Cowboy Hewey Calloway, having always shunned responsibility, finds himself reassessing his life, and regretting his lost love, after he is injured while trying to break a renegade horse.
The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country pairs two wonderful novels by one of the most honored of all western writers, Elmer Kelton The Good Old Boys Hewey Calloway has a problem. He wants to be a footloose cowboy, endlessly wandering the land on horseback, but the open range of his childhood is slowly disappearing. Land is being parceled out, barbed-wire fences are springing up all over, and cars are replacing the horse as a mode of transportation. Swimming against the tide of “progress,” Hewey begins to understand that the time of the cowboy is over, that the life he dreams of has become part of the past. He must find a new path to happiness—one that may require a great sacrifice. The Smiling Country It is now 1910 and Hewey Calloway’s freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are even creeping in to remote Alpine in the “smiling country” of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey’s regrets over his lost love, schoolteacher Spring Renfro haunt him as he sees the loneliness that awaits him. The Smiling Country is filled with humor, love, and the lore of the cowboy life at a time when the great, free, open ranges of the West were adjusting to a new, technological era. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
A cowboy struggles to adapt to the modern world in 1910s Texas. Hewey Calloway finds it difficult to accept fences, cars and, worst of all--sheep. Also, he is advancing in years, though here there is a consolation, he is teaching the trade to his nephew.
"The Smiling Country is about a footloose puncher who finds out the hard way that cowboys don't remain young forever and that the inevitable wear and tear of a rugged life forces changes and compromises on the willing and unwilling alike."— Elmer Kelton Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance. Elmer Kelton introduced Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, one of the most beloved characters in Western fiction, almost thirty years ago in The Good Old Boys. The novel was transformed into a memorable 1995 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek. Hewey returns in The Smiling Country. It is 1910 and his freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are creeping in even to remote Alpine, in the "smiling country" of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey sees the loneliness that awaits him, and regrets his decision to run away from the only woman he has ever loved, the schoolteacher Spring Renfro. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Investigating the mysterious disappearance of a reporter, a former detective finds himself drawn into the dark underground world of blood-drinking cultists.
In 1875, nearly forty years after the Mexican War, Mexicans and Texans are still spilling blood over ownership of the Nueces Strip--a hot, dry stretch of coastal prairie that bushwackers and horse thieves have turned into a lawless hell. Captain L.H. McNelly, a complex and determined Confederate veteran, is brought into the Nueces Strip for one purpose: to keep the peace. His measures are harsh and controversial--but McNelly wasn't sent in to be popular. In this boilerpot of killing and racial hatred, can any man bring lasting peace? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
From the acclaimed author of Sirens, damaged Detective Aidan Waits returns in a mind-bending new thriller that will have everyone asking “Who is the Smiling Man?” Aidan Waits is back on the night shift, the Manchester PD dumping ground for those too screwed-up for more glamorous work. But the monotony of petty crimes and lonesome nights is shattered when he and his partner are called to investigate a break-in The Palace, an immense, empty hotel in the center of the city. There they find the body of a man. He is dead. The tags have been cut from his clothes, his teeth have been filed down, and even his fingertips have been replaced… And he is smiling. But as Waits begins to unravel the mystery of the smiling man, he becomes a target. Someone wants very badly to make this case disappear, and as their threats escalate, Aidan realizes that the answers may lie not only with the wealthy families and organized criminals connected to the Palace, but with a far greater evil from his own past. To discover the smiling man’s identity, he must finally confront his own.
"The Time It Never Rained was inspired by actual events, when the longest and most severe drought in living memory pressed ranchers and farmers to the outer limits of courage and endurance."—Elmer Kelton, Seven-time Spur Award-winning author Rio Seco was too small to afford a professional manager for its one-room Chamber of Commerce. And Rio Seco, meaning "dry river" in Spanish, symbolizes the biggest enemy of the ranchers and farmers in 1950s Texas, an enemy they can't control: drought. To cranky Charlie Flagg, an honest, decent rancher, the drought of the early 1950s is a battle that he must fight on his own grounds. Refusing the questionable "assistance" of federal aid programs and their bureaucratic regulations, Charlie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again—if it ever rains again. Charlie Flagg, among the strongest of Elmer Kelton's memorable creations, is no pasteboard hero. He is courageous and self-sufficient but as real as his harsh and unforgiving West Texas home country. His battle with an unfathomable foe is the stuff of epics and legends. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.