Six-Gun Caballero » (Unabridged)

With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 230 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most acclaimed and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard.

Michael Patrick Obanon, proud owner of a 100,000-acre spread willed to him by his father, suddenly loses his entire inheritance when a band of criminals makes false claims on the ranch. Faced with having to save his property and his people, Obanon takes a courageous stand against the renegades.

Yet he soon realizes it will take far more than mere weapons to win the day. With all guns seemingly drawn against him, Michael must come up with a devious strategy of his own to outwit the imposters and regain his birthright.

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First published in the March 1938 issue of Western Story magazine, this early Hubbard pulp novel tells the tale of a landowner who resorts to unorthodox methods to protect his land from a band of crooks. Its hero, Michael Patrick Obanon, is as quiet, cold, and methodical as another famous literary Michael (Corleone), and Hubbard does an excellent job of making us wonder just how far Obanon is willing to go. Although it has all the usual western trappings, the story goes beyond genre boundaries, telling us about a man who's forced to find out where he will draw his moral line in the sand. Hubbard gets a bit cute at times-Obanon's plan is improbably convoluted, and it comes off without a hitch-but with its solid genre prose style and ambitious theme, the story bears comparison to such notable western writers as Max Brand, T. T. Flynn, and Alan LeMay.