Here are 16 stories, where good meets bad, and everything in between, from the legendary author of the West, Elmer Kelton. Law of the Land chronicles some of his most exciting and dangerous tales of the Old West, collected together for the first time - including the exciting first publication of a never-before published Kelton story, “Biscuits for Bandit”.

When former cattle man Dundee wanders into the town of Titusville, he's broke, tired, and itching for a fight. Instead, he gets a job offer...from none other than the top man in town, John Titus. Titus recruits Dundee to find out who's rustling his extensive herd of cattle. But for Titus, it isn't enough that Dundee find the missing cattle. He wants to place the blame on a specific person...Blue Roan Hardesty, a one-time friend turned sworn enemy of the powerful Titus clan.

As he flees to the sanctuary of Mexico, Chacho Fernandez is unaware of the fuel he has added to the already simmering racial hatreds in and around the quiet town of Domingo, Texas. Through events set in motion by a misunderstanding, Chacho becomes a folk hero to his people and a dangerous fugitive to a group of zealous lawmen.

As a slave, Isaac Jefford went to war and saved the life of his master, Major Lytton. As a free man, Isaac became one of the major's top cowhands, respected - but never totally accepted - by fellow cowboys: when they gathered around the fire to eat their dinner, Isaac took his food and sat on the wagontongue alone. When Pete Runyan, a bitter southerner, joins the crew, Isaac has to swallow his rage more than once.

Joshua Buckalew has left behind the deserted battlefields that claimed his brother Thomas. The war has cost him much, but it has also given him a strong bond to the land and to the Mexican families who stood with him against the tyrannies of Santa Anna. Josh is travelling with Ramon Hernandez his best friend and the man who had fought with him, side by side. Where they are going, he isn't quite sure.

Mordecai Lewis and his son Michael lead men from Tennessee into Spanish-ruled Texas, to hunt wild horses. The trip is fatal for Mordecai, leaving Michael and his family in danger, both from the soldiers of Spain and the evil Blackwood family back home in the Tennessee hills.

Thomas Canfield descends from a line of Texas's earliest settlers. A proud man with a fierce-eyed stare, he inspires the Mexican of Stonehill, Texas to call him el gavilan - "The Hawk". When Branch Isom - an insolent, dangerous newcomer - seeks to build his fortune at Canfield's expense, an all-out feud ensues. Hurtling the town toward a day of reckoning that will shake the entire town to its very roots. Eyes of the Hawk is a classic tale of Western history, told by one of the most critically acclaimed writers of the American West.

Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, young, hardworking cowboys from Fort Concho, Texas, have worked six months - at $20 a month - on the Devil's River. Their boss, a hawk-faced cow trader named Larramore, reneges on the money he owes the boys, sneaks out of the cow camp, and heads for San Angelo. Fristo is tall and thin, his mind a hundred miles away; Quitman is short, bandy legged, and "bedazzled by the flash of cards and the slosh of whiskey".

The Buckskin Line tells of Texas' chaotic early years, when a ragtag group of irregular volunteers fought to defend the far edges of settlement from incursion by Indians and frontier outlaws. In time, they would become known as the Texas Rangers.

Thirty years after the Battle of San Jacinto, Texans and Mexicans are still spilling blood over control of the Nueces Strip. And Horse thieves and bushwhackers transform this hot, dry stretch between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers into a lawless inferno. Despite long odds, Captain McNelly and his small band of Texas Rangers strive to bring lasting peace to this swirling vortex of murder and racial hatred.

When Comanches slaughter his parents in 1855 West Texas, eight-year-old Jeff buries their scalped bodies—and the charred remains of his younger brother. Taken in by a homesteading family, Jeff ekes out an existence. But as he dons Confederate gray, he never dreams his brother is alive—or that he’s wearing Union blue.

Deputy Sheriff Jim-Bob McClain isn't sure he's ready to follow in his father's footsteps as the law in Coolridge County. In fact he has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks in the local saloon. But with tough Sheriff Mont Naylor to back him up, he figures he can handle whatever comes his way. Jim-Bob's first real assignment is no piece of cake. He must escort a ruthless outlaw into the hands of justice. All seems well with the lawless killer firmly in Jim-Bob's custody. But nothing prepares him for an angry mob determined to take the law into their own hands.

Joe Pepper is a Texas badman with quite a past. In fact, there isn't much that Joe hasn't done in his 40 years of living on both sides of the Texas law - except face the hangman. Now, convicted of murder, Joe is about to get that privilege. But, before he goes, Joe has a few things he wants to say - and a few stories that he wants to set straight. With Joe Pepper, legendary western writer Elmer Kelton tells a fine and moving tale of the history of his home state of Texas.

Hewey Calloway is between a rock and a hard place: The open range and simple life of his childhood are disappearing. He can't live a cowboy life whose time has passed and he's not ready yet for the new challenges of the 20th century, like automobiles, telephones, and barbed wire fences. He and his friends, all of them good old boys, must learn that even the best choices involve some kind of sacrifice.

Frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty warns any who'd stand in his way: Get out or die. One man will do neither. Sheriff Dave Buckalew is a man too proud to give up and too stubborn to give in. He liked his town the way it was - before the bootleggers, brothels, and fortune-seeking roustabouts - and so did a lot of other hardworking, decent folk. Together they'll fight to win back their town - and their future. This is the story of their heroic stand.

