Shane

Shane is a western novel by Jack Schaefer, published in 1949 after appearing in three parts in Argosy magazine. It has been printed in dozens of editions, translated into more than thirty languages and filmed in 1953.

The story is set in Wyoming in 1889, when the territory was still open to homesteaders, and it is narrated by Bob Starrett, the son of a farming family. The land around the Starrett homestead had been used by a cattleman named Luke Fletcher before Joe Starrett and twelve other homesteaders claimed it, and Fletcher wants to expand his herd, which their fields would prevent. Into that argument rides Shane, a mysterious stranger who takes work on the Starrett farm, says almost nothing about his past and is plainly more than a hired hand. When the cattlemen bring in a professional gunfighter, the farmers find they have no way to meet him, and the only person in the district who can is the man who came west to leave that life behind.

Schaefer takes the side of the settlers in the conflict his novel describes, and its reputation rests on the figure of a man whose skill cannot be separated from the violence he is trying to escape.