Bully McGrane
by Ernest Haycox (1899–1950)
Bully McGrane by Ernest Haycox is a Western short story written in the early 20th century. Set in the hard-edged mining town of Pistol Gap, it turns on law, violence, and the possibility of redemption, centering on a reformed drifter’s bid to escape with a dance hall singer while a ruthless marshal and vengeful partners close in.
In Pistol Gap, Bully McGrane rules by fear, watching as Tud Drury returns from a mine with his share of gold and a plan to leave town clean and marry Anna, a singer at the Pride of the Hills. Drury’s three crooked partners arrive to settle scores, warning McGrane off; the marshal coldly decides to let them do the killing and then arrest them. As night falls, Drury arranges horses through Sen Yat in Chinatown, retrieves Anna, and heads out a back way toward the ridge—straight into an ambush. Moved despite himself, McGrane opens the escape route and charges into the dark when shooting starts; Anna and Drury mount and flee while one gunman is killed and the other two are knocked senseless by the blacksmith, Billy Monteith. The couple rides free, and McGrane, still gruff and cynical, reveals a grudging soft spot by letting their luck hold.
- Short stories
- Western stories
- Miners
- Man-woman relationships
- Marshals · West (U.S.)
Read the opening
[Epigraph: Hardboiled, That Marshall of the Toughest Town in the West—but Somewhere There Was a Soft Spot in His Heart.]
celebrated author of Western stories
gives us
another yarn of “Pistol Gap”
In Pistol Gap life was pitched to a key of suddenness and intensity. Men of this Western land worked with an energy that brought out the salt sweat; and their hours of play were equally violent. If they drank at all it was usually to excess and if they gambled they flung the whole of their labored wealth on the green table in prodigal abandon, never considering tomorrow. And in Pistol Gap death only infrequently visited a man in bed; one moment he was alive and in full stride; the next moment he was quite utterly dead. In such case the coroner’s jury had a uniform, unvarying verdict: “dead by an act of God.”
It was therefore natural that when Tud Drury rode into Pistol Gap leading a pack animal during the latter part of a sultry afternoon that Bully McGrane, marshal, should ease his massive bulk forward on a hotel porch chair and watch the newcomer’s successive movements with a sort of lowering, belligerent interest. Tud had made a trip down to procure supplies for himself and his three partners only two days previously. This trip augured something else; and the loaded burro also indicated something else. So Bully McGrane watched, removing his hat to scratch a cropped head badly scarred from his prize-ring days.
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About this edition
This free edition of Bully McGrane by Ernest Haycox comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #77816, released 2026-01-30. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer.
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