In the wealthy resort town of Pandora, North Carolina, old secrets and heartaches are guarded as closely as rubies cut from the mountain bedrock. It is said that a fine ruby is both silk and stone, light and shadow, fortune and tragedy. And the finest ruby of all is the famous Pandora Ruby, a gem that has divided the Vanderveer and Raincrow families for decades and shattered the lives of all who have possessed it.

Gideon Ledbetter, freed from slavery, finds himself with no land, no money, and no means to make a living. He is drawn into the army, which had painted a deceptively alluring picture of cavalry life. Soon, Gideon becomes locked in a battle with a Comanche warrior, and a portrait emerges of two men who are merely pawns in a tragic conflict.

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 dinners, 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. But then Pete and Isaac are assigned the task of getting cash - profits from the sale of the herd - safely to the Fort Worth bank before a foreclosure deadline. Time and three...

In this novel, first published by Doubleday in 1985, Texas novelist Elmer Kelton returns to the Civil War period, once again examining, as he first did in "Texas Rifles," the effect of the war on Texans at home. Even while the conflict raged to the east, several groups of Texan Union loyalists hid out across the state, trying to avoid the anger and violence of the confederate-sympathizing "home guard."
Kelton bases this story on a group who lived in a then-huge thicket on the Colorado River near present-day Columbus, although the characters, incidents and town of the book are of Kelton's...

Martin Bredi, a man who killed his father's murderer and fled to Mexico, returns to El Paso after a 14-year absence. There he breaks a leg, falls in love with a married woman and, finally, to right another wrong, he kills a man. Bredi becomes a man without a country.

In the 1978 novel, "The Good Old Boys," Hewey Calloway could not abandon the footloose cowboy way of life and settle down to farming, even for Spring Renfro, the woman he loved. Twenty years later, in this sequel, Elmer Kelton brought Hewey back, older, wiser, and badly banged up trying to break a renegade bronc. His wandering days are over, because of his injuries, because of fences that cut up the range, because of trucks and automobiles. But, how will Hewey handle the new circumstances of his life? And how will Spring react to his return? Readers who fell in love with Hewey will delight in...