540+ Western Short Stories to read

“The Ungentling” by Katy B

🏆 Winner of Contest #204

Bill’s disappeared upstairs with the little sickly girl but me I’m here to see the blind woman. I hear she did it on purpose, tore donkey tail out of the earth and smeared its milky sap directly in her eyes. It must of stung her hands and face bad and maybe left marks on her fingers. Near Santa Fe, men, women and children are always getting possessed of this sort of ecstasy and seem like taking pleasure in swallowing poison and fire and stepping on scorpions and suchlike. But it ain’t superstition like the government try to tell me in the...

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“Silence” by Thom With An H

🏆 Winner of Contest #171

There is a peace at sunrise that surpasses all understanding. It's a renewal. A feeling that anything is possible. I’d like to say I drag myself from the comfort of my bed every day to enjoy sunrise’s splendor, but you wouldn’t believe me and I would be lying. What is true is I was there that day and so was she. There is a connection between sunrisers just because they are sunrisers. It’s a shared, yet unspoken, appreciation for things quiet and beautiful. That might explain why I was immediately drawn to her, ...

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“Home of the Brave” by Thom With An H

🏆 Winner of Contest #135

A mom’s job is never truly finished—Elise knew this instinctively when her son was born. For at least the hundredth time, she sat next to his bed in that chair mending his quilt. There was no way of knowing, the day she bought it at a flea market, that it would become her son’s most valued possession. To call it a quilt stretched the definition as it was nothing more than a thousand pieces of oddly shaped swatches stitched together, layer after layer, until the whole of it was thick enough to hold in the warmth...

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“Two Buckets and a Rope ” by Thom With An H

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #234

Roy hadn’t picked a moonless night on purpose, but as he climbed under his blanket and lay his head on his saddle, he was glad for the happy accident. Out on the range—the only place he felt truly at home—no moon meant stars. Thousands, if not millions of them, stared back at him as he contemplated his life choices, especially the one that waited for him at dawn. A cowpuncher by trade, just as his f...

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“Under a Dying Sun” by Aeris Walker

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #215

Smoke rose from the crackling fire and dissipated into the night sky. Stars dotted the black expanse, innumerable as the grains of sand in the Mojave desert where Connor McClain lay on his back, head cradled in his arms, thinking of Saralee.  I’m finally coming home, he willed his words across the dusty earth, through the mountain pass, and down the stretch of trail that would carry him back to the litt...

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“Lady of the Black Irons” by Jamie Campbell

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #204

In the end, Man destroyed the heavens and the earth.Man said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It fell from the heavens and rose in mighty plumes and consumed the earth in fire, and a great poison swept across land and sea.And on that final day, Man ended his work which he had made. Thus did Man destroy nearly every living thing that moveth, and shroud the earth from the firmament, so that day and night were as one.And when the age of silence had passed and the earth had shed its poison, the anci...

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“Syrup Stains” by Diana Lapaix

Submitted to Contest #246

**Trigger Warning: Mental Health, Physical Violence**_ As per usual, Dr.Marigold was eager to start our session, “Okay, whenever you’re ready. The last time we met, you mentioned you wanted to tell me about the first time you recognized you are oppressed.” Here goes nothing, “I’m ready.” Gently, she instructs me, "Jane, I want you to ease into a state of deep relaxation. With each word I speak, feel your body becoming more at ease. Imagine a gentle wave of relaxation flowing through you. This is a sanctuary, a place where you can release all...

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“BEAUTY CONFRONTING MONSTROSITY” by Aaron Bowen

Submitted to Contest #243

Little Lissa rose from her bedroll in the closet as the first lights of morning crept beneath the curtain that divided her domain from the cathouse beyond. Out there, the air would be breathless with the memories of swirling silk and the creak of boots on floorboards when patrons had danced the girls to the rhythm of Annie’s mandolin. Ghostly aromas of whiskey and perfume still clung to the air, a grim reminder that Lissa’s days of wearing finery and being courted for her favors were over, dead as the dust that coated everything in...

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“Dead Mans Hand” by Timothy Rennels

Submitted to Contest #241

Dead Mans Hand  Chad McConnel slapped his cards down on the green felt tabletop. A small cloud of dust coughed in protest.  “Two pair. Aces and eights. Your hand’s like your ranch Creed. Nothing but bullshit!” The sheep raising farmer glared at the well-dressed cattleman across the table. “This is one fence you can’t cut!”  Connor Creed eyed his adversary with a thoughtful squint. Personally, he felt that 1848 would be a better year if Chad McConnel would be swallowed up by the earth, his sheep with him. For now...

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“Paranormal Frontier: Greed that Glimmers Like Gold” by MJ Maddox

Submitted to Contest #241

Warning: This story contains violence and foul language. “Human deparavity, it’s someth’in that’s in all of us. It circles around us like a vulture around a dying animal, hungrily waiting for the moment when we finally succumb to our ill-gotten fates.” ”We can’t escape it. It’s just part of our nature, and no matter how hard we try we’ll give in. It’s just a matter of time.” “Eventually, we give in to our temptations, thinking “I can control it. There ain’t noth’in to worry ‘bout. It’ll only be this once, and I’ll never do it again.” Huh, th...

