J. W. Williams s classic survey of the big ranches of the Southwest reaches deep into the stories of key players in American ranching history. Colorful tales of the finest cutting horse, the meanest cow thief, the most princely cowman of them all--even the hair-raising details of gunplay with a badman whose name cannot be revealed--are told in bare-knuckle fashion that leaves no cushion to soften the truth.This is an account of many journeys by car down roads that led to roundup grounds and to chuck with the cowboys; to the ranch homes of those who built the great cattle empires; to the...

I and Claudie is a delightful and captivating novel about a couple of bungling but good-hearted con men who (barely) make their way across Texas over a two-year period in the 1930s. Their adventures, Anderson said, were in no sense autobiographical, but sometimes I am sorry they are not. The charming con men outwit lumbermen, oil men, and others, but are sometimes the victims themselves. Clint Hightower (the I in the title) is a smooth- talking maker of deals; Claudie Hughes, all 6'6" of him, is his slower-of-mind sidekick who does all the real work and, often unwittingly, saves the day.The...

Of the canyons that break the eastern edge of the Staked Plains, Palo Duro is by far the most spectacular. As one approaches the edge, the earth opens up into a vast gash, a geological and ecological wonder. And whether you come to Palo Duro as a novice or veteran canyoneer, the thrill and the mystery are always intense.How did the canyon get here? What caused the vari-color of the walls and formations? Why do some formations stand completely separated from the canyon walls? Did the little stream running along the canyon floor form this canyon all by itself? Who were the first people to find...

Al Jennings, if we are to believe him, was for several years a close friend of O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), perhaps America s favorite short-story writer. They met, Jennings claims, as outlaws on the run in Honduras, served time together in the Columbus, Ohio, Penitentiary at the turn of the century, and later met up in New York. Jennings, erstwhile lawyer, bank robber, and Hollywood consultant, was the subject of the 1951 movie Al Jennings of Oklahoma, starring Dan Duryea. Although a suspect narrator at best, Jennings is a masterful storyteller in this 1921 classic. Jennings describes...

As enigmatic and contradictory as far West Texas has always been, it is nevertheless surprising to learn that in 1925 its desert germinated a slender but vibrant shoot of the Harlem Renaissance. Isolated on the U.S. Mexico border, far from any metropolitan African-American community or literary influences, Bernice Love Wiggins, a perceptive young poet, self-published her first, apparently only, book of poetry. One of only a handful of black writers in Texas in the 1920s and 1930s, Wiggins was contemporary with Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston and was among the first...