The hill folk of Broke-Leg Country, Kentucky, believed that if the good Lord meant for corn to grow, He also meant for it to be distilled, in spite of the passage of a Federal law called the 18th Amendment, or Prohibition. And if a man wanted to get some really good sippin’ whiskey, Son Martin was the one to see. Son not only made the best moonshine in the area, but it was rumored that he had hidden somewhere on his hill farm his old daddy’s cache of 150 barrels of eight-year old corn whiskey. Of course nobody had ever found any of the liquor, but Son never said that it wasn’t there.
Then one day the tranquility of Broke-Leg County was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Frank Long, an old army buddy of Son’s who knew about the whiskey and was not a Prohibition agent. But his presence had a different purpose than his job as a revenue man. Frank wanted the hidden whiskey to bootleg on his own, and he was willing to use his official position to get it.
In the attempt, he set neighbor against neighbor, and the Moonshine War was on. Involved were Prohibition agents, Louisville gangsters, and local moonshiners, and as the hills of Kentucky rang with their gunshots, each side fought to learn Son’s secret. As the bullets got thicker, Son was left alone, standing on his principles and waiting for his chance to bring the War to its startling and unexpected climax.
The New York Times: “Before Leonard tackled Detroit’s mean streets, he turned out a handful of backwoods crime novels, including this rough-edged little jewel. It’s no surprise that the Big Boys want to take over Son Martin’s still. After all, Son makes the best whiskey in Marlett, Kentucky: ‘He let his mash sit a full six or seven days and didn’t put a lot of devilment in it, like buckeye beans or carbide or lye.’ Archetypes fly as fast as fists in this mythic exploration of the rugged individualist as whiskey-maker.”
Valdez Is Coming(1970)
They laughed at Roberto Valdez and then ignored him. But when a dark-skinned man was holed up in a shack with a gun, they sent the part-time town constable to deal with the problem – and made sure he had no choice but to gun the fugitive down. Trouble was, Valdez killed an innocent man. And when he asked for justice – and some money for the dead man’s woman – they beat Valdez and tied him to a cross. They were still laughing when Valdez came back. And then they began to die…
USA Today: “Although known for his mysteries, Leonard has penned some of the best Western fiction ever, including Valdez Is Coming.”
Washington Post Book World: “A Leonard novel that still holds up as one of his very best.”
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“Your minute’s up, boy.” Mr. Tanner glanced at his segundo again. “Teach him something.”
The segundo drew the .44 on his right leg, cocked it and fired as he brought it up. And with the explosion the adobe chipped next to Bob Valdez’s face.
Now those who were sitting and lounging by the fires rose and drew their revolvers, looking at the segundo and waiting their turn. One of them, an American, said “I know where I’m going to shoot the son of a bitch.”
One of the others laughed and another one said, “See if you can shoot his meat off.” And another said, “It would fix this squaw-lover good.”
Forty Lashes Less One(1972)
A hellhole like Yuma Prison does all sorts of things to a man. Mostly it makes him want to escape. For two men facing life sentences – Harold Jackson, the only black man behind the walls, and Raymond San Carlos, an Apache halfbreed – a breakout seemed nigh on impossible. That is, until the law gave them two choices: rot in a cell, or track down and bring back the five most ruthless men in Arizona.
New York Daily News: “Long before his slick, dark crime comedies, Elmore Leonard wrote some very tough and realistic Westerns.”
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“You want us to run twenty miles?”
“You’re an Apache Indian, aren’t you, Raymond? And Harold’s a Zulu. Well, by golly, an Apache Indian and a Zulu can run twenty, thirty miles a day, and there ain’t a white man in this territory can say that.”
“You want us to run twenty miles?” Raymond said again.
“I want you to start thinking of who you are, that’s what I want. I want you to start thinking like warriors for a change instead of like convicts.”
Gunsights (1979)
Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and “the People of the Mountain” from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.
San Francisco Chronicle: “Classic Western fare.”
Chicago Sun-Times: “Leonard’s special kind of tough guys were born in the Old West.”
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Bren Early said to Moon, “Do you want to tell him to go stick it in his horse, or should I?”
Sundeen turned toward his partners. They were getting ready.
“I’ll give them three more steps,” Bren said and pulled his matched Smith & Wesson .44s. Moon drew his Colts.
Three more strides and that was it.
Sundeen was hollering something, and his two men on the ends fell dead in the first sudden explosion from the wall where Early and Moon stood with revolvers extended, aiming and firing.
Bren said, “He’s used to having his way.”
Moon said, “But he didn’t come prepared, did he?”
Cuba Libre(1998)
War in Cuba isn’t Ben Tyler’s concern. Still, sailing mares and guns into Havana harbor in 1898 -right past the submerged wreckage of the U.S. battleship Maine – may not be the smartest thing the recently prison-sprung horse wrangler ever did. Neither is shooting one of the local Guardia, though the pompous peacock deserved it. Now Tyler’s sitting tight in a vermin-infested Cuban stockade waiting to face a firing squad. But he’s not dying until he gets the money he’s owed from a two-timing American sugar baron. And there’s one smart, pistol-hot lady at the rich man’s side who could help Ben get everything he’s got rightfully coming… even when the whole damn island’s going straight to hell.
Miami Herald: “A wild ride through Cuba during the Spanish-American War… A good old-fashioned Western served with a sly grin and a side dish of scams.”
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Tyler arrived with the horse February eighteenth, three days after the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor. He saw buzzards floating in the sky the way they do but couldn’t make out what they were after. This was off Morro Castle, the cattle boat streaming black smoke as it comes through the narrows.
But then pretty soon he saw a ship’s mast and a tangle of metal sticking out of the water, gulls resting on it. One of the Mexican deckhands called to the pilot tug bringing them in, wanting to know what the wreckage was. The pilot yelled back that it was the Maine.
Yeah? The main what? Tyler’s border Spanish failed to serve, trying to make out voices raised against the wind. The deckhand told him it was a buque de guerra, a warship.
The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories(1998)
The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories is a raw, hard-bitten collection that gathers together the best of Leonard’s Western fiction. In “The Tonto Woman,” a young wife, her face tattooed by Indian kidnappers, becomes society’s outcast – until an outlaw vows to set her free… In “Only Good Ones,” we meet a fine man turned killer in one impossible moment… “Saint with a Six-Gun” pits a doomed prisoner against his young guard – in a drama of deception and compassion that leads to a shocking act of courage… In “The Colonel’s Lady,” a brutal ambush puts a woman into the hands of a vicious renegade – while a tracker attempts a rescue that cannot come in time… And in “Blood Money,” five bank robbers are being picked off one by one, but one man believes he can make it out alive.