The Westerns Collection -1950-1959 - Louis L’Amour

Written by Louis L’Amour
Read by Grover Gardner, Robert Petroff, Jim Gough, Jason Culp, David Strathairn, Craig Klein, others
Format: MP3
Bitrate: Mixed

Louis L’Amour Collection -1950-1959

When I first started to collect Louis L’Amour most of the books I found were CNIB/NLS books for the blind. In recent years Random House has been re-releasing books they acquired when buying Books on Tape/BBC America/Audo Go. A few of the books in this collection are still the NLS recordings, some are Recorded Books and Blacksone Audio. Most are from Overdrive, some are old torrents.

Early in L’Amour’s career, he wrote a number of novel-length stories serialized for pulp-western magazines. Long after they were out of print, the characters of these early stories still haunted him, and so by revising and expanding these stories he created his first novels. Some were then later re-written or renamed or both so if, when listening to a book it sounds like a previous book, it may be.

Novels
1950 – Showdown on the Hogback (Grover Gardner) 5:12:09
Tom Kedrick is hired by a financial syndicate to run off a gang of vagrants and outlaws who are occupying a sizable strip of land that the syndicate has filed, claiming it is unusable swamp. To Kedrick’s dismay, these “vagrants and outlaws” turn out to be hard working ranchers and farmers who have improved the lands they have claimed and are determined to resist any effort to disenfranchise them.

1950 - Westward the Tide (Robert Petroff) Duration: 07:37:15
Matt Bardoul was a good man to have as a friend and a bad one to make trouble with. He was also a single-minded drifter—until he met his match in an outspoken beauty named Jacquine Coyle. She was headed into the Bighorn Mountains with her father and an expedition in search of gold. After Matt signs on to join them, he discovers that there is a group of outlaws in the party—gunfighters and thieves that Matt wouldn’ t trust for a minute. At first it’s unclear what they are planning, but before long Matt realizes that he’s the only man standing between innocent people and a brutal conspiracy of greed, lust, and cold-blooded murder.

1951 - Riders of the Dawn (Jim Gough)
In Riders of the Dawn, a young gunslinger is changed for the better by a meeting with a beautiful woman. A classic range-war western, this novel features that powerful, romantic, strangely compelling vision of the American West for which L’Amour’s fiction is known. In the author’s words, “It was a land where nothing was small, nothing was simple. Everything, the lives of men and the stories they told, ran to extremes.”

1953 - Crossfire Trail (Jason Culp) 05:03:55
Rafe Caradec—gambler, wanderer, soldier of fortune—was as hard a man as the battlefields and waterfronts of Latin America could fashion, but he was as good as his word. As Charles Rodney lay dying in a dank ship’s fo’c’sle, Rafe swore to make sure that Rodney’s Wyoming ranch went to his daughter, Ann. In Painted Rock, Wyoming, Caradec found land for a man to love, miles of rolling grasslands and towering mountains. He also found that one of the most ruthless men in the territory had set his sights on both Rodney’s ranch and his daughter. But Rafe Caradec had given his word, and once he’d looked deep into Ann Rodney’s eyes, nothing short of death would stop him from keeping the promise he’d made.

1953 - Hondo (David Strathairn) 05:39:02
He was etched by the desert’s howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were preparing to rise against the white men. Now the pioneer woman, the gunman, and the Apache warrior are caught in a drama of love, war, and honor.

1953 - Showdown at Yellow Butte (Jason Culp) 05:39:10 a rewritting of Showdown on the Hogback (1950) written as Jim Mayo
Tom Kedrick earned his stripes during the Civil War, fought Apaches, and even soldiered overseas. But in the high desert country of New Mexico, the battle-hardened Kedrick is entangled in a different kind of war, fueled by greed and deception. Hired by Alton Burwick to drive a pack of renegades and outlaws off the government land recently set aside for an Indian reservation, Kedrick begins to notice that things are not as they seem. As his suspicions grow, he realizes that he may be fighting on the wrong side of a land swindle. Disillusioned and outraged, Kedrick must take action against the very people who hired him–or be forced to witness the bloody massacre of innocent men and women.

