Showing results by author "Max Brand" in All Categories

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.

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

I'd almost been middleweight champion of the world. But then some doctors told me my heart was no good -from now on everything must be slow and easy; no emotion. Keep your heart locked up. Smile at everything. Play poker all your life. That was just how I happened to go wrong. I found out that if I worked out slowly, I could still ride a horse, even climb a mountain. All I had to watch were my nerves. Every time I got a nerve shock, my heart went smash.

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.

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.

Harry Destry was a rough-and-tumble fighter who never lost a battle. But after six years in jail for a robbery he didn't commit, he comes back a changed man. The townsfolk believe he's beaten. They think all the fight's gone right out of him. And that's exactly what Destry wants them to think....

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.

Bull Hunter was a young Western boy of unusual size who eventually became known as the “Gentle Giant”. Because of his stature and prodigious strength, along with a sort of natural timidity, Bull was often derided, even by his cousins, as being “slow” mentally. Eventually, he met and was befriended by a famous gunfighter who taught him how to use a gun. That changed a lot of derogatory opinions about him, and he didn’t get bullied any more.

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.

Alfred Larribee is sent by his father to live with his cousin’s family in the West. Larribee proves to be lazy and shiftless…spending most of his time in town…drinking and gambling…even cheating at cards. What changes all this is the appearance of Sky Blue…a magnificent stallion that has never been ridden. Dan Gurry is the owner and hopes to find a cowboy who can ride Sky Blue…but the first one to try is seriously injured. After that no one is willing to volunteer to try again except Larribee.

Barney Dwyer was so strong that he broke almost every farm tool he touched. Finally his hot-tempered ranch-owning boss, Dan Peary, lost his patience and fired him. Barney was told to collect the remaining few dollars of his wages from Peary's son, Len, who had joined a tough gang of gunslingers in the mountain town of Timberline. Almost from the first hour, Barney made enemies in Timberline. Violent confrontations would send Barney on a long bloody trail.

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.

Rusty Sabin was a child when Cheyenne Indians raided the Sabin homestead and killed his mother. Just before she died, she put a rawhide cord with a green scabbard around his neck. Raised by Spotted Antelope and Bitter Root, Rusty, now known as Red Hawk, refuses the compulsory and brutal initiation into the tribe when he is 15. Abandoned as dead by his Cheyenne family, Red Hawk takes the advice of a white trader and rides to Witherell, the nearest settlement of whites.

The Untamed is a pioneering Wild West novel. Whistlin' Dan Barry is the hero, with his black stallion Satan and wolf dog Black Bart. The villain and leader of the gang of thugs, Jim Silent, is a thief, a killer, and a liar. He kidnaps Whistlin’ Dan’s adopted father and the woman he loves, and then war ensues, with a riveting end to the thugs.

The lure of the American West is in the spirit of adventure, in the majestic expanse of unconquered wilderness and in rugged individuals on a quest for identity and sometimes for survival. Owen Wister's unsmiling Virginian... Dorothy M. Johnson's, "A Man Called Horse": These are a few of the colorful, even legendary characters who populate The American West in Fiction, a collection of stories edited by Jon Tuska.

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.

Lew's skill with firearms gets him a job as a hunter with a trader heading onto the prairies to barter with the Indians. There he meets young Chuck Morris, and together they take on a Cheyenne attack party. Finding shelter in a Sioux village, they absorb the native culture. Lew comes to know the great Sioux chieftains, becoming blood brothers with Sitting Wolf, while Chuck marries the beautiful maiden Zintcallasappa.

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.

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?

Ben Flinder's life at an isolated hotel in the mountains is complicated by the arrival of a young woman who is trying to escape, but refuses to reveal from whom. She is befriended by the Gray Shadow, a wild wolf, but not even the wolf can prevent her capture by her pursuers.