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Western Short Stories
Elisabeth Grace Foley
Western Short Stories Bio. of Elisabeth Grace Foley
Elisabeth Grace Foley has been an insatiable reader and eager history buff ever since she learned to read, has been scribbling stories ever since she learned to write, and now combines those loves in writing historical fiction. She has been nominated for the Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Award, and her work has appeared online at Rope and Wire and The Western Online. When not reading or writing, she enjoys spending time outdoors, music, crocheting, and watching sports and old movies. She lives in upstate New York with her family and the world’s best German Shepherd. Visit her online at her website below.
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Western Short Stories by Elisabeth Grace Foley
The Heiress and the Horse-Trade
Elisabeth Grace Foley
Cornelia Summerfield rode down the canyon trail with a loose rein and her head tilted back slightly, a dreamy look in her eyes, and if she had been of a poetical turn of mind she might have been thinking that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world (as per the poet Browning). Cornelia was not particularly poetical, but she was still aware of the morning sun giving the pine-clothed western slopes of the canyon a feathery texture as it illuminated the tips of their needles with a bronzed light, and the warm glow from the red rocks, and it contributed to her sense of well-being almost as much as knowing that she would be coming back from this errand a good deal richer. Read the full story HERE>>
Dakota Clothesline
Elisabeth Grace Foley
The horses’ iron-shod hooves clopped hollowly on the frozen road, a long track beaten by the passing of homesteaders’ wagons and curving slightly with the undulations of the land. Through the cloud of white that rose from her own lips Charlotte Brooke watched the jets of steam billow from the horses’ nostrils as their heads nodded rhythmically with their trot. Read the full story HERE>>
The Bird of Dawning
Elisabeth Grace Foley
A million diamonds glinted in the smooth, untouched white curve of snow in the basin, struck out by the sun that pierced the bright silver-white sky. The bitter wind whisked across it, kicking up little powdery swirls. Cal Rayburn turned up the collar of his sourdough coat with one hand, hunching his shoulders a little so the collar half covered his ears. He squinted at the blinding-bright landscape, and one side of his cold-numbed lips twisted back a little in a half-smile. Not another human being for miles, but still he fancied he could feel an odd festivity in the air. What did it come from, he wondered? The fields and mountains looked the same as they did every day. If he had not known it was Christmas Eve day, would he still have felt it? Read the full story HERE>>
A Prior Claim
Elisabeth Grace Foley
It all came about in the first place because Burke’s aunt was getting old. She’d been keeping house for him several years, but wasn’t as spry as she used to be, so he was going to hire a girl to help her out around the place. There were two or three Norwegian families with a raft of kids apiece homesteading nearby, so I’d expected something about fifteen years old with yellow pigtails who’d help the old lady wipe the dishes and make the beds. But Burke got Maria Covington instead. Read the full story HERE>>
Outlaw Fever
Elisabeth Grace Foley
Our place sits at the head of the valley where the trail divides, running down to Brown’s Flats on one side and to Cavila and the stage line on the other. It’s the first water for miles in either direction, so most everyone travelling this way stops here. Most we know, and some are strangers passing through never to be heard of again. And some are strangers we do hear of again. One man who had supper at our table we heard of four days later—dead of a sheriff’s bullet while trying to steal cattle from a ranch a few miles up in the foothills. Read the full story HERE>>
