{"product_id":"kilkenny-louis-lamours-lost-treasures-isbn-9780525486299","title":"Kilkenny (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)","description":"\u003cb\u003eAs part of the Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures series, this edition contains exclusive bonus materials!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Kilkenny wasn’t looking for trouble when he entered the Clifton House stage station, but trouble found him when a reckless youngster named Tetlow challenged him, drew his gun, and paid for it with his life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Looking to escape a reputation that he never wanted, Kilkenny settles in the lonely mountain country of Utah, planning to ranch a high, lush valley. But the past is on his trail. Jared Tetlow is a powerful rancher determined to run his vast herd on the limited grasslands there—whether he has to buy out the local ranchers, run them out, or kill them. He’ll cut down anyone who stands in his way, especially a man he already despises: the gunman named Kilkenny—the man who killed his son.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLouis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author’s more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volumes 1,\u003c\/i\u003e Beau L’Amour takes the reader on a guided tour through many of the finished and unfinished short stories, novels, and treatments that his father was never able to publish during his lifetime. L’Amour’s never-before-seen first novel, \u003ci\u003eNo Traveller Returns,\u003c\/i\u003e faithfully completed for this program, is a voyage into danger and violence on the high seas. These exciting publications will be followed by \u003ci\u003eLouis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 2\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eAdditionally, many beloved classics will be rereleased with an exclusive Lost Treasures postscript featuring previously unpublished material, including outlines, plot notes, and alternate drafts. These postscripts tell the story behind the stories that millions of readers have come to know and cherish.\u003c\/b\u003eOur foremost storyteller of the American West, \u003cb\u003eLouis L’Amour \u003c\/b\u003ehas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eTo  Clifton House on the Canadian came a lone rider on a long-legged  buckskin. He was a green-eyed man wearing a flat-crowned, flat-brimmed  black hat, black shirt and chaps. The Barlow \u0026amp; Sanderson Stage had  just pulled in when the rider came out of the lava country, skirting the  foothills of the Sangre de Cristos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was riding easy when they  first saw him but his horse was dust-coated and the sweat had dried on  him. The man had a tear in his shirt sleeve and a bloody bandage on his  side. He rode directly to the stable and dismounted, caring first for  his horse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnly then did he turn and glance toward the House. He  wore two tied-down guns. Pulling his hat lower he crossed the  hard-packed earth and entered the house. \"I could use some grub,\" he  said, \"a meal now and supplies to go.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We got anything you need. We're feedin' the stage crowd now. Go on in.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe  paused at the door and studied the room before going in. There were six  passengers from the stage. Two women and four men, and there were a few  riders from the valley roundup and three men from a trail herd crew.  Face by face he studied them. Only then did he seat himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  tall girl from the stage lifted her eyes and looked across the table at  him, her eyes alive with curiosity as she saw the bloody bandage. None  of the men appeared to notice anything, and she filled her cup again and  tried her coffee. It was hot, black, and strong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer eyes went  again to the man in black. He had removed his hat when he seated himself  and she noticed that his hair was black and curly. He was a lean,  powerfully built man, probably larger than he looked while seated. Her  eyes trailed again to the bandage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You . . . you've hurt yourself!\" she exclaimed. \"Your shoulder!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmbarrassed and irritated, he glanced up. \"It's a scratch,\" he said hastily. \"It's all right.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It looks like more than a scratch to me,\" she persisted. \"You had better have it cared for.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Thanks,\" he said, his voice a shade grim now, \"I shall.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere  was silence for a few minutes, and then from down the table somebody  said, \"Don't yuh wished yuh was scratched, Ike? Mebbe the lady would fix  it for yuh.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tall man flushed slightly but said nothing, but  from down the table came a new voice. \"Whatever it was scratched him,\"  the voice said, \"it looks like it hit him runnin' away!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dead  silence that followed saw the tall man turn pale and cold. He lifted  his head, his green eyes going down the table to the man who had spoken.  He was a tough, handsome youngster with a look of eager recklessness  about him. \"If you were jokin',\" the tall man said, \"say so.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  man beside the tall man ducked suddenly and rolled off the bench, while  others drew back from the blond young man. The youngster got slowly to  his feet. \"I wasn't jokin',\" he said, with a faint sneer. \"It looks to  me like you was runnin' away.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs he spoke he went for his gun,  and what happened then was seen with utter, piercing clarity by all who  watched. The tall man seemed deliberately to wait, to hesitate the split  second it took for the blond young man's hand to strike the butt of his  gun. Then he palmed his own gun and shot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe blond man  staggered, his gun, half-drawn when the shot struck him, slid back into  the holster. The man backed up, sat down, and rolled over on his face,  coughing blood and death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor an instant the room was still, broken by the young, woman. She stared with horror at the tall man. \"You . . . you \u003ci\u003emurderer\u003c\/i\u003e!