Showdown at Yellow Butte (Western fiction series) [Hardcover]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1980 | ISBN-10: 0839826907 | ISBN-13: 978-0839826903 | Edition: First Printing

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.


From the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Alton Burwick was itching to make a big land grab at Yellow Butte. But first, he had to drive the tough band of squatters from the range. So he rounded up a bunch of killers for the job, and hired Tom Kendrick to ramrod the crew, never mentioning that they would be fighting innocent men and women. Suddenly Kedrick realized he would have to do something fast--before Burwick's mob turned Yellow Butte into a wasteland. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Alton Burwick was itching to make a big land grab  at Yellow Butte. But first, he had to drive the  tough band of squatters from the range. So he  rounded up a bunch of killers for the job, and hired  Tom Kendrick to ramrod the crew, never mentioning  that they would be fighting innocent men and women.  Suddenly Kedrick realized he would have to do  something fast--before Burwick's mob turned Yellow  Butte into a wasteland. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 188 pages
• Publisher: Gregg Pr; First Printing edition (April 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0839826907
• ISBN-13: 978-0839826903
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,579,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, and miner, and was an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontiers and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honor and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist to ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars READS LIKE A GREAT OLD FASHIONED WESTERN MOVIE, October 13, 2003

By 

Edwin Ortiz (edgewater, nj USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Showdown at Yellow Butte (Paperback)

JUST LOVED THIS BOOK , MR LAMOUR LETS US DELVE INTO THE MIND OF HIRED GUNS AND THE DECISIONS THEY HAD TO MAKE. ALSO THERE IS A BIT OF MYSTERY IN THE STORY LINE. IN FACT IT HAS EVERY INGREDIENT ROMANCE, ADVENTURE, ACTION AND TRAGEDY WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK. READ IT AND ENJOY

4.0 out of 5 stars Another range war in the old west, July 29, 2010

By 

New England Pat (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Showdown at Yellow Butte (Paperback)

This Louis L'Amour novel is another variation of the familiar plot of land ownership vs. squatters but with a different twist. A ruthless speculator wants to wrest control of an area where a great cache of Spanish gold may be hidden and hires an outfit of hard cases to get rid of the settlers and their town of Yellow Butte. The story is similar to L'Amour's "The Tall Stranger", with the same elements of a super cowboy, murdering gunslingers and romance in place. A mysterious grulla, a mouse-colored pony, seems to be the key to the puzzle and points the hero straight to the source of all the mayhem and murder. A nice story in the L'Amour tradition of justice and fair play.

4.0 out of 5 stars SHOWDOWN ON THE HOGBACK, February 2, 2009

By 

Kay's Husband (Virginia, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Showdown at Yellow Butte (Paperback)

This is one of the early books written by Louis L'Amour, dating from a 1953 ACE paperback book released under the 'Jim Mayo' name he was using at the time. While the manuscript was first published as a short story under the title "Showdown On The Hogback".

The story is pretty straight forward with a man, Tom Kedrick, being hired in New Orleans by an organization named Burwick, Keith, and Gunter, trying to gain money from the government by evicting the "squatters, outlaws, renegades, and wasters", from certain lands in the area of Mustang and Yellow Butte. Kedrick quickly finds out in the town of Yellow Butte that the people on the land have been there some as long as ten years with many others at least a couple years. They are honest, hardworking people and they are about to be swindled by the Burwick, Keith, and Gunter 'land combine'.

Also, the organization is aware, as the settlers are not, that all this land will soon be set aside by the U.S. Government as a preserve and reservation as areas for the Navajho and Ute Indian tribes. Now that Tom Kendrick realizes what is about to happen he finds himself smack-dab in the middle of a shooting war with lead throwing gunhands on each side. Through the pages that follow events transpire quickly leading to a final, deadly showdown at Yellow Butte.

An early story from the pen of Louis L'Amour from the days of pulp westerns and later as a best selling ACE and Bantam softcover western.

Semper Fi.