Borden Chantry (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures): A Novel - book cover
Action & Adventure
  • Publisher : Bantam
  • Published : 27 Sep 2022
  • Pages : 256
  • ISBN-10 : 0593159802
  • ISBN-13 : 9780593159804
  • Language : English

Borden Chantry (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures): A Novel

As part of the Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures series, this edition contains exclusive bonus materials!

The marshal's name was Borden Chantry. Young, lean, rugged, he's buried a few men in this two-bit cow town-every single one killed in a fair fight. Then, one dark, grim day a mysterious gunman shot a man in cold blood. Five grisly murders later, Chantey was faced with the roughest assignment of his life-find that savage, trigger-happy hard case before he blasts apart every man in town . . . one by bloody one.

Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author's more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives.
 
In Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures: Volumes 1 and 2, Beau L'Amour takes the reader on a guided tour through many of the finished and unfinished short stories, novels, and treatments that his father was never able to publish during his lifetime. L'Amour's never-before-seen first novel, No Traveller Returns, faithfully completed for this program, is a voyage into danger and violence on the high seas.

Additionally, many beloved classics are being rereleased with an exclusive Lost Treasures postscript featuring previously unpublished material, including outlines, plot notes, and alternate drafts. These postscripts tell the story behind the stories that millions of readers have come to know and cherish.

Readers Top Reviews

Captain StansburyBil
I have always found Louis L'Amour books a good read and entertaining. But adding in the element of the hero also having sleuthing skills (ala Sherlock Holmes) made for a really good experience for me. I would recommend this to any western novel fan.
Kindle Captain Stan
Borden Chantry another rancher/town sheriff who was only twenty-four years old. The life in the west caused you to mature quickly. A good plot lots of intrigue and mystery, people were murdered by an unknown killer. Borden had to figure out who was during the killings and why. Lots of arroyos, empty buildings and buildings roof tops that were used to drygulch a body if you had a mind to do so. Bord's life was at stake someone in town wanted him dead. The reasons unknown, but who ever this drygulcher was he wasn't wasting any time. Find yourself a comfortable chair, sofa or whatever makes you comfortable I guarantee you will not put this book down until your finished. Only taking time to get yourself an iced tea or coffee to really relax..Ride easy everyone🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴
N H.Kindle Captain
The character of Broden Chantry makes a rich addition to the life and times in the tales of Louis L Amour. If you enjoy real life , you will truth and honest, our country growing up and the people who took along their lives living real life.
Rebecca StewartN H.K
Borden Chantry is a gentleman, first and foremost- a great husband to Bess and an even greater father to Tom; Secondly, he is a great cattleman, but even great cattlemen can't corral the forces of nature; And, finally, he is a top-rate town marshal, even though he does not enjoy the job but he can't argue the fact that it puts food on the table for his family. The town banker refused him a decent loan so he could get back into the vocation he has a passion for, which is being a cattleman, because this banker knows that Borden's land is probably the best in the County or even in other States close by. Now, there is a killer on the loose. He has killed two men before the last sheriff died, or was that murder number two? His first murder was of a good man who had at one time worked for Blossom on her ranch, then when it turned cold, this man went South to work and was hired on by Tyrel Sackett down in Mora, New Mexico. This was the area in which the land grants dispute got a lot of men killed either by gunfire or by hanging! (In order to fully understand this situation, you should read the Sackett Novel, "The Daybreakers.") Louis L'Amour's novels were read by my father and younger brother in the 1980's, but I never dreamed that I would love his books as much, or possibly more, than they had! When I read through all of his Series's, I would talk with my elderly father about them and he still remembered them, more than twenty years later. That is the kind of writing that makes an author stand out and above many others and I think that Louis L'Amour was exactly such an author!

Short Excerpt Teaser

Chapter 1

Dawn came like a ghost to the silent street, a gray, dusty street lined with boardwalks, hitching rails and several short lengths of water trough. False-­fronted buildings alternated with others of brick or stone, some with windows showing goods for sale, some blank and empty.