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“The Tupelo Land Grab” by Michael Jefferson

Submitted to Contest #240

Tupelo, Wyoming1878“This goes beyond the pale,” Eddie Ponderosa says, lighting a cigar.His stocky companion, Leake Bevil, offers a bewildered look. “What’s that mean? You been readin’ again, Eddie?”“I’m thirty- six, Leake. I’m lucky to have come out of the War in one piece. I don’t plan to shoot people for a living much longer.”“But we ain’t shootin’ people now. We’re gunnin’ for coyotes.”“Wolves,” Eddie corrects. Puffing heartily on his cigar, he climbs down from his horse.Reaching into his saddle bag, Eddie extracts a small telescope, focu...

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“Don't Forget The Milk” by Robert Lee

Submitted to Contest #239

Why does everyone buy milk?  The thought perplexes you as you traverse the aisles of Jack's Mini Mart. Toilet paper makes sense. I mean, if you are going to be stuck in the house for days, you’re going to need toilet paper. But you've never seen Bear Grylls pack a gallon jug of milk in his knapsack before he heads out into the wild. The original forecast is for a light dusting of snow, but...

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“Jimmy and the Dogman ” by Tamar Katz

Submitted to Contest #238

WeeeeeooooooootThe sound came again, like the trill of a beached whale drying up amongst creosote and sagebrush.“What the hell is that?”“No doubt some kind of flying insect or other,” Jimmy tried to reassure his wife, Deborah, who was half-covered by a quilt, hair threaded through pink plastic curlers.“It’s driving me up the wall. Can you make it shut up?”Jimmy pivoted off the bed. He pulled his legs through a pair of Levi's, securing the bu...

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“The Good Samaritan (Western Remix)” by Ty Warmbrodt

Submitted to Contest #238

Overbearing sun; excessive heat and blinding light reflecting off the yellow and red baked earth. A plateau in the distance, weary lizards laying on rusty boulders in the foreground, cactuses reaching for the sky. The essence of burnt dirt fills the air that does not move. The snake rattles it’s warning as a black horse, foaming at the mouth, stumbles along the rocky terrain. A stranger in black and a Navajo covering hangs limp in the saddle. He doesn’t remember the last time his face saw a razor, or his belly a meal, but his most despera...

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“O'Malley & Deadman” by Hyacinth V. Haile

Submitted to Contest #235

She looked at me across the saloon floor again, I could not escape those damn gray eyes. There was a sense of desperation to them, as if she needed to lock eyes with me. Jack was all but happy that she had walked in. He was excited to maybe shoot his shot with someone not from Wraith Hallow. But, anytime he would attempt to walk up and talk, she would smile and tell him she didn’t want anything. Her voice...

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“Race to Rebel Creek” by Elijah Rose

Submitted to Contest #235

      A horse was essential out here simply because how d***ed far everything was from everything else.            Lieutenant Nathaniel James Beaty kicked up his horse to a brief trot to catch up with his companions. Despite the official rank given to him by the State of ________, he was actually a junior member of the group as this war party had no army to command. 22 officers and NCOs moving incognito a...

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“Two Buckets and a Rope ” by Thom With An H

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #234

Roy hadn’t picked a moonless night on purpose, but as he climbed under his blanket and lay his head on his saddle, he was glad for the happy accident. Out on the range—the only place he felt truly at home—no moon meant stars. Thousands, if not millions of them, stared back at him as he contemplated his life choices, especially the one that waited for him at dawn. A cowpuncher by trade, just as his f...

56 likes 34 comments 34

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“1864 Arkansas” by James Moore

Submitted to Contest #234

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“Redemption” by Lucius Doon

Submitted to Contest #234

“One hour.” Sheriff Walls sat with his feet on the desk reading the Brady Gazette. The usual drab and familiar reporting did nothing to excite his senses. He scrunched up the paper and threw it at the waste paper basket. It rimmed out and landed on the floor.  The man to whom the words were spoken said nothing. He paced back and forth in his cell. Ten feet by eight feet. It was a miserly existence and had been fo...

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“Pray for Rain” by Laura Rayne

Submitted to Contest #233

Another clear sky.  Ezekiel stood on the threshold of the door and he could damn near weep at the sight of it. When he came to this godforsaken land to claim his 160 acres of American Dream, he never imagined the sky would make him cry. But 38 days without rain will do that to a man. They say desperate times call fo...

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“Daughters of Drought” by Caitlin Van Buskirk

Submitted to Contest #233

It’s been 28 days since our last rain. I know because I’ve counted on my yellowed old calendar. I know because the last storm was something out of a dream. I almost thought it was a dream. It may as well be one now.   This last rain, it was one of those storms that rolls in with hours of rumbling warnings, a show that starts like the orchestra of an opera warming up before the first act– a stroke of strin...

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