Despite their elaborate preparations for the winter, the animals and birds are delighted by a surprise banquet after a big snow.

The Smiling Country, filled with pathos and humor, is set in the last days of the Old West. Hewey Calloway may be pushing 45, but he can still rope and outride most things on four legs. Refusing promotions, he prefers to remain a simple ranch hand. But as he rides the west Texas plains, automobiles are beginning to dot the landscape. When Hewey is critically injured by a wild horse, he must admit that his world-and an age-are passing away.

Having finished Texas Standoff, seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton-the Western Writers of America's "Best Western Writer of All Time"-took his leave with 50 notches on his gunbelt of classics. When Ranger Andy Pickard is sent to central Texas to investigate a series of killings and cattle thefts, two prominent cattlemen are prime suspects. But the rise of a gang of masked vigilantes and the arrival of a notorious hired gunman complicate matters....

This entry in Elmer Kelton's Tales of Texas series whisks us away to witness a violent 1875 conflict. 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 the Rio Grande rivers into a lawless inferno. Despite long odds, Captain McNelly and his small band of Texas Rangers strive to bring lasting...

Elmer Kelton writes of his beloved home country of West Texas in these two novels of cowmen and cow country. In Pecos Crossing, two young cowboys, Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, have been cheated of six months' hard-earned salary by their rancher boss Larramore and intend getting what is due to them. In Shotgun, Texas rancher Blair Bishop has to contend with a rival cowman who is turning his herd loose on Bishop's land, and with a mean customer...

Whoever releases the mysterious Black Cauldron's powers will be invincible! The fearsome Horned King will do anything to possess it, but he is challenged by the most unlikely adversary: a young assistant pig keeper named Taran. With a motley team of the brave Princess Eilonwy, a minstrel named Fflewddur Fflam, and Hen-Wen, a remarkable pig who can predict the future, Taran embarks on a quest to stop the Black Cauldron's evil once and for all.

In January of 2016, folks in Central Nebraska were asked to share their memories of the "good old days." They were invited to write letters describing interesting, humorous, unusual, exciting (and even romantic) "happenings" from the past. Many of them were born prior to 1940 and the majority grew up right here in Central Nebraska. They were not selected from any particular group or social class, nor were they expected to have any special writing...

As Hurricane Elmer hits, Judy, Stink, and the entire Moody clan hunker down and ride out the storm, but when the power goes out, Grandma Lou proposes some activities to pass the time in the dark.