Robert J Conley Books in Order

A poetry collection that shows another side of Conley's writing, more compressed but still rooted in place, memory, and Native experience. The poems carry both bite and quiet reflection.

Charlie Black is torn between the respectable life his fiancee wants and the loyalty he still feels toward his Cherokee friends and kin. When the law closes in, he has to choose which world he really belongs to.

An actor is forced to pose as a feared gunslinger in order to recover a friend's stolen money. It is a clever western setup, with performance, danger, and bluff all mixed together.

This western circles around Oliver Colfax, a professional killer whose trade keeps dragging him toward trouble. When violence stops feeling like just another job, loyalty and survival begin pulling in opposite directions.

This story collection moves between contemporary Cherokee life, folklore, and the spirit world. Conley uses short fiction to show how the past and present keep talking to each other.

Writers and amateur sleuths Jackson and Maggie Wilder arrive at a Wyoming dude ranch and land in the middle of a murder case. Conley mixes mystery and western elements for a lighter, more playful change of pace.

Oliver Colfax once planned to kill Sergeant Bluff Luton, then came to call him a friend. When Luton is shot in the back, Colfax sets out to find the killer and settle the score.

Oliver Colfax is older and ready to leave his old trade behind, until a cattle baron comes looking to hire him. One last proposition turns quitting into just another road back to danger.

Conley takes on the life of Cherokee outlaw Henry Starr, a man who moved through crime, notoriety, and repeated brushes with death. It is a western biography with grit and a strong sense of place.

When Harvard graduate George Tanner returns to Tahlequah, Sheriff Go-Ahead Rider makes him a deputy just as railroad politics and a disappearance turn dangerous. It is a western mystery rooted in Cherokee Nation law and power.

This novel retells the story of Ned Christie, the Cherokee leader falsely accused of murder and hunted for years in Indian Territory. Conley turns a famous case into a tense story about law, politics, and resistance.

An unlikely band of frontier survivors finds itself bound together by danger, suspicion, and shifting loyalties. Conley uses the setup for a western where trust is scarce and trouble never stays far away.

Waguli Whippoorwill and Oconeechee are torn apart by the Trail of Tears, and their separate struggles carry the grief of removal in deeply personal form. Conley layers story, memory, and history into a moving Cherokee-centered novel.

A Cherokee man tries to leave behind a bitterly divided homeland, only to be pulled into violence and accused of murder. Conley ties one man's fate to the deeper tragedy of Cherokee removal and displacement.

A brutal drought and growing unrest push the Cherokee nation toward crisis as the powerful priestly class struggles to hold onto authority. Conley opens his long historical saga with politics, belief, and survival all pulling against each other.

Set where borders of law, nation, and identity keep colliding, this western follows lives pushed toward hard choices. Conley turns the frontier line into a source of constant pressure rather than simple geography.

After the revolt against the priests, the Cherokee face a dangerous power vacuum at home and a threat of conquest from old enemies outside. It is a tense novel about rebuilding order before everything breaks apart again.

The road north is long, dangerous, and full of men who have their own reasons for violence. Conley builds the novel around endurance, uneasy alliances, and the cost of staying alive another day.

A Cherokee trader heads south and finds hostile peoples, dangerous travel, and unsettling contact with Spaniards from across the water. The journey broadens the Real People saga and shows how fast the world is changing.

The Cherokee are still trying to rebuild after upheaval, and every choice about belief, loyalty, and leadership carries fresh risk. This entry keeps the larger saga moving while focusing on the cost of choosing a new way forward.

Conley follows Creek nationalist Chitto Harjo, better known as Crazy Snake, as he fights to protect his people's land and way of life. It is a historical novel about resistance, law, and the cost of refusing surrender.

Conley's novelization follows Geronimo through the last bitter fights of Apache resistance against American and Mexican forces. It is a fast-moving historical western with the weight of real history behind it.

Told through the memories of an aging Cherokee priest, this novel looks back on invasion, loss, and the long shadow of first contact. It is reflective, tense, and closely tied to the larger history of the Real People books.

A prisoner is shot in his cell, and Sheriff Rider's deputy Beehunter becomes one of the suspects. With politics closing in from all sides, Rider has to clear his friend's name and find the truth before the case gets worse.

This western takes on the story of Cherokee outlaw Zeke Proctor, where clan tensions, courtroom politics, and revenge all feed the violence. Conley keeps the focus on how justice can twist under pressure.

Set in the rough world of Indian Territory, this western follows the man known as Captain Dutch through danger, shifting loyalties, and trouble that refuses to stay buried. Conley gives the story grit and dry humor.

A well-liked schoolteacher is found murdered, and Sheriff Rider and Deputy Tanner discover that the victim's past was less simple than it seemed. The case grows darker the deeper they dig.

Asquani, the son of an escaped slave and a Spaniard, is forced to choose where his loyalty lies when outside powers threaten the Cherokee homeland. It is a story about divided identity at a dangerous historical turning point.

After seeing his brother killed by a Seneca warrior, a young Cherokee vows revenge and heads north into enemy country. His private grief soon threatens to widen into a larger cycle of retaliation and war.