\" she cried, her lips twisting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  tall man drew back slightly, his gun still in his hand. From one man to  the other, he looked. \"You saw it. He asked for it. I didn't want to  kill him. I wasn't hunting for trouble when I came here. I was just  tryin' to eat a quiet meal. What did he want to jump me for?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNobody  spoke for a few seconds and then an older man said quietly, \"Don't  blame yourself, stranger. The boy has been huntin' for trouble ever  since he killed a man in Texas.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That won't make no difference  for yuh,\" another man said. \"When Tetlow hears yuh've shot his boy,  he'll never rest until he nails yore hide on the fence.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tall  man drew back and holstered his gun. \"I'm not looking for trouble,\" he  said. \"I'll take my supplies and leave. Just you remember that,\" he  added. \"I'm not lookin' for trouble.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe sat down at the table  and using his left hand he made two sandwiches from meat and bread.  Wrapping them in a kerchief, he shoved them into his chaps pocket,  backed away from the table, turned and walked into the other room. Tom  Stockton was waiting for him. On the counter was a sack filled with  supplies. \"There it is, son. I seen it, an' it was a fa'r shootin' if  there ever was one. Take this stuff, an' welcome.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Thanks,\" the tall man hesitated, \"but I want to pay.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll take it hard,\" Stockton said grimly. \"Yuh take this an' go along. It's little enough I can do for \u003ci\u003eKilkenny\u003c\/i\u003e!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough he hissed the last name gently, the tall man looked quickly around. \"Don't say that name!\" he said. \"Don't mention it!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eI\u003c\/i\u003e won't,\" Stockton replied, \"but there's others in there may. Johnson,\"  he nodded toward the dining room, \"is from the Live Oak country. He may  know yuh.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Thanks again.\" Kilkenny turned, then he paused. \"This Tetlow–who is he?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom  Stockton leaned his big hands on the counter and his face was grave. He  had established Clifton House in 1867 to serve the round-up crowds and  it had become a stage station. Since then and before he had seen much of  the West and he had known most of it before. He knew this young man  both by reputation and by intuition, and he liked him, and knowing this  man and knowing Tetlow–\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It couldn't be worse. He's from  Tennessee, Kilkenny, with all that means. He's the old bull o' the  woods, a big, hard old man, but aristocratic, intelligent, smart, and a  politician. Worse, he comes of a feuding family. He'll not rest until he  gets you, or you him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKilkenny nodded. \"I see. What's he doing here?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He's  not here, not yet. But he's comin'. South of here on the flat he's got  six thousand head of cattle. That's the second herd. The first one was  four thousand head. He's got two more herds comin'.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He'll need a lot of land for that many cattle,\" Kilkenny said. \"I hope he's got it spotted.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If  he hasn't,\" Stockton replied, \"he'll get it.\" He jerked his head. \"That  one, the one you shot. He was tall-talkin' around here. Said if they  didn't get the land any other way they knew how they could get it. And  he slapped his gun when he spoke.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's been done,\" Kilkenny said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStockton  nodded gloomily. \"Which makes it mighty tough on the little man who  can't hire gunmen. Knowin' somethin' about Tetlow, however, I'd say that  he wouldn't fall back on guns until politics failed. He's a smooth one,  an' like I said–he's a politician.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo the high  valleys then, came a lone rider, a man who rode with the caution born of  riding long on strange trails in a land untamed and restless with  danger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Indian Wars were largely of the past, although there  were still the Sioux, the Cheyenne, Nez Percé and the Apache with fight  left in them, but on the land from which the Indian had been driven or  from which he was being driven the white man had not found peace–or at  best an uneasy peace when men rode with guns at hand and eyes alert for  danger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCattle had come to replace the buffalo, and then bolder  men had pushed their herds into the mountain valleys, valleys lush with  grass that fattened cattle amazingly fast, and as these valleys began to  be settled, some men drifted to the high meadows among the peaks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLonely,  largely overlooked, but excellent grazing in spring, summer and early  fall, the valleys were the last land to be taken. It was to one such  valley that Kilkenny rode, and when he drew up and looked around him, he  made his decision. This was the home he had been seeking, on this land  would he stay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRiding on, he studied the valley. To right and  left lay towering ridges that walled the valley in, and to the east  other peaks lifted, and west the valley swung hard around and at one  corner the wall was broken sharply off to fall sheer away for more than  six hundred feet. Kilkenny paused long upon the lip, looking out over  that immeasurable distance toward the faraway line of the purple hills.  It was then that he first became conscious of the sound, a faint  scarcely discernible whispering. Holding himself erect, he listened  intently. It was the wind! The whispering wind!