Western Short Stories
Tom Sheehan
Ranch Romance
Western short stories Bio. of Tom Sheehan
Sheehan (31st Infantry, Korea 1951-52; Boston College 1952-1956) has multiple works in Rosebud, Linnet’s Wings, Serving House Journal, Literally Stories, Copperfield Review, Literary Orphans, Indiana Voices Journal, Frontier Tales, Western Online, Faith-Hope and Fiction, Eastlit, Rope & Wire Magazine, The Literary Yard, Green Silk Journal, Fiction on the Web, The Path, etc. He has 16 Pushcart nominations, 6 Best of the Net nominations (one winner).
Later book publications include The Cowboys, Beside the Broken Trail, In the Garden of Long Shadows, Between Mountain and River, Catch a Wagon to a Star, and Jock Poems and Reflections for Proper Bostonians, by Pocol Press, and Jehrico by Danse Macabre. Back Home in Saugus (a collection) is being considered, as is Beneath My Feet This Earth Slips into the Far-side of Another’s Telescope and Pages from Fallen Books. In production status is The Grand Royal Stand-off at Darby’s Creek and Other Stories at Pocol Press.
Recent releases include Small Victories for the Soul VII, from Wilderness House Literary Review, and Alone, with the Good Graces from Pocol Press. He was Danse Macabre’s 2016 Writer-in-Residence in Las Vegas.
>>
>>
Booker Brady and the Lady Boss
Tom Sheehan
“Hey, Booker, is that another book you just had in your hand? I never saw that cover before. You got more book speed than all the teachers I ever knew.” Booker’s buddy, Mark Geston, was riding his pal again, even though he’d never been in a classroom at any age, at any level, which each of them understood as a trade-off, Booker could come up with a synopsis of his latest read while sitting his horse beside a herd of cattle, settling in for a night’s rest, charming those who liked a quick story. Read the full story HERE>>
Once by Starlight
Tom Sheehan
When Britt Sanders saw Lyla Kusch for the first time, at a trail campfire halfway to a sale point for her father’s herd, he thought he’d never seen anyone as lovely as her. That was beside the point that he probably had seen her a hundred times as she was growing up, but she had suddenly become, in leaps and bounds, the whole beautiful woman she had already promised to become. Read the full story HERE>>
Bullet for Bullet
Tom Sheehan
Joe Redd could never balance an argument between friends, locked as he was in favoring both temporary enemies, as he might have termed his discussion with self. Friends were friends and the lines should never be crossed, even when girls or bullet counts joined the discussions. Read the full story HERE>>
The Shooter and the Lady in Red
Tom Sheehan
The bulge of his own pistol, still in its holster, stiff as a holdup, as real, nudged him awake, sour liquor taste on his breath, foul body smell almost as strong as he rolled to one side and inhaled his own being. Bull Cobrin hadn’t invited the morning and didn’t accept its coming very well, along with its related messages. Read the full story HERE>>
Soft Intrusion
Tom Sheehan
K-Bar-K’s top hand, Duke Emsley, on an easy ride about the ranch’s perimeter, saw the three riders cresting a peak ahead of him, and then believed they had seen him and dipped into rocky territory below the horizon and fully out of his sight.
He vowed he’d not be drawn into a close-up check, be at their mercy. Read the full story HERE>>
Widow’s Garb
Tom Sheehan
Within the week her husband, Roger Bentley, was killed by a horse thief, who also died in the encounter, BethAnne Bentley was heard to say, rather loudly even for the busy general store, “There’s two ways to beat trouble; shoot it dead or hang it on the line and whip the hell out of it, and I ain’t too particular about how and who’s bothering me and my baby girl.” The pause she let get a foothold was another attention getter; “I have plenty of room for body disposals.”
The Wagon Master
Tom Sheehan
Stall Pillings, man of the world, had allowed it to happen; a woman had gotten under his skin, and the discoverable joy was his gain. Astride his horse, motionless, he stared onto the high ground and wondered how it happened. Then another mysterious awareness took place; she had been as sly and as furtive as Indians and that thought brought him straight up in the saddle, to his senses, on full alert.
It was at an abrupt realization where he found himself, and the real wagon master took over as he shucked off the woman in his mind.
But he didn’t throw her far.
The Dynasty Dame Meets Finn McMorrin
Tom Sheehan
In Chicago in 1861, before the great war in the states started, before she had a chance to go further west, Maud Wilkesbarn thought things over, including what might be in front of her, and changed her family name, legal or not, from Wilkesbarn to Maverick, keeping the “Maud” in place because she’d swear to the day of her death she could hear her mother announcing her to potential babysitters, strangers, old friends dropping by, or new a man she might be interested in, as “This sweetheart is my Maud.” Read the full story HERE>>
Union Leftover or Heaven Will Be Mine
Tom Sheehan
In 1865, at the end of a long day in a long war, Corporal Thadeus "Ted" Walters was separated from the Army of the Union, with 5 years of service and a wound whose anger might hang in place. As a messenger between outfits of that conflict of interests, Corporal Walters was apt, on any day, to be in territory controlled by a Union force.
He saw many places and many faces, and was fired upon between message centers en route.
Comrades, and friends of a certainty, came out of his associations, and that included words of advice from some folks "who had been elsewhere and remembered." Read the full story HERE>>
Piece of the Pie
Tom Sheehan
The rider stood in his stirrups to get a better look down into the valley where a ranch spread its arms near as wide as the valley floor, all the while nodding his head at every positive presentation ... house, barns, corrals, two horseshoe pits, a solid thus permanent outdoor fireplace signifying some mostly good times he figured.
It didn't take him long to seek a job at this ranch. Read the full story HERE>>
The Lady, the Lion and the Redoubtable Mountain Man
Tom Sheehan
From high on the ridge of a Teton Range "middle-mountain," as he called the lesser landscape minions of the Wyoming territory, Lucas Woodcock heard first, and then saw, the west-bound stagecoach at a standstill, as the 4-horse team reared amid shrill cries of desperation and fear. Read the full story HERE>>
