Six Bits a Day — Elmer Kelton

"Six bits," or seventy-five cents: a cowboy's daily wage in Hewey's era.

Fiddle footed Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, in this prequel to Elmer Kelton's prize-winning The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country, ventures out to West Texas with his brother Walter to find work. Solid, dependable Walter wants nothing more than to own a piece of land, find a good woman to marry, and raise a family. Hewey is a fun-loving, whiskey-drinking drifter and a magnet for trouble--"He usually accepted the vagaries of life without getting his underwear in a twist"--who hopes to get Walter to follow him in carefree wandering.

When Walter falls in love with a boarding house girl, Hewey is determined to sabotage the romance. He gets his chance when his employer, cowman C. C. Tarpley, sends the brothers to San Antonio to collect six hundred head of cattle and drive them back to
Tarpley's Pecos River ranch.

Hewey's propensity for getting into jams makes the journey memorable and dangerous, with murderers, saboteurs, and a range war lying in wait for the brothers.