1954 - Utah Blaine – (Craig Klein) as Jim Mayo 5:48:27
Colonel Utah Blaine, held captive by the Army of the Revolution, broke out of jail and headed north from Mexico with nothing but the clothes on his back. Then he found new trouble struggling at the end of a noose–and stepped in just in time to save the life of a Texas rancher. The would-be executioners were the rancher’s own men, looking to steal his land.
Now Utah has a unique proposition: Have the wealthy Texan play dead, introduce himself as the spread’s new foreman, and take care of the outlaws one by one. The wage to fight another man’s war? A hundred a month plus expenses. The cost of falling in love while he earns that wage? It wasn’t exactly part of the original agreement, but Utah will soon find out–unless the bad guys get to him first.

1955 - Guns of the Timberlands (Jason Culp) 5:27:55
Clay Bell spent the last six years fighting Indians, rustlers, and the wilderness itself to make the B-Bar ranch the prize of the Deep Creek Range. But Jud Devitt, a ruthless speculator from the East, now threatens everything Clay has worked for. Devitt, holding a contract with the Mexican Central to deliver railroad ties, wants to harvest timber off the land where Clay grazes his cattle. Backing Devitt are shady politicians, a dishonest banker, and fifty of the toughest lumberjacks in the county. But as Colleen Riley, Devitt’s fiancée, realizes the brutal game he’s playing, her disapproval of his actions, and Clay Bell’s obvious integrity and charm, pull her toward a destiny that will tip the scales in their bloody battle over timber and cattle.

1955 - To Tame a Land (4hrs36min) NLS - Jim Walton
Rye Tyler was twelve when his father was killed in an Indian raid. Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for books and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the hard lessons of life in the West. But after killing a man, he is forced to leave his new home. He rides lonely mountain passes and works on dusty cattle drives until he finds a job breaking horses. Then he meets Liza Hetrick, and in her eyes he sees his future. After establishing himself as marshal of Alta, he returns, only to discover that Liza has been kidnapped. Tracking her to Robbers’ Roost, Rye is forced to face the man who taught him all he knows about books, guns, and friendship. Two old friends—one woman: Who will walk away?

1956 - Silver Canyon 5h05m NLS - Buckley Kazlow (expanded version of the story Rider of the Dawn (1951)
“You’re not wanted in Hattan’s Point,” Matt Brennan was told moments after arriving in town. “There’s trouble here and men are picking sides.” But Matt decided he wasn’t going anywhere. Not until he found out what the dispute was about, and not before he got to know Moira Maclaren. She considered him nothing more than a drifting ranch hand, but Matt was determined to prove her wrong. To do so, he’d have to solve a mystery that was at the center of the growing violence in Hattan’s Point–a secret that could make a man rich . . . or dead. Probably dead.

1956 -The Burning Hills (Keith Szarabajka) 04:01:29
Wounded, dehydrated, and escaping a violent feud with the men of Bob Sutton’s ranch, Trace Jordan is near collapse when he descends from the heat of the desert into a cool, secluded canyon. He wakes to find a beautiful woman gently caring for his injuries. Maria Cristina and her family have also suffered at the hands of Sutton and his men. The experience has left her hostile and defiant. But Jordan sees another side of Maria, and the more time they spend together, the greater his concern for her safety becomes. Sutton’s men are watching and waiting for him to show himself. If he escapes, Maria will be left behind to face their brutality. But if he convinces her to join him, he will be leading her into a heat-blasted, waterless desert. And if that doesn’t kill them, the Apaches will.

1957 - Bannon (The Tall Stranger) Traber Burns 04:15:31
Rock Bannon, wounded in an Indian attack, is rescued by a wagon train heading to Oregon. He has fully recovered when the train pulls into a fort to stock up on supplies. It is there that the leaders of the train meet Morton Harper, a smooth-talking man who persuades them to take an easier trail that will allow them to escape an attack by Indians. Bannon knows that there will be no escape from attack on that route and that it will lead the train directly onto Hardy Bishop’s vast ranching domain. Either way, and probably both, it will mean war-a war the pioneers will undoubtedly lose.

Bannon first appeared in Giant Western (Winter 1948) under the title Showdown Trail. L’Amour subsequently reworked and expanded this story into The Tall Stranger, published as an original paperback in 1957. The expanded story was filmed as The Tall Stranger (Allied Artists, 1957), directed by Thomas Carr and starring Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo.

