Elmer Kelton's Texas Rangers Series

On the Texas frontier in the 1840s, a red-haired child whose family has been massacred is captured by a Comanche war party led by a great warrior named Buffalo Caller. The boy is rescued by Mike Shannon, a Mexican War veteran riding with a "ranging company" of Texans dedicated to protecting settlers against Indian raids, and is adopted by the Shannon family. In 1861 his adoptive father is bushwhacked and murdered and the boy—now known as Rusty Shannon—follows Mike's footsteps, riding to Fort Belknap to join the Rangers. Texas is now in the throes of secession and Union sympathizers are treated as traitors. One such "traitor" is Lon Monahan, whose family befriends Rusty. Lon Monahan's particular enemy is Colonel Caleb Dawkins, a former army officer and Confederate zealot determined to conscript the Monahan boys and drive Lon and all Unionists out of Texas. When the youngest Monahan attempts to escape Texas and wait out the war, Dawkins's thugs hang him and his father. Rusty Shannon carries heavy burdens. Both of his families are dead; he is haunted by Mike Shannon's murder, thinks he knows the culprit and intends to kill the man; his newfound friends have been lynched; and his duties as a Ranger conflict with his sense of justice. And he is fated to meet again the Comanche warrior whose band killed his family and took him captive over two decades ago: Buffalo Caller.

In the spring of 1874 the Ranger companies that protect settlers against Indian raids and outlaw bands are being reorganized and David "Rusty" Shannon is the most sought-after veteran for reenlistment. But Shannon has new goals for his life: He is in love with Josie Monahan, daughter of the family that adopted him, and he intends to marry Josie and take her to his farm on the Colorado River. Rusty also feels affection and responsibility for Andy Pickard, a headstrong teenager he rescued from captivity among the Comanche—just as Rusty himself was rescued as a red-haired boy decades before. Then an unspeakable tragedy—the murder of his beloved Josie—changes Rusty's plans for a quiet farmer's life and alters his peace-loving character. Bent on revenge, he relentlessly trails Corey Bascom, son of an outlaw family and the man Rusty believes is Josie's killer. But the trail Rusty is following may be leading him to the wrong man. Set in the tumultuous Reconstruction period of Texas history, Ranger's Trailcontinues Elmer Kelton's chronicles of the origins of the renowned Texas Rangers, told as fiction but historically accurate in every detail and written by a favorite son of Texas.

Texas Vendetta, fifth in Elmer Kelton's memorable and critically acclaimed Texas Rangers series, is filled with the author's always engaging characters and is set against the historically accurate backdrop of the turmoil of post–Civil War Texas. Ranger privates Andy Pickard, the onetime Comanche captive called Badger Boy, and the war-anguished Farley Brackett, are assigned to deliver a prisoner to the sheriff of a county some distance from the ranger camp on the San Saba River. The prisoner, Jayce Landon, has recently killed a man named Ned Hopper and is to stand trial for murder. The rangers quickly learn that the Landon and Hopper families are involved in a blood feud and that Jayce Landon is the target of both clans: the Landons want to rescue him and the Hoppers want to kill him. Worse, Jayce is to be delivered, jailed, and tried for murder in Hopper's Crossing, a settlement owned, populated, and run by the family dedicated to killing Jayce and all his Landon kin. The young rangers soon encounter the main figures in the hate-filled Hopper clan—Big'un, a huge lout who is deputy sheriff at Hopper's Crossing, and Judd Hopper, county judge and patriarch of the family. And when Jayce escapes, hell breaks loose with the rangers caught between the warring factions. Andy Pickard, reunited with his old mentor, retired ranger Rusty Shannon, has another problem or two to deal with. He is worried about Scooter Tennyson, ayoung son of an outlaw who has been "adopted" by the rangers at their San Saba River camp and who earns his way as a cook's helper. Scooter's father, now released from prison, has come to take his son back-and into a life on the run. And Andy has a growing affection for Bethel Brackett, sister of his worrisome partner, Farley.

