Contention and Other Frontier Stories

by Loren D. Estleman

First published 2019

The American West stretches before settlers, outlaws, and dreamers in this collection of seventeen original stories. From the dusty streets of frontier towns to remote trading posts, characters face the harsh realities of life beyond civilization's reach. A deserter confronts his past while running from military justice. A bullwhacker drives his ox team across dangerous territory. Cowboys and drifters navigate saloons where aces and eights can spell doom. Native Americans struggle to preserve their way of life as settlers encroach on ancestral lands. Women carve out their own paths in a man's world, defying expectations and social constraints. Each story captures the courage required to survive in a land where justice comes from the barrel of a gun and survival depends on quick thinking and quicker draws. These tales span the evolving frontier through the early 1900s, showing how ordinary people became legends through extraordinary circumstances.

Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, adventure, 19th-century

Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful

Tropes: extraordinary-circumstances, found-family, quick-thinking

Setting: American West

Period: Early 1900s, Frontier Era

530 pages · Hardcover · Thorndike Press Large Print

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