Shorty Small

Shorty Small

They taxed his land. They taxed his labor. Then they made the mistake of taxing his patience.

Shorty Small is a man who wants nothing more than to clear the rocks from his five acres of vertical Ozark dirt and watch his corn grow. He believes in hard work, paying his debts, and minding his own business. But when the Trans-Territory Line blasts a tunnel through his valley, "business" comes looking for him.

Railroad Baron Silas Martin calls it "Progress." Sheriff Boggs calls it the law. Shorty calls it robbery.

Hit with a crushing series of illegal levies—from an "Improvement Tax" on his own barn to an "Entertainment Levy" on the view from his porch—Shorty tries to play by the rules. He sells apple pies to track layers and builds a tourist attraction at the Natural Rock Bridge to pay the extortionate fees. But the goalposts keep moving, and the Sheriff’s greed knows no bottom.

When an eviction notice is nailed to his door and his faithful dog is gunned down in the yard, Shorty realizes that the law is just a mask for thieves.

So, Shorty Small decides to balance the books.

Armed with a flour-sack hood, a stubborn mule named Barnaby, and a double-barreled shotgun, Shorty launches a one-man war against the iron horse. He isn’t a bandit—he’s a Taxpayer. And he’s coming to collect a refund.

From holding up tax couriers to greasing the tracks of the 3:10 Express with hog fat, Shorty leads a ruthless Pinkerton Agent and a posse of hired guns on a wild chase through the high country. In a valley owned by corruption, one small farmer is about to prove that while you can buy the law, you can't buy the land from a man willing to be buried in it.

Perfect for fans of True Grit, Hell or High Water, and the gritty, dialogue-driven style of Elmore Leonard, Shorty Small is a hard-hitting Western thriller about the high price of progress and the dangerous math of revenge.