Western | shortsonline

The Sheriff’s Children

shortsonline — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 21:00:28 +0000

Short Story by Charles W. Chesnutt. A highly respected sheriff with a strong sense of duty protects an alleged murderer from a vigilante mob. He later learns that the prisoner, a mixed race former slave, is his son by a slave woman he had once owned.

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Fleur

shortsonline — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 21:00:54 +0000

Short Story by Louise Edrich. A mystical Native-American woman working in a small-town butchery challenges her male co-workers’ masculinity. She is not only strong, independent and confident, but has seemingly magical powers that lead to her brutal rape and the “accidental” death of her three abusers.

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Tennessee’s Partner

shortsonline — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 21:00:23 +0000

Short Story by Bret Harte. Set in a tough mining town during the California Gold Rush, two men sharing a cabin have a friendship so strong that it survives when one of them runs away with the other’s new bride and returns after she leaves him for someone else.

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The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

shortsonline — Sun, 04 Apr 2021 22:11:50 +0000

Short Story by Stephen Crane. A small-town Marshall's return from a city visit with a new wife is a symbol of the beginning of the end for America's 'Wild West'. The instrument of change is the railroad, which brings ‘Eastern’ ways to previously isolated communities.

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The Outcasts of Poker Flat

shortsonline — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 05:05:31 +0000

Short Story by Bret Harte. A group of “improper persons” are banished from a Californian Gold Rush town. On the way to the next settlement, three of them and a young couple journeying the other way become snowed in with insufficient provisions while sheltering in a secluded mountain cabin.

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Showdown

shortsonline — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 12:02:05 +0000

Short Story by Shirley Jackson. A boy’s Saturdays are usually quiet and uneventful. When a man’s street killing the pattern, a mystical power puts him (and possibly other townspeople) into a time loop. He realizes that the only way to break the cycle is to do something to prevent the death.

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Brokeback Mountain

shortsonline — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:56:44 +0000

Novelette by Annie Proulx. An unsettling story about how a sexual encounter between two male ranch-hands develops into a twenty-year love affair over short, intimate camping trips. One of them wants more but the other’s marriage, social pressures of the day (1960’s), and anti-gay upbringing prevent him from “coming out”.

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