1957 - Last Stand at Papago Wells (Jason Culp) 04:32:48
It was the only water for miles in a vast, sun-blasted desert where water meant survival. So Logan Cates naturally headed for Papago Wells. But he wasn’t the only one. Fleeing the fierce Churupati and his Apache warriors, other travelers had come there too. And when the Apaches found them, they began a siege as relentless and unforgiving as the barren land…and just as inescapable.

The last thing Cates wanted was to be responsible for the lives of thirteen desperate strangers and a shipment of gold. But he knew that if they were to survive, he was their last chance. He also knew that some in the party were willing to die—or kill—to get their hands on the money. If he couldn’t get them to work together, it wouldn’t be the desert or even the Apaches that would do them in—it would be the greed of the very people he was trying to save.

1957 - Sitka NLS - Hal Tenny 8h18m
Majestically it rose from the icy waters, the gateway to the awesome wilderness of Alaska. Sitka drew all brand of adventurers, con men, criminals, and pioneers—men such as trail-tough, battle-hardened Jean LaBarge. He left the swamps of the Susquehanna behind for the rugged beauty—and deadly challenges—of this frozen frontier. But the empire-hungry Russians had already established a foothold in Sitka and they wouldn’t give it up without a fierce and treacherous struggle that stretched from San Francisco to the palaces of St. Petersburg. Now Jean faces the most dangerous fight of his life: a fight for a passionate woman and the right to claim Alaska for America.

1957 - The Tall Stranger NLS – Don Emmick 4h19m
Wagon trains heading west were forced to defend themselves against Indians, cope with injuries and illness, and struggle to find food. The group of easterners Rock Bannon was scouting for faced another problem. They were being deceived. When he warned them to remain on the Humboldt Trail, Sharon Crockett and the others refused to listen. Mort Harper, a stranger riding a beautiful black mare, had dazzled them with his charm and good looks. The southern route was the best way to go, Harper told them. But best for whom? Bannon wondered. That route led straight to the Salt Lake Desert. The conditions would be brutal. And if Harper wasn’t steering them toward those deadly alkali flats, where were they headed? And what would happen once they got there?

1958 - Radigan (Jason Culp) 05:32:06
When beautiful Angelina Foley presents Tom Radigan with a Spanish grant and claims ownership of his land, he realizes he’s up against a cunning and deadly opportunist. Foley wants him off Vache Creek immediately, and with three thousand head of cattle, an outfit of hardcase gunfighters, and winter coming on, she is unwilling to take no for an answer.
But Radigan has worked four hard years building up his ranch. Fighting for it–and, if he has to, killing for it–is something he is more than willing to do. If Angelina Foley and her men think he is the kind of man to give up without a fight, they are dead wrong.

1959 - Taggart (Jason Culp) 4:58:13
Adam Stark had found gold. In the confusion of the mesas and canyons near Rockinstraw Mountain, Stark, his wife, Consuelo, and his sister, Miriam, were quietly working a rich vein while keeping their presence a secret from raiding Apaches. Worried that his wife might leave him, Stark wanted to make enough money to take her to San Francisco, where she could enjoy the style of life she craved.

But when Taggart, a stranger on the run from a vicious bounty hunter, enters their camp, tensions soon mount. Consuelo, against all good judgment, cannot resist testing Taggart. Is he the man who can make her happy? Will he give her the life her husband cannot? With thousands of dollars of gold in his packsadles, the Apaches are now no longer Adam Stark’s only threat.

1959 - The First Fast Draw 4h46m NLS - Buckley Kozlow
You can’t go home again….
East Texas wasn’t much of a home for Cullen Baker. Few liked him, and some even tried to kill him. Yet after three hard years of wandering, he’s come back to farm the land that’s rightfully his.

Only Cullen’s in for an unwelcome homecoming: his neighbors have long memories, the Reconstructionists have greedy hearts, and his worst enemy has teamed up with a vicious outlaw. But Cullen isn’t about to back down. Instead, he’s intent on perfecting a new way of gunfighting—the fast draw. And now, with enemies closing in on three sides and threatening the woman he loves, he’ll have to be faster than lightning—and twice as deadly—just to survive.

Do nor have:
1954 – Heller With a Gun - was filmed as Heller in Pink Tights starring Sophia Loren
1971 – Under the Sweetwater Rim – scheduled to be issued as one of the Lost Treasures collection.

Note - these are stand-alone novels and do not belong to any series.