Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of western short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

630+ Western Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Hitch your ponies, shutter up the saloon, and watch the tumbleweeds roll down Main Street. There's a showdown at high noon — and the weapon of choice? Short stories.

Western Short Stories – Page 2 of 43

Bullets and Gold

Submitted to Contest #298

Bullets and Gold*** Graverobber. He still remembers the first time he was called that. It was only a couple days ago but it felt like months. Then it kept happening. Thief. He could deal with that. He’d been called that a hundred times over. Not to mention, it was true. But graverobber implied something deeper. Sharp snaps shook Silas from his thousand-yard stare. Donovan waved his hand in front of Silas’ face. “You can’t have your head off in the clouds today,” Donovan said. Silas shook away his fuzzy vision. He was still in the small ma...

3 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Twelve Minutes Before Sunrise

Submitted to Contest #297

Nebraska Prairie, 1892“I ain’t goin’ back, I told you.” Jacob grabbed the reins harder, steering the rumbling wagon toward the bruised-looking horizon.“I want Mama! Even that dang baby. Daddy’s gonna’ be real mad when he finds us gone,” Sarah whined. She didn’t have to finish the rest. It made her want to cry like a baby to think of the rest even though she was a full six-years-old now.Jacob shook his head, eyes focused on the purple and pink streaks that hearkened dawn. “I told you, Mama won’t come, and we jes gotta go.” He set his jaw hard...

9 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

With His Boots On

Submitted to Contest #297

IN THE EAST, a faint rose and gold ethereal light hinted at dawn breaking through the deep indigo of the night. Nathaniel Everett sat still on the weathered porch steps of the ranch house, his eyes fixed upon the distant horizon where the jagged silhouettes of the Sawtooth Mountains stood etched against the brightening firmament. The air hung still and cool around him, carrying the mingled scents of sage and pine from the surrounding foothills.Within the house behind him, the old man lay dying.Nathaniel rolled a cigarette, the ritual offerin...

3 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

His name was Death

Submitted to Contest #296

In a society built on the ideals of man, who can truly say what is morally good, and what makes you a villain?In our own minds, we are never truly evil; only operating in a way that seems correct to us, with what few standards are set for humanity.In a world of storybook heroes and villains, who truly is to blame? The man aligned to his own sense of morality, or those who align themselves with the moralities of those in power?Those pawns of power seem to detest people like me; rebellious people love me.But what does that make me? A villain? ...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Against the Current (Idaho Territory - 1885)

Submitted to Contest #296

The boy was nine and his father was dead. Abe found him by the rocks where the trail turned north, his face streaked with dried tears and dirt."Got a name?" Abe shifted the Sharpe's in the crook of his arm. He kept his distance, letting his voice do the reaching."Nick."Abe studied the lengthening shadows. The temperature would drop twenty degrees once the sun slipped behind the ridgeline. He could backtrack to Boise, maybe make Warren, but either way that was three weeks of walking, no way he would last. He just didn't have the strength. "I ...

14 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

On a Gut Feeling

Submitted to Contest #296

“You burn your dead here?”“Yeah,” the deputy said, his attention quickly drawing away.Georgia Lasko looked to where the deputy and the few hundred gathered townsfolk were staring. A cart was rolling up with a cage in the back. It came to a stop and a couple rough-skinned deputies unlocked the cage and yanked a man out of it. He was sobbing, wearing a beat up brown suit and tied at the wrists with a length of rope. Georgia noticed it was rope, not metal handcuffs. Odd, like most things out this side of the country.“Yeah, I saw there wasn’t an...

