At its heart, The Hi Lo Country is the story of the friendship between two men, their mutual love of a woman, and their allegiance to the harsh, dry, achingly beautiful New Mexico high-desert grassland. The story is told by Pete, a young ranch hand, whose best friend is Big Boy Matson. Together they drink, gamble, fight, work, and rodeo. They both fall hard for a married woman--the attractive, bored, and dangerous Mona. When it was first published in 1961, the novel was both a celebration and an elegy. It captured something jagged and authentic in the West, and it caught the attention of Hollywood--notably Sam Peckinpah, who spent twenty years trying to make a movie of this multilayered and plainspoken novel. It would take another twenty years for Martin Scorcese and Stephen Frears to finally do it. Now in a special 60th anniversary edition, The Hi Lo Country continues to tell a quintessential story of the people and the land found in the American West.

Winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Biography--Other Almost as famous for the legendary excesses of his personal life as for his films, Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) cemented his reputation as one of the great American directors with movies such as The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Max Evans, one of Peckinpah's best friends, experienced the director's mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah's abusive behavior--sometimes directed at Evans himself. Evans's stories--most previously unpublished--provide a uniquely intimate look at Peckinpah, their famous friends (including Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Joel McCrea, and James Coburn), and the business of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.

The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and-mostly-talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.

From among his numerous publications, award-winning author Max Evans has selected his personal favorites. The more than thirty pieces include short novels, essays, short stories, introductions to other works, and magazine articles spanning several genres and most of his writing career. Through them all runs a common thread: the understanding of love Evans has for the West and its people, and his ability to convey that understanding with humor and compassion. Included works are: Short Novels - ""Xavier's Folly"", ""One Eyed Sky"", ""The Wild One"", ""Old Bum"", and ""My Pardner""; Essays - ""Sam Peckinpah: A Very Personal Remembrance"", ""King John"", ""Long John Dunn"", ""Dinner with Frank Waters"", ""Riding the Outside Circle in Hollywood"", ""Many Deaths, Many Lives"", and ""Song of the West""; Short Stories - ""The Ultimate Giver"", ""Blizzard"", ""Don't Kill My Dog"", ""The Far Cry"", ""The Wooden Cove"", ""The Third Grade Reunion"", ""Sky of Gold"", ""A Man Who Never Missed"", ""Big Shad's Bridge"", and ""The Call""; Introductions and Forewords - ""Patricino Barela"", ""Some Sweet Day"", ""The Hi Lo Country"", ""Final Harvest and other Convictions and Opinions"", and ""Rounders 3""; and, Magazine Articles - ""The Cowboy and the Professor"", ""A Horse to Brag About"", ""Showdown at Hollywood Park"", ""The Wild Bunch"", ""The World's Strangest Creature"", and ""Super Bull"".

Ranching families reflect a deeply rooted agricultural tradition the day-to-day workings of which have changed little over generations. Many of these children are accomplished farm hands by the age of six or seven and already contributing members of the family business. In this world, work skills define one's identity, and 'making a hand' is the goal of every young cowboy/girl. This book is a tribute to the newest generation of ranchers growing up in New Mexico. Gene Peach has photographed girls and boys from fifty ranching families representing diverse cultural backgrounds, as they work cattle from horseback, perform routine ranch chores, and compete in rodeos. Veteran western writer and cowboy Max Evans writes about his own experiences growing up on a ranch and ponders the realities threatening the continuation of the family ranch. Making a Hand is a testament to a remarkable generation of New Mexico residents continuing a legendary and honourable lifestyle.

Ty Hale, a young corporal from Lovington, New Mexico, finds himself alone in the middle of a grain field in Normandy after being knocked unconscious by the explosion of a German artillery shell. Stunned from the explosion and overwhelmed by visions of the grandfather who raised him and the simple life of the New Mexico prairie he has left behind, Ty attempts to rejoin his unit but instead stumbles onto a country estate and inextricably into the lives of its inhabitants. Philippe Gaston, a former music teacher, his stunningly beautiful daughter Renee, and Hans Heinike, a German deserter and an accomplished musician, are attempting to carve out a normal existence in spite of the chaos and destruction that surrounds them. As Philippe devotes his time to his German protege, Ty and Renee fall in love and Ty learns of the Gaston estate's unique legacy of survival and the most recent story of violence and sacrifice that has preserved this pristine oasis in the midst of a raging war. The music that permeates their solitary existence, whether it be the buzzing and chattering of insects and birds, a violin and human voice joined in concert, or the fire of machine guns and the distant rumble of tanks, draws these unlikely comrades together and reveals the common humanity that resides in us all. The war, the music, the love, and the rhythms of nature are all timeless and eternal.

