Waltzing with Tumbleweeds

A Collection of Western Short Stories

by Dusty Richards

From the windswept plains and dusty streets of Dodge City, to the rocky arroyos of Arizona’s Verde Valley, to the early summer green of the Little Bighorn Valley, these small gems give the reader a taste of all that made up the West. Saddle up with the inimitable Dusty Richards as he spins his yarns of lawmen, cowboys, Indians, miners, and the women that loved them.

Ride along with his characters as they facedown a pack of hungry wolves. Cheer them on as they find love in a Dakota blizzard. Laugh uproariously as a stray tomcat nearly destroys a town. Mourn with the girl who loved notorious outlaw Billy the Kid. Bargain along with a trader as he gets more than he bargained for in a Crow village. Be very quiet as you follow a young cowboy in his hopeless attempt to rescue a white captive from the Apache.

Grip the pages until your knuckles are white with tension, weep for love lost and love found, and laugh until you cry. This volume also contains the previously unpublished novella, Out of a Job and Not Earning a Dime. Most of all, though, sit back and relax as Dusty Richards, the master storyteller, brings to life the West as it really was.

(308 pages)

Published:
Publisher: Galway
Genres:
Western

Tags:
short stories, short story collections, western short stories

Excerpt:

Sample the contents here.

About the Author

IF THERE WAS A SATURDAY MATINEE, Dusty was there with Hoppy, Roy and Gene. He went to roundup at seven-years-old, sat on a real horse and watched them brand calves on the Peterson Ranch in Othello, Washington. When his family moved to Arizona from the Midwest, at age 13, he knew he’d gone to heaven. A horse of his own, ranches to work on, rodeos to ride in, Dusty’s mother worried all his growing up years he’d turn out to be some “old cowboy bum.”

He read every western book on the library shelves. He sat on the stoop of Zane Grey’s cabin on Mrs. Winter’s ranch and looked out over the “muggie-own” rim and promised the writer’s ghost his book would join Grey’s some day on the book rack.

Since English teachers never read westerns, he made up book reports like “Guns on the Brazos” by J.P. Jones. The story of a Texas Ranger who saves the town and the girl. Then he sold them for a dollar to other boys too lazy to read when teenagers were lucky to earn fifty cents an hour. In fact, book reports kept him and his buddy in gas money to go back and forth to high school.

After graduating from Arizona State University in 1960, he came to northwest Arkansas, ranched, auctioneered, announced rodeo, worked 32 years for Tyson Food in management, anchored TV news and struggled to get a book of his own sold. The three earlier books on the list were published without his knowledge and only discovered in 2011 as even existing.

In 1992, his first novel, Noble’s Way was published. In 2003, his novel The Natural won the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation Fiction Book of the Year Award. In 2004, The Abilene Trail won the same award. Dusty invests a lot of his time helping others who want to learn how to write by speaking at seminars and conferences all over the United States. There is no difference in writing any kind of fiction. In Dusty’s words, “You simply change the sets, costumes and dialect.”

Dusty’s website: dustyrichards.com
Interview on Youtube: http://youtu.be/n1p4-B6fvjE?hd=1


Andre Guirard