Thought by many in her town to be a witch, War Woman leads a risky journey toward Spanish Florida in search of profit and possibility. What begins as adventure becomes a harder story about leadership, loss, and endurance.

A violent encounter at Buffalo Crossing shakes a frontier community and sets rumor, fear, and retribution in motion. Conley turns the setup into a lean western about blame and survival.

Far from Conley's frontier fiction, this is a sharp academic satire about an English department, a bleak job market, and one graduate student's very unconventional plan. It is funny, bitter, and knowingly absurd.

After accidentally killing his best friend in battle, a young Cherokee must live in exile until he can be spiritually reborn. His personal crisis grows into a larger test of leadership as French, Spanish, and tribal tensions mount.

This dark fantasy draws on Cherokee myth, imagining a dangerous shape-shifter released back into the world. Conley mixes horror with tribal story to create one of his strangest and most memorable novels.

Marshal Barjack keeps order in the unruly town of Asininity, where jokes turn mean and violence is never far off. This opener introduces a hard-drinking lawman who is tougher and sharper than he first appears.

Trouble breaks loose in Asininity, and Marshal Barjack is stuck sorting out armed fools, old grudges, and the thin line holding the town together. Conley plays the chaos for grit, humor, and western tension.

Conley turns to Dragging Canoe, the Cherokee war leader who believed only resistance could save his people's land and culture. It is a forceful historical novel about division, warfare, and a nation under pressure.

When outlaw Joe Pigg shoots his dog, young Kid Parmlee kills him in a blind rage and runs for it. The result is a gritty outlaw tale about a boy who becomes both hunter and hunted.

Kid Parmlee, Zeb, and Paw are mistaken for stagecoach robbers and suddenly find themselves running from a sheriff and the real desperadoes. Clearing their names will take nerve, speed, and more luck than they can count on.

Set in the Cherokee Nation after the Civil War, this novel blends frontier history with something darker and stranger. Conley uses older spiritual forces to turn the past into a genuinely eerie battleground.

Set deep in Cherokee history, this novel follows a world being reshaped by colonial pressure, trade, and divided loyalties. Conley keeps the focus on identity and survival as familiar ground becomes less secure.

When a notorious gunfighter called the Widowmaker rides into Asininity, Marshal Barjack expects bloodshed. Instead he finds a more complicated problem, and a town full of people ready to panic before the shooting even starts.

This large-format collaboration pairs photographs with Conley's text to present Cherokee history, culture, and contemporary life. It works as both an introduction and a vivid portrait of a living people.

Conley imagines the life of Sequoyah, the Cherokee innovator best known for creating the syllabary. The novel follows his work against a backdrop of upheaval, showing how language itself can become a form of survival.

Kid Parmlee keeps moving west with almost nothing, but the trail ahead is packed with hard men, hard choices, and fresh violence. His legend grows, and so do the dangers attached to it.

Centered on modern healer John Little Bear, this nonfiction book explores Cherokee medicine through story, testimony, and lived experience. Conley is interested in both the man and the tradition around him.

A clear, readable history of the Cherokee people from precontact life through removal and into the modern era. Conley keeps the big picture in view without losing the human scale of the story.

Part reference book and part cultural guide, this volume gathers entries on Cherokee chiefs, clans, places, traditions, and notable people. It is useful for browsing as well as quick fact-finding.

A collection of essays on Cherokee politics, history, identity, humor, and public arguments. Conley is blunt, funny, and often sharply skeptical, which makes the book lively as well as informative.

The people of Asininity decide they no longer need Barjack as marshal and try to push him out. Barjack has other ideas, and the fight over his future quickly becomes a fight over the town itself.

Barjack faces a problem that looks a lot like a haunting, though in his town the living are usually worse than the dead. It is a western with a playful supernatural edge and plenty of frontier mischief.

This introductory volume outlines Creek history, culture, and social life in a straightforward, readable way. It is a useful first stop for readers who want the basics without getting lost in detail.

A brief survey of Hopi history and culture that introduces key traditions, community life, and historical change. It is designed to give younger and newer readers a solid starting point.

After a drunk shoots an unarmed man dead in Barjack's saloon, the marshal locks him up and waits for trial. The prisoner's friends have no intention of waiting quietly, and Barjack knows it.

An accessible introduction to Shoshone history, traditions, and daily life. Written for general readers, it offers a concise overview of how the Shoshone have lived and adapted over time.

Skylar is pulled into the lives of three half brothers and a family conflict tangled up with faith, slavery, desire, and inheritance. The pressure builds toward a patricide trial and a reckoning no one can dodge.

Part history and part personal journey, this book follows the Trail of Tears on the ground and thinks through what that past still means. It is direct, reflective, and rooted in place and memory.

A short, sharp novella that stays close to one troubled perspective and uses a compact form to explore identity, memory, and pressure from the world outside. It is smaller in scale, but still unmistakably Conley.

This posthumous collection brings together stories, a play, and speeches, opening with the title tale about three Cherokee youths trying to topple a giant roadside Indian statue. It is funny, pointed, and varied.