In a play that is realistic, sometimes humorous, and always profoundly moving, Larry L. King deals with the problems of aging and our mistaken stereotypes and impersonal treatment of the elderly. Cowboy Bennett, long a resident of the Golden Shadows Senior Citizens Home, is a man with not only memories of the past but also dreams of the future for himself and his companions--especially the charming widow, Flora Harper. At the play's end, you'll want to stand and yell, "Ya Ya " with Cowboy.
"The Golden Shadows Old West Museum" is based on Michael Blackman's short story, which was named...

As he flees to the sanctuary of Mexico, Chacho Fernandez is unaware of the fuel he has added to the already simmering racial hatreds in and around the quiet town of Domingo, Texas. Through events set in motion by a misunderstanding, Chacho becomes a folk hero to his people and a dangerous fugitive to a group of zealous lawmen.
First published in 1974 by Ballantine Books, "Manhunters," the tale of Chacho's legendary flight, was inspired by the story of controversial Mexican fugitive Gregorio Cortez. In 1901 Cortez, a young horseman, shot a sheriff during an argument, leading to the largest...

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 dinner, 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...

An uncanny understanding of both city-council operations and the newspaper business some thirty years ago gave Leonard Sanders the ability to write this powerful novel about a small Texas city and the men who run it. Sanders has combined the struggle for power in a local city government and the human interest side of its effects on the people close to the inside in an appealing and revealing story centered around an ambitious water project designed to further the city's growth.
Different views about the future of the city arise from the personalities of those who must decide. Some council...

Set in the river bottoms of southeast Texas where the Navasota and Brazos rivers come together, "High John the Conqueror" tells the story of African American cotton farmers struggling to hold on to their land during the last years of the Great Depression.
Central to the story are sharecroppers Ruby Lee and Cleveland Webster and John Cheney, a rich, white plantation owner who has farms and tenants and sharecroppers scattered all across the Brazos/Navasota country. Ruby Lee and Cleveland are sharecroppers on Cheney's land, but Cleveland's parents are struggling to hold on to the farm they...

"A Woman of the People" is one of Texas best-known and most-respected novels. In this story of the Texas frontier, Capps dramatizes the capture by a Comanche band of a ten-year-old white girl and her five-year-old sister from the upper reaches of the Brazos River a decade before the Civil War.
As the narrative progresses, Helen Morrison slowlyand almost unbeknownst to herselfgoes from being a frightened, rebellious white girl to becoming a woman of the people. Like many of the people who figure in true-life Indian captivity narratives, Helen adopts the ways of the Comanches, marries a...

The huge man-fig tree that sits on the town square in the fictional Coastal Bend town of Thornham (probably West Columbia) is the gathering place for the town's male gossips. Under this tree reputations are made and broken, rumors are spread, and a twisted folk history of the town is created.
"Under the Man-Fig," by Mollie Moore Davis, a popular late-nineteenth century poet, novelist, and historian, is part romance, realism, color, and satire. The idea that men are the purveyors of gossip rings a change on the usual cliche that women are the worst rumor-mongers. Davis' main characters,...

This Texas Traditions Series reprint takes us back to the Lone Star State during the Cold War at the beginning of the 1960s. The postwar generation is in a frenzy of high living and profligate spending. Big Texas oil is still subsidized by a federal depletion allowance and cattle still account for much of the state's wealth. But these longtime mainstays of Texas finance are giving way to transistors and computers. A new millionaire class is growing up around business mergers and electronic technology.
The characters in Shrake's novel are caught in this brave new world in one way or...

In the 1960s when the Supreme Court rules that African Americans must be admitted to the university in an unnamed Southern state, Governor Cullie Blanton is about to run for re-election. One of his opponents is "Bayonet Bill" Wooster, an ex-marine general who bases his campaign on fear of racial integration, fear of Communists, and fear of the federal government; he presents himself as the leader in a holy war against the incumbent infidel. The other candidate is Poppa Posey, a former governor who raises hound dogs, quotes Shakespeare, and hopes to use Wooster's money to split support for...