Showing results by author "Max Brand" in All Categories

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....

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Steven Train is and has long been a thief and card sharp. He has gone by other names. He is sought out by another crook, John Ranier, with a proposal. Rainer saved a rich rancher, Patrick Comstock, from serious injury and was rewarded with an easy job, working for Comstock. Rainer tells Steve Train that Comstock is looking for an honest man who is also adept with firearms to undertake a very dangerous and responsible mission. Comstock has asked Ranier to help find such a man.

James Geraldi is one of the most legendary thieves in the West. But he is not an ordinary thief, preying on the unwitting and defenseless. James Geraldi is a very exclusive thief, stealing only from other thieves. From the largest towns to the loneliest outposts of the desert his name is known, but few could identify him, although many an honest rancher or townsman has become a loyal friend when Geraldi rescued their savings, and many a bandit has been conned or bested by him.

Raw frontier action is epitomized in Lee Porfilo. With a penchant for settling his problems with his fists, Porfilo is always in trouble. And trouble comes to stay when he beats a rich man's son. Now he has an enemy for life. Framed for murder and sentenced to the penitentiary, he is saved by Tex Cummins' small steel saw and heads for the mountains.

The day Jingo rode into Tower Creek, the town was busy celebrating its 20th anniversary. The big event of the festival was a high-stakes poker game in Joe Slade's saloon with Wally Rankin holding most of the chips. But it didn't take long for Jingo to figure out why: Rankin was cheating. And it would only take a couple of well-placed bullets to reveal it to the others in the room.

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.

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.

The wounded outlaw blurted out the warning to range boss Jim Seton, and Seton knew that if he wasn't careful, the man's words would prove true; Doug Walters' men were out for his blood. After five years in prison, Seton dared to return to the hostile town he called home - and within shooting range of the one man who would pay a fortune to see him dead.

He went by the name of Speedy. Some called him a tramp - and others called him worse. Speedy was a young con man who knew the fastest way to a rich man's wallet and a pretty girl's heart.

To Speedy, Durfee didn't look any different from a hundred other towns he'd seen before. There were fat bankers waiting for his smooth talk, and lovely young ladies ready to swoon over his smile and his guitar playing. But this time the charming trickster was about to meet his match - in a girl out to steal his heart!

Tom Converse was the kind of man to pull a Colt from his back pocket faster than the seasoned gunslingers could draw from a hip holster. It seemed to come easy to him - like breathing in and out. But was he also the kind of man to make a whole town trigger-happy with fear? Did he hide behind a dark mask and come back for vengeance? Was he The Shadow? Sylvia didn't think so. "I'm the only one who knows the face of the real Shadow," she said.