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.