Hard Trail to Follow is the seventh novel in Elmer Kelton's acclaimed Texas Ranger series from Elmer Kelton Former Texas Ranger Andy Pickard, called "Badger Boy" when he lived with Comanches as a child, is following the plow on West Texas land until he learns that his friend, Sheriff Tom Blessing, has been killed during a jailbreak. The escaped bank robbers are led by a man calling himself Cordell. Andy gets reinstated as a Ranger so he can catch Cordell and get justice for Tom Blessing. Cordell is something of an enigma to Andy, especially since the pursuit slowly reveals that he is very likely not the killer of Tom Blessing. Even so, Cordell and his cohorts must be brought to Ranger justice first and the whodunit sorted out later.

When Texas Ranger private Andy Pickard is assigned to help patrol the TexasMexico border country he rides directly into a deadly feud. At odds are two land and cattle barons—Jericho Jackson, whose great spread lies just north of the Rio Grande, and Guadalupe Chavez, whose domain lies south of the river. The men are alike in only one respect: their hatred for each other, a hate born at the time of the Alamo and the U.S.-Mexican War, when Mexican lands were confiscated by ruthless Americans. The old rivals have turned to preying on each others' cattle with resulting bloodshed on both sides of the river. Between the two camps, Big Jim McCawley's ranch seems almost symbolic of the opportunity for the people of the two nations to live together. McCawley is married to Guadalupe Chavez's sister, Juana—a fact that does not ingratiate him to either the Chavez or Jackson faction. To Andy Pickard, who as a child was taken captive by Comanches, old prejudices are familiar territory, but the Jackson-Chavez war is flaring out of control by the time he reaches the Ranger camp on the border in the company of fellow Ranger Farley Brackett. The two Rangers find themselves caught up in the feud, risking arrest for crossing the river into Mexico, and risking death for not heeding the warning sign at the edge of Jericho Jackson's domain: This is Jericho's Road. Take the Other. Inevitably, the cauldron boils over and the forces of Jericho Jackson and "Lupe"Chavez meet in bloody combat. In the midst of this battle on Mexican soil are Andy Pickard—longing to court and marry Bethel Brackett and live a peaceful life as an ex-Ranger—and Brackett himself, falling in love with Teresa, Big Jim McCawley's half-Mexican daughter. Jericho's Road, the sixth book in Kelton's acclaimed Texas Ranger series, typifies "the right blend of action, drama, romance, humor and suspense" that Publishers Weekly said has made Kelton "a master of both plot and character development."

Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned what appears to be a routine duty. Donley Bannister, a West Texas horse trader, has killed a thug named Cletus Slocum, who stole one of Bannister's horses. Ranger Pickard is ordered to find and arrest Bannister and bring him to trial. The Bannister case turns out to be anything but routine. Pickard picks up Bannister's trail and finds him holed up with some cohorts who wound and vow to kill the young Ranger. Ironically, Bannister saves Pickard's life by fending off the would-be killers and taking Andy to a cow camp where his injury can be treated. When he is able to ride, Andy locates and trails Geneva Bannister, Donley's young wife, hoping she will lead him to the wanted man. The trail takes unexpected turns and detours: Near Fort Concho Andy's mission is interrupted by an ugly racial incident in which a black soldier is killed; Bannister is shot by outlaw Curly Tadlock and left for dead; and Tadlock brutally assaults Geneva. Andy Pickard, newly married, still unsure of himself and his choice of Rangering as a career, must unravel this tangled series of events and accomplish his mission of bringing an accused killer to justice.

In Elmer Kelton's Texas Standoff, Ranger Andy Pickard and his partner, Logan Daggett, are sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts. The two biggest cattlemen in the area blame each other for the violence, but it seems to Andy that neither man may be guilty. The case is complicated by the rise of a gang of "regulators"—masked vigilantes—and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman whose employer is unknown. The murder of a captured regulator and a standoff in the county jail wind up bringing to justice the men responsible for the killings and thievery. Among the culprits is a man whose guilt no one would have guessed, and among the ironies of the case is a telegram to the Rangers from the State of Texas notifying them that their services are no long required.

Golden Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton crafts stories that carry listeners into some of the most vivid years of the American West. Texas Rifles is an action-filled tale of courage in the face of divided loyalties. In 1861, men are enlisting in the Texas Mounted Rifles to keep the land free from Indian raids. There are larger conflicts, however. Texas has seceded from the union while war brews between the North and the South. Sam Houston Cloud has just joined the Texas Rifles. But he is deeply disturbed by the suffering he sees on all sides: White and Indian, Texan and immigrant.