A door slammed, a well pump came to life, complaining in rusty accents, then a rooster crowed . . . answered by another from across the town.

Into the end of the street rode a lone cowboy on a crow-­bait horse. He saw the sign of the Bon-­Ton Restaurant, and turned toward it, then his horse shied and he saw the body of a man lying beside the walk.

He glanced at it, dismounted, then tied his horse at the rail. He tried the restaurant door and had started to turn away when the sound of footsteps drew him back. The door opened and a pleasant voice said, "Come in. There's coffee, breakfast ready in a few minutes."

"I ain't in no hurry." The cowboy straddled a chair, accepting the coffee. "Dead man out in the street."

"Again? Third this week. You just wait until Saturday. Saturday night's when they let the wolves howl. You stick around."

"I seen it here and yonder. Ain't figurin' on it. I'm ridin' over to Carson an' the steam cars." He jerked his head toward the street. "You seen him?"

"No . . . don't aim to. I seen a dead man. I seen two dozen of them, time to time. Ain't nothin' about bein' dead pleases me. Some drunken fight, no doubt. Happens all the time."

A woman came along the street, her heels clicking on the boardwalk. She passed the dead man, glanced back, then turned her head away and walked on to the post office.

A man crossing the street turned aside and bending over the dead man took the head by the hair and turned the face around. "Him? Prob'ly had it comin'," he said, and walked on.

Down the street another door slammed and somebody sang, off-­key, of the streets of Laredo. Another pump started to squeak.

Finally the woman emerged from the post office, glanced at the body, then went to the door of the marshal's office and rapped vigorously.

"Borden? Borden? Are you in there?"

A tall, young man came to the door, slipping a suspender over his shoulder. "What's the matter, Prissy? You outa stamps?"

"There's a dead man lying in the street, Borden Chantry, and it's a disgrace. It . . . why, you should be ashamed! And you call yourself a marshal!"

"Wasn't even here last night, ma'am. I was clean over on the Picketwire. Prob'ly just some drunken shootin'."

"No matter what it was, Borden Chantry, you get that body out of the street! What's this town coming to, anyway? Dead bodies lying around, shootings and stabbings every night. You call yourself a marshal!"

"No, ma'am, I don't. The city council does. I only figured to be a rancher until that norther came along. Why, I was fixin' to be a rich man come spring!"

"You an' how many others? You get that body up, Borden, or I'll have the committee on you."

Borden Chantry chuckled. "Now, now, Prissy, you wouldn't do that, would you? Why, those old biddies-­"

"Hush your mouth, Borden! If they heard you speak of them like that, why-­!" She turned around and went back to the post office.

A tall, handsome man with sandy hair stopped on the walk across the street. "What's the matter, Bord? You in trouble?"

"Seems like. There's a body in the street an' our postmistress is reading the riot act over it. You'd think she'd never seen a dead man . . . at her age."

"Less you say about age to her, the better off you'll be, Bord." He glanced at the body. "Who is it? Some drunk?"

"Prob'ly. I never did see so many men couldn't handle liquor. They get to drinkin' that block an' tackle whiskey and right away there's trouble."

"Block an' tackle whiskey?"

"Sure," Chantry chuckled at the old joke. "One drink an' you'll walk a block an' tackle anything!"

"Had breakfast, Bord? You get him off to the barn an' come on in. I'll stake you to some ham and eggs."

"All right, Lang. You just hold your horses. I'll get Big Injun. He'll tote him off for me."

Langdon Adams crossed the walk and entered the Bon-­Ton, seating himself at a table near the window. It was a small town but a good town, and he was at home here. It was one place he really wanted to stay, for despite the occasional brawls between cowmen and miners, it was a pleasant enough town.

He watched the old Indian back a buckboard up to the hitching rail and then saw Borden Chantry and the Indian load the dead man into the back. The Indian drove off and Borden dusted his hands off and c...