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWind among the  tall pines, among the rocks and the erosion-gnawed holes, a sound such  as he had never heard, a sound like far off music in which no notes  could be detected, a sound so strange that he could not stop listening.  He turned then in his saddle and looked back over the valley he had  found. At least two thousand acres! Grassy and lush with growth, water  aplenty, and that whispering! The valley of the whispering wind!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt  was a strange thing to find this place now, this place where he knew he  could find happiness, the place from which he would not move again. He  had told himself that before he realized what it might mean, and when he  did know, he nodded his head as if at last he could be sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes.  Here he would stop. Here he would cease being the restless drifter that  he had become, a man fleeing from a reputation, fleeing from the  reputation of a killer. But in this place he would stay, and he would  find peace-if they let him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was always the chance that some  stranger from the plains might drift into the country and recognize him  as Kilkenny, yet he was fortunate in that few men knew him well, and  most descriptions of him were mistaken. There was always the chance of  such a killing as the affair at Clifton's. That man had not even known  who he was, just a trouble-hunting kid wanting to prove how tough he  could be. But that was over, and it was miles away over some of the  roughest land in the world. And here he would stay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis fire was a  lonely gleam in the vast darkness of the valley, and in the morning he  saw where the cougars had come down from the rocks to investigate, and  once he found the tracks of a grizzly. Killing a deer for food, he  started in then to work. Living on the ground under the stars, he laid  the foundations of his home, choosing flat stones from the talus of the  ridges, carefully laying the foundation and the floor. When a space for  three rooms was carefully laid, he crushed limestone, and with sand made  a crude mortar and began building the walls from selected chunks of  rock.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was slow, bitterly hard work, but he enjoyed it, and  during that first month in the high meadow there was no sound or sight  of anything man had done but what he did with his own hands. While he  worked, he thought carefully of what he would do now. The house was  nearing completion, and he had cleaned the waterholes and walled up the  spring near the cabin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoon he must go to a settlement for  supplies and ammunition. He felt a curious hesitancy about that, for he  had no desire to go. Always now he found himself remembering the queer  horror on that girl's face after he had shot Tetlow. True, she did not  understand what it meant. She was new to the West. Still, it was not  pleasant to have one looked at with such horror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho was she? She was without doubt beautiful-very beautiful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs beautiful as . . . ? He shook his head. No. There was no other like Nita, and there would be no other like her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn  the first day of the seventh week in the high meadow, Kilkenny saddled  up and started for town. He knew nothing of the place. Horsehead, they  called it, and while riding toward it he had heard it mentioned, but no  more. He did not even know how to get there, but must find his way  through the canyons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHorsehead sprawled in lazy comfort along  both banks of a creek called Westwater, and the town's main street  crossed the creek at right angles. The ancient stone stage station, a  veteran of Indian fighting and earlier Mormon settlement, stood near the  east bank of the creek. It was a low-roofed, single-storied building  with an awning that projected eight feet from the roof and offered  shelter to a couple of initial-carved benches polished by the seats of  many breeches.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbove the doorway was a crude sign lettered \u003ci\u003eHorsehead: Stage Station. Eat \u0026amp; Drink\u003c\/i\u003e.  Drinks were occasionally served over the tiny six-foot bar, but no  meals had been served for six years. East of the stage station was the  two-story Westwater Hotel \u0026amp; Saloon, and it was here the elite  usually ate. East of the hotel in lazy comfort were the Harness Shop,  Eli Putnam, Prop.; the Barber Shop, the office of Robt. Early, Lawyer,  and a scattering of other structures steadily declining in height until  they reached the usual Last Chance Saloon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpposite the stage  station was the sheriff's office and jail. The town marshal had a desk  in the same office but no love was lost between the two men. Alongside  the sheriff's office and facing the hotel was the assayer's office, and  beyond it in a row were the Pinenut Saloon, the Emporium, the real  estate office and then the Diamond Palace Saloon \u0026amp; Gambling Hall and  a trail of further buildings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWest of the creek was a section of  town all by itself, and one largely ignored by the businesses and  citizens who lived on the east bank. A grove of trees, mostly  cottonwoods but mixed with willows and a scattering of others, occupied  the immediate bank and partly shaded the bridge. Beyond the trees were  the corrals and wagon yards of the livery stable, and then the huge and  sprawling stable itself. Beyond the stable was the bunkhouse, which was a  place for casual sleeping, and possessing no rooms, but merely a dozen  tiers of bunks, two high, and a few tables.Includes bonus material","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302297194725,"sku":"NP9780525486299","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525486299.jpg?v=1767730708","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/kilkenny-louis-lamours-lost-treasures-isbn-9780525486299","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}