L'Amour Louis. End of the Drive

New York: Bantam, 2005. — 277 p. — eISBN 978-0-553-89910-8."End of the Drive" captures all the grit, grandeur, and glory of the men and women who wielded pistol and plow, Bible and branding iron to tame a wild country. Here a boy of seventeen, yearning to prove he's a man, squares up against an outlaw...and discovers that what counts is not how fast you can draw a gun but how much faith you have in yourself. A veteran trail driver, who's faced lightning and hail, raiding Comanche and thundering stampedes, finds that there's nothing quite so dangerous as the courting of a beautiful woman
Here, too, in stories told with L'Amour's patented poignancy and power, a homesteader fighting for his rights is brutally beaten and crawls off to die...only to stumble upon an ancient talisman that restores his faith and will to live. A preacher from a distant land rides into a small frontier town with a voice full of fire and a saddlebag full of miracles...to deliver a promise and a warning that lead the local folk to a most surprising revelation. And in the full-length novella "Rustler Roundup," the hardworking citizens of a law-abiding town are pushed to the edge to defend all they hold dear. As suspicion spreads and evidence mounts, the rumors of rustlers in their midst threaten to explode into a full-blown range war
Each of these stories bears the master's touch--comic twists, stark realism, crackling suspense--all the elements that have made Louis L'Amour a frontier legend in his own right. In "End of the Drive," L'Amour brilliantly illuminates the dramatic struggles and enduring truths, the self-reliance and self-determination that have long beat at the heart of America's greatness.