{"product_id":"law-of-the-desert-born-isbn-9780553241334","title":"Law of the Desert Born","description":"\u003cb\u003eA PRIZED COLLECTION OF AMERICAN FICTION—FROM AMERICA’S FAVORITE STORYTELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This first-rate collection of short stories by the incomparable Louis L’Amour showcases the legendary writer at his very best: spinning a fascinating and wholly authentic set of unforgettable tales. In these extraordinary stories, we meet a man who is forced to defend himself by taking another’s life—and must pay for his actions in a most punishing manner; a young thrill-seeker who finally finds a place he can call home, and vows to stay there—regardless of the man who tries to stand in his way; and a drifter who honors a deathbed promise to a stranger by embarking on an unlikely mission of mercy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Complete with revealing author’s notes, the stories in \u003ci\u003eLaw of the Desert Born \u003c\/i\u003eare historically precise, and filled with L’Amour’s trademark humor and adventure. They are nothing less than modern classics of the American West, told by one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.Our 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.LAW OF THE DESERT BORN\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e SHAD MARONE CRAWLED out of the water swearing and slid into the mesquite. Suddenly, for the first time since the chase began, he was mad. He was mad clear through. “The hell with it!” He got to his feet, his eyes blazing. “I’ve run far enough! If they cross Black River, they’re askin’ for it!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For three days he had been on the dodge, using every stratagem known to men of the desert, but they clung to him like leeches. That was what came of killing a sheriff’s brother, and the fact that he killed in self-defense wasn’t going to help a bit. Especially when the killer was Shad Marone.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e That was what you could expect when you were the last man of the losing side in a cattle war. All his friends were gone now but Madge.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The best people of Puerto de Luna hadn’t been the toughest in this scrap, and they had lost. And Shad Marone, who had been one of the toughest, had lost with them. His guns hadn’t been enough to outweigh those of the other faction.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Of course, he admitted to himself, those on his side hadn’t been angels. He’d branded a few head of calves himself from time to time, and when cash was short, he had often run a few steers over the border. But hadn’t they all?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Truman and Dykes had been good men, but Dykes had been killed at the start, and Truman had fought like a gentleman, and that wasn’t any way to win in the Black River country.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Since then, there had been few peaceful days for Shad Marone.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e After they’d elected Clyde Bowman sheriff, he knew they were out to get him. Bowman hated him, and Bowman had been one of the worst of them in the cattle war.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The trouble was, Shad was a gunfighter, and they all knew it. Bowman was fast with a gun and in a fight could hold his own. Also, he was smart enough to leave Shad Marone strictly alone. So they just waited, watched, and planned.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Shad had taken their dislike as a matter of course. It took tough men to settle a tough country, and if they started shooting, somebody got hurt. Well, he wasn’t getting hurt. There had been too much shooting to suit him.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He wanted to leave Puerto de Luna, but Madge was still living on the old place, and he didn’t want to leave her there alone. So he stayed on, knowing it couldn’t last.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then Jud Bowman rode into town. Shad was thoughtful when he heard that. Jud was notoriously quarrelsome and was said to have twelve notches on his gun. Shad had a feeling that Jud hadn’t come to Puerto de Luna by accident.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jud hadn’t been in town two days before the grapevine had the story that if Clyde and Lopez were afraid to run Marone out of town, he wasn’t.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jud Bowman might have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for Tips. Tips Hogan had been tending bar in Puerto de Luna for a long time. He’d come over the trail as wagon boss for Shad’s old man, something everyone had forgotten but Shad and Tips himself.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Tips saw the gun in Bowman’s lap, and he gave Marone a warning. It was just a word, through unmoving lips, while he mopped the bar.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e After a moment, Shad turned, his glass in his left hand, and he saw the way Bowman was sitting and how the tabletop would conceal a gun in his lap. Even then, when he knew they had set things up to kill him, he hadn’t wanted trouble. He decided to get out while the getting was good. Then he saw Slade near the door and Henderson across the room.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He was boxed. They weren’t gambling this time. Tips Hogan knew what was likely to happen, and he was working his way down the bar.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Marone took it easy. He knew it was coming, and it wasn’t a new thing. That was his biggest advantage, he thought. He had been in more fights than any of them. He didn’t want any more trouble, but if he got out of this, it would be right behind a six-gun. The back door was barred and the window closed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jud Bowman looked up suddenly. He had a great shock of blond, coarse hair, and under bushy brows his eyes glinted. “What’s this about you threatenin’ to kill me, Marone?”