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

"Strange Pursuit": Bowdrie wants Charlie Venk. Shrewd and intelligent, Venk is riding hard on the sorrel he's stolen right out from under another man. "The Marshal of Sentinel": Tough and vicious, the Fred Henry Gang had been robbing banks all along the stage route from Santa Fe to Tularosa. It was only a matter of time before they hit the sleepy town of Sentinel, and Marshal Fitz Moore knew that day had come. "Booty for a Bad Man": Tell Sackett knew that gold spelled trouble faster than anything except a woman, and he had a lot of gold. Problem was, none of it was his.

"One for the Mohave Kid": Few men were as deadly - or troublesome - with a gun as the Mohave Kid. Ab Kale, marshal of Hinkley, had warned the Kid to stay away from his town. "Lonigan": 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. "War Party": Bud Miles was a boy when he crossed the Mississippi. But Bud buried his father after an Indian attack, and as the wagon train pushed on through Sioux country, the boy stood as tall as any man....

In Louis L'Amour's frontier stories, the American West is the crucible in which character is tested, reputations are won or lost, and life always hangs in the balance. Struggling to survive against the elements, hostile Indians, or outlaws who prey upon the honest and hardworking, the men and women in these tales each come face-to-face with what they're made of - often in moments that explode with the violence of an avalanche or the speed of a drawn gun.

Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie was called to the O Bar O Ranch when the foreman, Bert Ramey, disappeared with $15,000. But from what Bowdrie can tell, Ramey is no thief. Karen Ramey believes her foster father may have been murdered, and she is deathly afraid of their new foreman. Meanwhile, Lee Karns, the owner of the ranch, is behaving suspiciously--but how could he be involved with the theft of his own money?

Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie is a good man to have on your side and a bad man to have on your trail. When an anonymous note alerts him to an impending bank robbery, he rides into a blazing gun battle. Minutes later, one robber lies wounded, and two others lie dead in the street. Inside the bank, two more are found dead, including the bankers;but not by Bowdrie's hand.

"Bowdrie Passes Through": Ride with the legendary Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie as he takes up the cause of Josh Pettibone, a stubborn loner who faces the hangman's noose. "Where Buzzards Fly": Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie tracks the killers of an infamous Mexican outlaw, Zaparo, and 14 of his desperadoes. "No Man's Man": Passion drives Lou Morgan to the town of Battle Basin - passion and the promise of $5,000. For in this dusty town lives the wildly irresistible Nana Maduro, the woman Morgan loved enough to kill for, the woman who walked away from him without a word.

In his extraordinary career Louis L'Amour captured the spirit of America as few writers ever have. A storyteller whose universal themes of bravery, pride, adventure, and self-reliance have echoed across generations, L'Amour set a standard that has yet to be matched. "Fighter's Fiasco" exhibits the unbridled passion, the unsurpassed range, and the sheer genius of a true master working at the peak of his creative powers.

"Killer from the Pecos": Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie rides into the wild town of Almagre trailing a Pecos bank robber who has left two men dead. "Lit a Shuck for Texas": Johnny Buck is a young Texas cowboy working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse into a cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold. "Turkeyfeather Riders": Jim Sandifer had run Grey Bowen's ranch for years in his absence. When Bowen reappears with his newly betrothed, Rose Martin, and her grown son, Lee, Sandifer is glad to see his boss.

Cattle rancher Ben Kerr wants Jim and Jack Casady's prime farmland real bad. He's offered them good money, but they won't sell. When the Casady brothers find Kerr's cattle grazing on their land, surrounded by broken fences, anger rises up like bile in Jack Casady's gut, and tempers flare.

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.

In these extraordinary stories, we meet a man who is forced to defend himself by taking another’s life - and must pay for his actions in a most punishing manner; a young thrill-seeker who finally finds a place he can call home, and vows to stay there - regardless of the man who tries to stand in his way; and a drifter who honors a deathbed promise to a stranger by embarking on an unlikely mission of mercy.

Where the real frontier begins...A young cowpuncher stakes a claim that can only be sealed with fists and a .44 Colt.... A gunfighter, tired of violence, finds himself pushed down a trail of bloody revenge.... From purple sage to gambler's gold, from a senorita's tempting smile to a splash of blood in the dust, here are stories with a distinctive L'Amour twist.

A quiet farmer defends his honor in a moment of panic and luck...only to find true courage on the run from the dead man's brothers.

Bowdrie wants Charlie Venk. Shrewd and intelligent, Venk is riding hard on the sorrel he's stolen right out from under another man. His good looks, fast gun and reckless wit have already made him a legend. So Bowdrie has to be smarter, faster and more relentless in tracking his prey across dusty cowtowns, barren desert landscapes and through the canyons and pine forests of northern Arizona into deadly Apache territory.

"McQueen of the Tumbling K": Ranch foreman Ward McQueen recognizes trouble when he sees it - and trouble is what the Texan sees when he spies the tracks of a wounded man in the middle of the big Tumbling K spread. "West of the Tularosas" Pelona was a strange town, and Ward McQueen was a stranger to it. The stalwart foreman of the Tumbling K had come to the high country to take legal possession of the Firebox range. "The Sixth Shotgun" The gallows are going up in Canyon Gap and wild-spirited Leo Carver is going to swing. A known troublemaker without an alibi, Leo certainly had motives for holding up the stage and killing two men.

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.

When a stranger named Handy offered to track down Cass Bailey's stolen money for a stake in the CB range, Bailey has nothing more to lose. But his pretty hot-tempered daughter, Ann, was certian that Handy couldn't find the money unless he'd had a hand in stealing it. So when Handy hit pay dirt Ann Bailey was there to send all his plans to blazes. Now he faced a shoot-out with the pack of villains who held both Ann and his future hostage - and a challenge to prove he wasn't a theif to the woman he loved.

Powder Basin, the broken, rugged country at the edge of a dry, forbidding desert, holds more hiding places than most men could find. Nat Bodine knows most of them; holed up in the Basin hills by a posse of over a hundred men, he needs them more than ever before. Jim Morton knows that if anyone is going to escape this posse, it's Bodine, just as he knows that Bodine is the kind of man who wouldn't commit the crime of which he's accused: and who, if forced, would seek his freedom in the savage desert sands.

Johnny Buck is a young cowboy, working for the Bar W. In the process of roping an old stob-horned steer, Buck is thrown from his horse - and into a hidden cleft where he encounters the mystery of a murdered man and a bag of ore that just might be gold.

The life of a mail-order bride was no breeze. It seemed to Laurie Bonnet she couldn't do even the simplest thing right. She couldn't make a cup of coffee fit for a dog, so how was she going to help her man in a war over his land? When things get too tough, Lauire decides to flee back home. On the trail she gets lost and meets up with a mysterious old man who teaches her a few things about love and courage. And she'll need plenty of both when she returns to stand by her husband. Because now the Miller clan has hired themsleves a gunman to run Steve Bonnet off his land - or put him under the ground.