Search results for ""Author Jack Schaefer""

In these classic stories acclaimed author Jack Schaefer yet again captures the spirit and adventure of the Old West. First Blood, Schaefer’s follow-up to Shane, tells the tale of Jess Harker, a young stagecoach driver finding his way in this coming-of-age story. Jess admires Race Crimm, the Company’s top messenger, for his stature and wild abandon and would have “shucked ten years of [his] life to be driving beside him.” Jess, eager to ride the big trails, has the chance to prove himself by driving an important shipment when trouble arises. Facing hard choices of honor and justice, he must pick a side because his life might just depend on it. “Jacob,” “Salt of the Earth,” and “One Man’s Honor” complete this engaging collection of stories by award-winning American treasure Jack Schaefer.

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Based on a Cheyenne legend, this novel holds universal appeal as it explores the theme of a man's conflict with his culture. It is the story of how Little Bear, a Cheyenne warrior who opposes war, reconciles the conflict between his personal values and the demands of his tribe. The dilemma faced by Little Bear gives rise to a story that is at once a compelling adventure tale, an authentic description of Indian life and ritual, and a parable of self-realization.First published in 1953, Schaefer considered The Canyon one of his personal favorites. This new release will be welcomed by Schaefer's enduring admirers and by new Western literature enthusiasts. It is a classic not to be missed.

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This classic novel of courage and redemption introduces Jared Heath. Heath, a captain in the Union army, is stripped of rank and court-martialed for cowardice after refusing to march his men into a suicide mission. Yet he has a chance to regain his honor when he is charged with leading Company Q, a unit of misfit officers also disgraced and charged with cowardice. If Heath can make them an effective fighting force, there is a possibility that all of them will be redeemed and pardoned. Will this unit of outcasts prevail and succeed when given the opportunity to show their courage, or will they find defeat deep in Comanche country?

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'If you read only one western in your life, this is the one' Roland Smith, author of PeakHe rode into our valley in the summer of 1889, a slim man, dressed in black. 'Call me Shane,' he said. He never told us more. There was a deadly calm in the valley that summer, a slow, climbing tension that seemed to focus on Shane.Seen through the eyes of a young boy, Bob Starrett, SHANE is the classic story of a lone stranger. At first sight, the boy realises there is something unusual about the approaching man, but as Bob gets to know Shane, he realises that there is an inner sadness in him. SHANE is the story of a gunfighter who tries to hang up his gun but is drawn to the side of the boy's family and other homesteaders in their struggle to keep from being forced off their land.

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The classic Western short stories in this Jack Schaefer collection explore the changing and often challenging truths found throughout the American West. The featured novella, “The Kean Land,” tells the story of young Ben Hammon as he arrives in western Colorado after the death of his parents to live with his small-town lawman uncle. The drama unfolds as Ben learns the ways of the land and the people who live there—including the Kean family. As “progress” pursues there is a dramatic price the Keans and others must pay to keep their land in this once hostile territory. How much blood must those who love the land pay in order to stay?

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Schaefer shares the individual stories of seven people—rancher, sheepherder, homesteader, town settler, soldier, miner, and cowboy—in this collection. He tells the tales as they can only be told: in the open spaces of the Old West. In these memorable narratives Schaefer depicts the unique conflicts of settler life and captures the spirit of the resolute, willful, determined, and broken characters found on the Western frontier.

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Nobody knew who Shane was, or why he was travelling. He rode into a Wyoming homesteader's corral in the summer of 1889 and settled for a while with the Starrett family. Young Bob Starrett tells the classic story of that summer and fall, and the quiet stranger who kept his well-oiled Colt in his saddle-roll, but could use it to deadly effect when the need arose.

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In this true Western classic Jack Schaefer tells the story of a mysterious stranger who finds himself in the Wyoming Territory joining local homesteaders in their fight to keep their land and avoid the intimidating tactics of cattle driver Luke Fletcher. While trying to leave his gunslinging days behind him, the mysterious stranger, Shane, is tested by Fletcher and his men. In Shane, Schaefer executes a perfect Western narrative while exploring the overarching themes of virtue, the human condition, and a man’s search for self.

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The spirit of Christmas is contagious and overwhelming in this charming and unpredictable holiday tale. Orphaned at thirteen, the poorly paid, patched-clothed cowhand Stubby Pringle is now nearing twenty as he looks forward to whooping it up at the schoolhouse in the valley for the Christmas dance. His box of chocolates is tucked into his saddlebag for the gal who “appeals to him most and seems most susceptible.” But this Christmas Eve Stubby finds that the magic of the season may have something different in store for him. In true Schaefer fashion, Stubby Pringle delights readers and fills our hearts with the magic and spirit of Christmas.

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“Old Jake Hanlon sits on the edge of the mesa and looks out over miles of southwestern plain,” starts Jack Schaefer’s all-ages novel Mavericks. Old Jake Hanlon is “ancient and craglike, weathered and withered . . . something like a worn rocky butte himself.” Living in his memories, Hanlon prefers to reflect on his youth, when he lived every cowboy’s dream, rather than think about the old man he has become, now labeled “a decrepit old nuisance” by the folks in town. Ultimately, it is Old Jake’s recollection of the tales of his past—stories of endurance, strength, compassion, and cunning—that helps prepare him for death.

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Awarded a 1961 Newbery Honor, Old Ramon tells the timeless coming-of-age story of a young boy who spends a summer with an old shepherd in the Mojave Desert. He leaves his textbooks behind for real life lessons with Ramon as his mentor. He learns not only how to care for the sheep but how to overcome fear, how to face death and responsibility, and the difference between being alone and being lonely. Written in Schaefer's charming and engaging style, the novel details a boy's discovery of both the value of friendship and the hardship of life.

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