Hewey Calloway, one of the best-loved cowboys in all of Western fiction, returns in this novel of his younger years as he and his beloved brother Walter leave the family farm in 1889 to find work in the West Texas cow country. The brothers are polar opposites. Walter pines for a sedate life as a farmer, with wife and children; Hewey is a fiddle-footed cowboy content to work at six bits--75 cents--a day on the Pecos River ranch owned by the penny-pinching C.C. Tarpley. Hewey, who "usually accepted the vagaries of life without getting his underwear in a twist", is fun-loving and whiskey-drinking. He spends every penny he earns and regularly gets into trouble with his boss--and occasionally with the law--often dragging innocent Walter along. When Walter falls in love with a boarding house girl and begins dreaming of a farmer's life, Hewey jumps at the chance to rescue him from this fate worse than death. He convinces Walter to join him on a mission for Tarpley, driving 600 head of cattle from beyond San Antonio to the Double-C ranch on the Pecos. The journey is both memorable and dangerous: a murderous outlaw is searching for Hewey; and another ruthless character is determined to sabotage the cattle drive. When the drovers reach the Pecos they find Boss Tarpley in the midst of a vicious range feud with Eli Jessup, a neighboring cowman. Hewey and his brother Walter have to get the herd safely across Jessup's land-but how? The events of Six Bits a Day precede those of Kelton's bestselling The Good Old Boys (1978, transformed into the memorable 1995 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek), and The Smiling Country (Forge, 1998). At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Six bits a day: To keep his conservative brother from getting married and starting life as a farmer, Hewey Calloway convinces Walter to join him on a mission for Boss Tarpley, driving 600 head of cattle from beyond San Antonio to the Double-C ranch on the Pecos. The journey is both memorable and dangerous: a murderous outlaw is searching for Hewey; and another ruthless character is determined to sabotage the cattle drive. When the drivers reach the Pecos they find Tarpley in the midst of a vicious range feud with Eli Jessup, a neighboring cowman. Hewey and his brother Walter have to get the herd safely across Jessup's land--but how?

A cowboy struggles to adapt to the modern world in 1910s Texas. Hewey Calloway finds it difficult to accept fences, cars and, worst of all--sheep. Also, he is advancing in years, though here there is a consolation, he is teaching the trade to his nephew.

In Stand Proud, one of his most controversial novels, legendary Western writer Elmer Kelton takes on a character who is not as easy to like as he is to admire.

In the cattle drives of the Old West, pumpkin rollers were green farmboys, almost more trouble than they were worth. When Trey McLean leaves his family's East Texas cotton farm and sets off on his own to learn the cattleman's trade, he's about as green as they come. But Trey learns fast. He learns about deceit when a con man cheats him out of his grubstake and about love when he meets the woman he's destined to marry. And when luck finally sets him on a cattle drive to Kansas, Trey learns the trade from veteran drover Ivan Kerbow, but he also learns the code of violence and death from outlaw Jarrett Longacre, a man who will plague his life at every turn. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.