with riding and roping, happened along, he was hired even though his youth was a red flag to Reynard. To pass the time in the bunkhouse, the other cowhands spin tall tales for Bunts, whom they call the kid, about the exploits of Reynard, and soon Reynard becomes Bunts' hero and role model.

The attacks of the huge lobo Gray Cloud have caused the remarkable price of $2,500 to be put on his head. And it falls to big Dave Reagan, considered little better than a half-wit in that part of the range, to discover the monster held fast in two of his traps. Something in the fearless animal's eyes keeps young Dave from killing the wolf. Instead Dave releases Gray Cloud, who is unable to walk, and rescues him from a prairie fire that threatens them both. Dave brings Gray Cloud home and chains him in a shed that he uses as a blacksmith shop.

This Raging Bull Publishing box set contains four classic Western books by Max Brand: Black Jack, Harrigan, Riders of the Silence, and The Untamed.

Tom Fuller - a scrupulously honest fellow, a person of extraordinary physical strength, and owner of a savage horse, Rusty, that he alone was able to tame - is generally regarded as a half-wit. He has been summarily fired from every job he has ever had and even comes to regard himself as a failure. He makes one more try when he is hired on as a blacksmith's assistant by Boston Charlie. Finally here is a job that Tom can perform successfully, and his spirit soars.

Dick Rutherford, known simply as the Colonel, had set out into the West to find his fortune, accompanied only by his young companion, Christy Deever. But it looked like the frontier would provide more danger than money...until the Colonel and Christy met Stone-That-Shines, a Mandan warrior who possessed a medicine stone that gave him his name. As soon as the Colonel got a close look at the medicine stone, he knew immediately what made it shine — a rich vein of quartz gold.

He swept down from the north like a cold blast from hell. His name was Red Pierre and he was riding a vengeance trail.

They said the man he hunted couldn't be beat. But six years of riding outlaw with a wolf-pack left him with a burning hate and a taste for blood.

Now he was going to get the man who shot his father. But he'd need more than hate and a gun. What he really needed was the help of a good woman.

Peter Quince was a fighter born and bred. Orphaned at a young age, he remembered an old woman saying that he was a bad one and would cause a lot of trouble in the world. Others claimed he had bad blood, and it would show up sooner or later. But Bill Andrews felt a connection with the boy, took him home, and raised him as one of his own despite his wife's misgivings. Peter soon learned he could manipulate people by withholding his true feelings. He had learned that battles should be won by cunning and strength, with cunning being far more important.

Werewolf by Max Brand in Western Story Magazine (12/18/26) involves just such an inward journey for Christopher Royal, who is convinced he is a coward and flees a confrontation with Harry Main, who is a gunfighter. There comes a time in this story - when Christopher encounters the aged Indian, the old wise man - that the terrain shimmers with the multiple affinities of meaning conjured by the unconscious, which Vergil once sought to capture within an image both awesome and sinister: numina magna deum [the great divine power of a god].

When Harry French left home he was just another kid looking to make his way. But when he comes back four years later, things are different. He's different. Or at least the town thinks so. Now nobody looks him in the eye. He isn't just Harry anymore, he's the Shifter, a gunfighter who brings trouble with him wherever he goes. And as hard as Harry tries, he finds that a reputation is a lot harder to put down than a gun.

Tom Dallas has changed his way of living. All the shootings in which he was involved were justified, but there are many who want his scalp which prompts him to make a vow that he will not pack bullets in his .45 for a year. Then a situation develops that can only result in breaking his vow.

In "Gunman's Bluff," Cheyenne was challenged to a shootout by Danny and Chuck Martin. He managed to kill Danny and wound Chuck, but before he could get away, Chuck got a shot off and hit Cheyenne in the shoulder. Now Doc Lindus has told him that it might be quite some time until he has use of his right hand again, so he'd better develop his left. With the Martins out for blood, how's Cheyenne to defend himself?

On a cold, gusty night in Circle City, Alaska, Sammy Day walks into Nagle's Bar. He is only 22, but he has been on his own for 10 years. He has worked cattle from Montana to Chihuahua, but a little "accident" at a poker table in Montana sent him on a forced march to Alaska to avoid a posse. He is down to his last 50 cents.

The mining certificates granting ownership of the Christabel mine that Edward Dugan inherited from his father had a face value of $250,000, but the mine itself had been declared worthless. Still, Henry Christian, the man that had sold them to Dugan's father, said he'd buy them back for $1,500.
Penniless, Dugan decided to walk the 3,000 miles from his home in Boston to the mine in the Southwest to check out the offer. But along the way he meets a travel companion named Red. Red knows Christian by reputation, and by another name: Bonanza Chris.

In Traynor, the title character is believed to be a weak young man, having let Dr. Parker Channing steal his love, Rose Laymon, away from him. When the stage Traynor is driving into Little Snake is robbed and Traynor’s best friend and stage guard, Sam Whitney, is killed by the robber, Traynor chases the thief and recovers his dropped Stetson, which was sold to Dr. Channing less than a month earlier. In Luck and a Horse, Tommy Grant works day and night on the farm of the tyrant and master manipulator Sylvester Train, who has not paid him for 19 months.