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e So that was their excuse. He had not threatened Bowman, scarcely knew him, in fact, but this was the way to put him in the wrong, to give them the plea of self-defense.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He let his eyes turn to Bowman, saw the tensity in the man’s face. A denial, and there would be shooting. Jud’s right-hand fingertips rested on the table’s edge. He had only to drop a hand and fire.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Huh?” Shad said stupidly, as though startled from a daydream. He took a step toward the table, his face puzzled. “Wha’d you say? I didn’t get it.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They had planned it all very carefully. Marone would deny, Bowman would claim he’d been called a liar; there would be a killing. They were tense, all three of them set to draw.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Huh?” Shad repeated blankly.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They were caught flat-footed. After all, you couldn’t shoot a man in cold blood. You couldn’t shoot a man who was half-asleep. Most of the men in the saloon were against Marone, but they would never stand for murder.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They were poised for action, and nothing happened. Shad blinked at them. “Sorry,” he said, “I must’ve been dreamin’. I didn’t hear you.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Bowman glanced around uncertainly, wetting his lips with his tongue. “I said I heard you threatened to kill me,” he repeated. It sounded lame, and he knew it, but Shad’s response had been unexpected. What happened then was even more unexpected.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Marone’s left hand shot out, and before anyone could move, the table was spun from in front of Bowman. Everyone saw the naked gun lying in his lap.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Every man in the saloon knew that Jud Bowman, for all his reputation, had been afraid to shoot it out with an even break. It would have been murder.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Taken by surprise, Bowman blinked foolishly. Then his wits came back. Blood rushed to his face. He grabbed the gun. “Why, you…!”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then Shad Marone shot him. Shad shot him through the belly, and before the other two could act, he wheeled, not toward the door, but to the closed window. He battered it with his shoulder and went right on through. Outside, he hit the ground on his hands but came up in a lunging run. Then he was in the saddle and on his way.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e There were men in the saloon who would tell the truth—two at least, although neither had much use for him. But Marone knew that with Clyde Bowman as sheriff he would never be brought to trial. He would be killed “evading arrest.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For three days, he fled, and during that time, they were never more than an hour behind him. Then, at Forked Tree, they closed in. He got away, but they clipped his horse. The roan stayed on his feet, giving all he had, as horses always had given for Shad Marone, and then died on the riverbank, still trying with his last breath.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Marone took time to cache his saddle and bridle, then started on afoot. He made the river, and they thought that would stop him, for he couldn’t swim a stroke. But he found a drift log, and with his guns riding high, he shoved off. Using the current and his own kicking, he got to the other bank, considerably downstream.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The thing that bothered him was the way they clung to his trail. Bowman wasn’t the man to follow as little trail as he left. Yet the man hung to him like an Apache.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Apache!\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Why hadn’t he thought of that? It would be Lopez following that trail, not Bowman. Bowman was a bulldog, but Lopez was wily as a fox and bloodthirsty as a weasel.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Shad got to his feet and shook the water from him like a dog. He was a big, rawboned, sun-browned man. His shirt was half torn away, and a bandolier of cartridges was slung across his shoulder and chest. His six-gun was on his hip, his rifle in his hand.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He poured the water out of his boots. Well, he was through playing now. If they wanted a trail, he’d see that they got one.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Lopez was the one who worried him. He could shake the others, but Lopez was one of the men who had built this country. He was ugly, he killed freely and often, he was absolutely ruthless, but he had nerve. You had to hand it to him. The man wasn’t honest, and he was too quick to kill, but it had taken men like him to tame this wild, lonely land. It was a land that didn’t tame easy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Well, what they’d get now would be death for them all. Even Lopez. This was something he’d been saving.\u003cbr\u003e  ","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305336525029,"sku":"NP9780553241334","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553241334.jpg?v=1767731200","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/law-of-the-desert-born-isbn-9780553241334","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}