Les Savage Books

A BITTER HOMECOMING Scott Walker returned home to Missouri from his stay in a Confederate hospital only to find his home burned by Quantrill's raiders, and his family relocated to Wyoming. But his long trek to be reunited with his kin was only the beginning of his troubles. When he reached Laramie he found his sweetheart married to his older brother, and his father embroiled in a bloody battle with a deputy surveyor for the railroad. Has Scott survived the war only to be killed in a struggle for land? With the railroads on one side, landowners on another, and fierce Indians against them all, Scott is caught in a whirlwind of progress, greed, and the efforts to bind a continent with iron rails.

In "The Wagon Warrior," David Brooke, a hunter for freight caravans, finds himself shackled in a wagon because he had been raised by the Cheyenne who are being blamed for the attack on an earlier supply train. In "The Man Who Tamed Tombstone," singer Kate Lawrence and Eddie Hammer, her manager, arrive in Tombstone for a series of concerts and find themselves in danger as a power struggle between Sheriff Nevis and Marshal Graham plays out.

CLASSIC SAVAGE! Very few Western authors could match Les Savage, Jr., for characterization, plotting, and sheer excitement. The three novellas collected in this volume, all restored to Savage's original intentions, represent this writer at his brilliant best. Included here are his classic tales "Valley of the Secret Guns" and "Brush Buster" and the title novella, in which a man known only as Drifter arrives at the Silver Slipper in Laramie, Wyoming Territory, determined to find the missing eyewitness to a murder committed on the notorious...Gambler's Row.

A DEADLY CEREMONY Rim Fannin would have done just about anything to prove that John Romaine, the owner of White Mountain Freight, was the traitor responsible for his father's death. So when he got word in the sooty blackness of a Tucson alley that twenty heavily guarded White Mountain wagons were traveling by night toward Tubac, Rim signed on as a mule skinner. He wasn't very good with a mule whip but he managed...until his train was attacked by Indians and he was captured. Rim knew escape was hopeless when his captors took him to Canyon de Chelly. And late one night when the Bear Clan held a fire dance in the shadow of Spider Rock, he realized why he had been taken alive....

One look at the breathtaking wild stallion robbed Del Rockwall of all common sense. The odds of capturing the majestic beast were about a thousand to one, he figured. And if he missed, he'd probably spook the rest of the herd and never see them again. But Del isn't the only one with an eye on that horse. Two toughs and a crafty opportunist have been eying the same stallion for quite a while now. And the way they see it, Del's gonna catch that horse, all right--for them. Because now his life depends on it.

LAND WORTH KILLING FOR Paul Hagar had always had hard luck. He'd drifted through the Southwest, trying his hand at a few different things, but always with no success. Then it looked like his luck changed. He had a chance to file for land in the most important quarter section in all of Converse County, Wyoming. Known as the Bloody Quarter, the strip served as a gateway for the surrounding ranchers to summer graze their herds in the high country. But it was called the Bloody Quarter for a reason--some pretty ruthless ranchers were willing to do just about anything to control it. Even commit murder. Paul Hagar's luck might have changed, all right...but for the worse.

"Five Western stories about men in buckskins, trappers and guides, who must fight against those who would rather let others do the hard work and then steal the profits"--

A trio of short novels from Les Savage - 'Plunder Trail', 'The Brand of Penasco' and 'The Shadow in Renegade Basin'.

KILLER CAT In the title novella of this collection, restored to the author's original intentions, the incomparable Les Savage, Jr. combines the thrills, action and romance of the traditional Western with gripping suspense. A gigantic cat-like creature of an ancient Mexican myth is stalking the dense underbrush of the Texas brasada. It has already killed two men. When three rustlers must decide between going into the very heart of its lair or turning back to face the noose, they readily plunge into the tangled woods. But will they be wily enough to outwit the beast in its own territory...or will they only add to the killer's legend?

STIRRING UP TROUBLE When Alan Craig's father was shot years ago, there was no doctor in Coffin Gap to help him. Now Alan has returned with his medical degree to what has become a thriving town. But Jada MacQueen's hydraulic mining has polluted the lowland water ways and killed part of the range, and Alan has his hands full trying to head off a possible typhoid epidemic--which means cleaning up the mine. And MacQueen's not the only one against Alan--there's also Bowie French. French used to be Alan's best friend, but now he's the biggest rancher in the area, and he doesn't like the way Alan's interfering with his plans either. Between the two of them, MacQueen and French aim to show Alan just how dangerous it can be to come home again.