Here is a collection of the best contemporary short stories of the American West by a diverse group of writers, young and old, male and female, well-known and not-so-known. And for the first time there appears, side-by-side, the work of so-called traditional Western writers, such as Max Evans, Elmer Kelton, and Elmore Leonard, and the literary contingent, represented by William Kittredge, Valerie Miner, and Luis Alberto Urrea. Taken together, these twenty-two stories, five appearing for the first time in print, create an unparalleled picture of an enormously complex region and a gallery of memorable characters and human conflicts.