7 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Dancing on Air

Submitted to Contest #296

Mammoth, Arizona1888 Mayor Cash Ridley gazes out of his second-floor office window at the carriages and horses navigating through Mammoths’s dusty streets, speaking with his back to Deputy Mayor Stephen Sharpe. “We’re going to execute Cynthia Greenstock.” “We’ve never hung a woman before,” Stephen replies. “People are going to be angry about it, particularly the women.” “Women don’t vote. At least not yet.” Appearances are important to Cash, who wants people to see Mammoth live up to its name. Broad-shouldered, with a large, blonde waxed m...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Chasing Ghosts

Submitted to Contest #296

I always hated Fort Bridger.The way they draped the flag over the Johnson family general store shopfront sign didn't sit right with me. It felt symbolic–like our own army had invaded and tactically cut off our supply lines, like they did the Indians. The Johnsons were good people. They never charged more than a nickel for a tin of coffee and even gave goods on credit when the winter ran long.I caught Tim Johnson before he left, his wagon sagging under everything he owned, heading towards Green River while I was hunting elk in the foothills. ...

8 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

THE SHORTY HARRIS STORY

Submitted to Contest #296

THE SHORTY HARRIS STORYAn infamous ‘Jackass Prospector’ set out to find fortune. He found it, lost it, and kept searching; only to realize, in the end, what he truly valued. This is a story of character, obsession, and perseverance. The August sun scorched the rocky desert as a diminutive prospector stood motionless, staring at a greenish rock in his hands. A pulse of excitement shot through him. Could this be it? The $10,000,000 strike? He had always known he would find it. It was only a matter of time. And yet, something about it seem...

8 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Ruby Dreams

Submitted to Contest #295

                                     RUBY DREAMS Incorporating annotated excerpts from a greater work (Brave Rivers That Dream of the Sea) concerning a Confederate exile in Mexico, and a broken hacienda wherein live Ruby and her father and an old American judge. The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Herm...

8 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

EMBERS

Submitted to Contest #294

I am in the winter o’ my life and I knows it.   My bones knows it, too. And, sometimes, as I sit and stare into the fire, I imagine I can see ‘em: the faces o’ those few folk that have shared this mountain with me. All o’ them, beckoning to me, reaching out. But I ain’t quite ready to reach back. Not just yet. But that time is coming, I knows. And who’d you think is front and foremost calling to me from those flames? Why that hornery injun that caused us so much grief in our early years. We never knew ...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Annie's rising

Submitted to Contest #291

ANNIE’S RISING The ground yielded to Annie Lawson as she slammed down the arrow shaped head of her hoe and cracked the sun-baked clay. This hard-won soil was to be her vegetable garden in the spring. The previous year, drought had beaten her, but the autumn rain would arrive soon— she was certain of that. A cloud of red dust enveloped the woman, clogging her nose and throat, while rivulets of rusty sweat trickled down her neck, creating crimson stains on her shirt. ‘Ma—there’s somebody coming.’ She crossed the broken soil to stand beside he...

11 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Devil's Pit, Arizona

Submitted to Contest #289

The desert wind blows dry and hot. The sky is pale blue due to the lack of moisture. Beneath the cloudless sky rides a solitary rider slumped in his saddle, his head bobbing with the pace of his pony’s steps. His hat is pulled low. A bandanna covers his face to fight the blowing sand.            On the rise of a dune, the dappled mare stops and snorts sand from its nose. Its master lifts his head and rubs the dust from his eyes. He squinted at the town ...

21 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Submitted to Contest #289

My dad lives in this time and space, riding his motorcycle about the neighborhood barefooted, in cutoff jeans and old t-shirt, black curls blowing high above his forehead in the breeze, round sunglasses flashing sepia light shining through 1970’s Polaroids. Thanks to him, I have the impression all life began here.Within a few years immoderate facial hair will absorb his features, cutoff jeans will grow into filthy dungarees, heavy work boots will cover his bare feet. The body will grow puffier - caked in bits of drywall mud - on his trousers...

15 likes 14 comments 14
Read story

Lil' Bit

Submitted to Contest #288

“I told him, I says, ain’t no horse gonna get you far out here, boy, when you’re sloggin’ through three feet of powder. An’ he drags himself over to the rancher and gets himself a horse anyhow. If I thought he was gon’ bite it out there then, I’m certain he’s dead now.” The old man drones, tongue loosened by the barley-water slop they serve out here. I think about the drunks often, how they managed to get here and survive all this time given their tendencies. Maybe they built forts like me, strained their backs like me, lugged whiskey for tr...

11 likes 0 comments 0
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.