End of the Drive

End of the Drive

End of the Drive captures all the grit, grandeur, and glory of the men and women who wielded pistol and plow, Bible and branding iron to tame a wild country. Here a boy of seventeen, yearning to prove he's a man, squares up against an outlaw...and discovers that what counts is not how fast you can draw a gun but how much faith you have in yourself. A veteran trail driver, who's faced lightning and hail, raiding Comanche and thundering stampedes, finds that there's nothing quite so dangerous as the courting of a beautiful woman Here, too, in stories told with L'Amour's patented poignancy and power, a homesteader fighting for his rights is brutally beaten and crawls off to die...only to stumble upon an ancient talisman that restores his faith and will to live. A preacher from a distant land rides into a small frontier town with a voice full of fire and a saddlebag full of miracles...to deliver a promise and a warning that lead the local folk to a most surprising revelation. And in the full-length novella "Rustler Roundup", the hardworking citizens of a law-abiding town are pushed to the edge to defend all they hold dear. As suspicion spreads and evidence mounts, the rumors of rustlers in their midst threaten to explode into a full-blown range war Each of these stories bears the master's touch--comic twists, stark realism, crackling suspense--all the elements that have made Louis L'Amour a frontier legend in his own right. In End of the Drive , L'Amour brilliantly illuminates the dramatic struggles and enduring truths, the self-reliance and self-determination that have long beat at the heart of America's greatness. L'Amour may be the best-selling author of all-time, and a collection of his never-before-published stories is sure to delight his millions of fans. Included here are six short stories and one novelette. The settings and themes are typical L'Amour--human drama and struggle juxtaposed against the grandeur of the West. For example, in "Caprock Rancher," a headstrong young man earns new respect for his father, and in "The End of the Drive" a young man confuses beauty, love, and opportunity with drudgery until a looming confrontation forces him to revise his priorities. These stories were found among L'Amour's papers after his death, and although they do not represent his best work, they contain the elements that made him beloved: sure-handed characterization, a reverence for western settlers, and an ability to dramatize the perennial problem of good people confronted with hard choices. An unexpected and entertaining treat for L'Amour fans. Wes Lukowsky The late, great, vastly prolific L'Amour (Jubal Sackett, 1985, etc.) rides again, with a recently discovered never-before-seen novella and sheaf of stories. Most of the tales feature Homeric diction and wonderful hooks. ``Caprock Rancher'' begins: ``When I rode up to the buffalo wallow, Pa was lying there with his leg broke and his horse gone.'' ``Desperate Men'' opens with: ``They were four desperate men, made hard by life, cruel by nature, and driven to desperation by imprisonment. Yet the walls of Yuma Prison were strong and the rifle skill of the guards unquestioned, so the prison held many desperate men besides these four. And when prison walls and rifles failed, there was the desert, and the desert never failed.'' That's a big, gritty voice at work, lifting melodrama to the heavens of storytelling. And, for the most part, these stories cleave to that voice throughout. ``Caprock Rancher'' tells of a 17-year-old who must rescue $20,000 from three toughs who have found it, although it belongs to several poor ranchers back home who've trusted the boy and his father to take their cattle to market. ``Desperate Men'' follows four prisoners who escape from Yuma Prison during an earthquake and flee into the desert with an Army payroll. Their greed is as much against them as the sun. In the title tale, a young man who heads a cattle drive finds wooing a beautiful woman to be more fraught with difficulty (and danger) than life on the trail. And in the superbly burnished novella, ``Rustler Roundup,'' the Laird Valley cattle war pits some smart rustlers, who want to grab Finn Mahone's herd and acres, against an even smarter hero. As ever, L'Amour's characters distinguish themselves from run-of-the- mill westerners by the hard thud of their boots on soil and the worn leather ease of their dialogue. Awesome immediacy, biting as creosote slapped on a fencepost. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Newly discovered frontier stories published for the first time anywhere! The soul of the West lives in the writings of Louis L'Amour, America's favorite storyteller. He has blazed a trail across the land of our dreams and our destiny, across a time and a place where America came of age. End of the Drive is comprised of seven unforgettable, never-before-published tales, together with one complete novella--an epic collection you will treas