In his eighty-plus years, Max Evans has known, owned, ridden, and been thrown by quite a number of horses. In For the Love of a Horse, Evans shares his favorite horse stories for all to enjoy. As Max explains, "I wanted a wide range of adventures from another time, with different horses, of different breeds, and a sense of history of those special days." Max begins with his first horse, Cricket, which he received when he was four years old. At the age of ten, he helped with a horse-drive from far southeast New Mexico, through west Texas, and on to the final destination in Guymon, Oklahoma. Later, PDQ was a horse that seemed very gentle and laid-back, until someone rode him. And then there was Molly, who liked to fly through and around obstacles on coyote hunts. This book is for all those who enjoy reading horse stories as much as Max loves telling them. Saddle up! "The recognition is long overdue. (Max Evans is) sui generis. He understands the present West better than anyone else, what it's like to be there now living in two worlds of the pickup truck and the bronco."--Charles Champlin, former Denver bureau chief of Time and retired arts editor of The Los Angeles Times, quoted in The New York Times

Legendary western author Max Evans has spent his entire life working with cows and horses. These rangeland animals, and other creatures both domestic and wild, play pivotal roles in his stories. This magnificent collection, beautifully illustrated by cowboy artist Keith Walters, showcases twenty-six animal tales penned by Evans during his long and celebrated career.
Both fiction and nonfiction, the stories in this collection get us inside the heads and hearts of numerous four-legged critters--dogs, horses, burros, goats, cattle, deer, coyotes, and more. "The Old One," for example, shows us the world through the eyes of a prairie dog as she watches her latest litter of pups rolling and tumbling around the mound and thinks of all the things she will need to teach them. And in "The One-Eyed Sky," an aging cow with a new calf and an old coyote with a litter to feed circle each other warily, trying to protect their young, until a rancher intervenes. Not one to shy away from difficult subjects, Evans also delves into the "animal nature" of human beings, as in "The Heart of the Matter," where two Vietnam vets and friends kill a deer and then turn their rifles on each other.
These captivating tales display Evans's trademark mix of raucous humor and vivid, poetic descriptions of the high plains of West Texas and his beloved Hi-Lo Country in northeastern New Mexico. He reminds his readers of simpler times and more honorable people even as he evokes the merciless environment in which his characters, both animal and human, struggle to survive.

First published in 1999, 'Faraway Blue' is based on the real-life exploits of Sergeant Moses Williams, former slave, Civil War veteran, and Buffalo Soldier in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment. Included in Moses's story are four women and two men representing the ethnic groups and economic levels found in the late 1800s American Southwest. At the story's opening, Williams' cavalry unit has one assignment: kill Apaches in the 'faraway blue' mountains of southeastern New Mexico Territory, also known as the Black Range. As a fighter in the white man's campaign to obliterate the Indians and take over their lands, Williams finds a nemesis in Nana, an old Warm Springs Apache warrior who is a tactical genius. Nana leads his small band of followers to repeatedly strike area mining camps and settlements. Both men know they must meet before the end of the war and a maddening cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues. Williams is sustained by his love for Sheela Jones, a mulatto whom he wants to marry when the army will allow it. But Sheela's love for Moses guides her to take an immense risk just as Moses and Nana ride out to settle their score.

Almost as famous for the legendary excesses of his personal life as for his films, Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984) cemented his reputation as one of the great American directors with movies such as The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Max Evans, one of Peckinpah's best friends, experienced the director's mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah's abusive behavior--sometimes directed at Evans himself.

Evans's stories--most previously unpublished--provide a uniquely intimate look at Peckinpah, their famous friends (including Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Joel McCrea, and James Coburn), and the business of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.

The bawdy and moving story of two contemporary bronco busters, The Rounders, originally published in 1960, was Max Evans's first novel and is still his best known work, thanks largely to the success of the 1965 movie version starring Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford. Acclaimed for its realistic depiction of modern cowboying and for its humor, it is also a very serious work, described by the author as a tragicomedy.

Reclusive American actor Randolph Scott, known for his subtle, dignified performances in almost 60 westerns, has been called the ""most genuine Westerner."" His career began in 1928 with the first of several bit parts; his first starring role was 1932's ""Heritage of the Desert"". He fought in World War I, studying horsemanship, shooting, and bayoneting, and acted in a variety of films in every genre from musical to swashbuckler. His final film was ""Ride the High Country"" (1962).Chronologically arranged from his birth in 1898 to his death in 1987, this book covers every film in which Randolph Scott acted. Each section begins with a biographical chapter and then lists Scott's films from that period: each film's entry has filmographic information, a synopsis, and detailed commentary, discussing such topics as the financial aspects, production details, acting, other participants, anecdotes, and critical responses. Quotes from interviews with figures in the industry and published reviews bolster the entries. A bibliographical essay completes the work, which is heavily illustrated with stills and promotional materials.