Hewey Calloway is between a rock and a hard place: The open range and simple life of his childhood are disappearing. He can't live a cowboy life whose time has passed and he's not ready yet for the new challenges of the 20th century, like automobiles, telephones, and barbed wire fences. He and his friends, all of them good old boys, must learn that even the best choices involve some kind of sacrifice.

Pepper Paige is tired of her life as a dance-hall girl, and tired of fearing Jordan Beckett, a violent patron who has turned his attentions on her. When a stagecoach wrecks and an injured woman dies in her room, Pepper assumes her identity and leaves town.

Framed for murder, Dewey "Mac" McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac's never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He's as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun, which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins . . .

National best-selling author and New Mexico native Michael McGarrity takes listeners to the wild territory of the late 19th-century American Southwest for this epic tale. After the deaths of his wife and brother, John Kerney gives up his West Texas ranch and heads south in search of a new home. Soon Kerney is offered work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory - a job that will forever change his life.

Former Texas Rangers Benton McCaleb, Will Elliot, and Brazos Gifford ride with Charles Goodnight as he rounds up thousands of ornery, unbranded cattle for the long drive to Colorado. From the Trinity River brakes to Denver, they’ll battle endless miles of flooded rivers, parched desert, and whiskey-crazed Comanches. And come face-to-face with Judge Roy Bean and legendary gunslingers like Clay Allison. For McCaleb and his hard-riding crew, the drive is a fierce struggle against the perils of an untamed land. A fight to the finish where the brave reach glory - or die hard.

Hawk Haynes ruled from his heart, but stayed alive by using his instincts. Hawk was on his way to start a new life in Texas when he runs into burned out wagons. He finds families slaughtered, the men killed, the women raped, and killed. Hawk Haynes had just introduced himself to Southwest Texas. Hawk had been deeded land just northwest of Rawlins for his services in taking care of Ted Rawlins and his wife until their death.

Parker Stanley's family had a dream: to start a new life in the Far West. But en route, a Cheyenne band slaughters his parents and abducts his sister. Then cowboy Clay Springer rides to the rescue - and comes up with an idea. He's got a team ready to deliver goods to the Mormons in Utah, but he's short on funds for supplies. He knows that Parker managed to hold on to his family's savings, so he suggests a 50-50 partnership. With a three-wagon, seven-man team, Parker and Clay will traverse the barren land, but out in the wilderness, Parker's sister needs saving - and he has vowed to find her.

Busted out of prison by an outlaw friend, Flintlock joins a hunt for a fortune - a golden bell hanging in a remote monastery. But between the smouldering ruin of his former jail cell and a treasure in the Arizona mountains there will be blood at a U.S. Army fort, a horrifying brush with Apache warriors, and a dozen bloody showdowns with the schemers, shootists, madmen, and lost women who find their way to Flintlock's side.

Deadwood Gulch stars bounty hunter Cas Everett, lightning fast on the draw and deadly as a nest of rattlers. When Cas returns home and finds his ma, pa, and siblings planted in fresh graves, he vows to call down the thunder on all those responsible.

In 1879, Steve Dancy sells his New York shop and ventures west to explore and write a journal about his adventures. Though he's not looking for trouble, Dancy's infatuation with another man's wife soon embroils him in a deadly feud with Sean Washburn, a Nevada silver baron. Infuriated by the outrages of two hired thugs, the shopkeeper kills both men in an impulsive street fight.

Justice is a drifter with no fear and no memory, trailed by a violent past. Nora is a beautiful widow bravely raising her young son on an isolated New Mexican ranch. When a ruthless cattle baron pushes longhorns into the valley, Justice vows to protect Nora and her boy. But how can he succeed against thirty hired guns… including the four outlaws who left him for dead?

One ranch. Three sons. Only one will inherit...and on one condition. Tired of waiting for his sons to settle down, Arizona-territory rancher Angus McKettrick announces a competition: the first son to marry and produce a grandchild will inherit Triple M ranch. Now, three distinctly different, equally determined cowboys are searching high and low for brides.

The Lindsay family has come west hoping to help the father, John, recover from an illness. When they arrive, they are induced to purchase Spanish Peaks Ranch, an abandoned United States military post surrounded by mountains. It seems like a perfect place to settle into their new life as ranchers. As they soon find out, though, this deserted fort is equally suited for both protection and imprisonment.

Chancy Gantry and Ollie Teal are honest cowpunchers, riding herd on 1,500 longhorns from Texas to Kansas. Their trail boss, Lucas Stout, is tough but fair. He’s never lost a hand on a drive and doesn’t aim to start now. So when a cowhand needs a sawbones badly, Stout sends Chancy and Ollie to escort the man to a town called Prosperity, of which neither of them has ever heard. At first glance, the town looks deserted - but the saloon is full. Chancy and Ollie are about to discover that some towns are a lot easier to ride into than to ride out of....

Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron's men drag two prisoners from Frye's jail and hang them from a high tree, there's nothing the young lawman can do about it. But Kirby's got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscle bargained for. They can beat the boy and humiliate him, but they can't make him forget the oath he has sworn to uphold.