Showing results by author "William Johnstone" in All Categories

Cotton Pickens got where he is by virtue of a quick draw and slow wit. He knows the difference between lawbreakers you have to lock up...and the kind you might as well just let go. Deputy Rusty Irons, though, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. Someone kidnapped Rusty's mail order brides. They were probably doing Irons a favor, but a deputy in love is blind.

Flint Moran was fourteen years old when the Civil War ended. He was fifteen when his family bought a plot of land near Tinhorn, Texas. He was barely nineteen when he caught a pair of rustlers stealing cattle—and singlehandedly brought them to justice. How did a teenaged boy track down and capture two hardcase thieves without any help? That's what Tinhorn sheriff Buck Jackson wants to know. He can't help but be impressed by Flint's sharp eye and natural talent with a Henry rifle. So he offers to deputize the boy—tin badge, Colt Frontier Six-Shooter, and all—and Flint happily accepts.

Hank Fallon knows what it's like to rot behind bars. To wallow in the filth of a rat-infested cell. To smell the pent-up rage of cutthroat killers and thieves. Fallon earned his freedom the hard way. He saved the lives of four guards, got released early, and became a detective. Then he went undercover, infiltrated a prison gang plotting to bust out - and barely made it out alive. Now they're sending him back. Behind the iron. Straight to hell...

It was a law Cotton Pickens never asked for and never wanted to enforce. But due to the vigilance of the Women’s Temperance Society, and the timidity of their businessmen husbands, the town of Doubtful, Wyoming, is going dry. As of January 1st. No exceptions. No turning back. Doubtful’s hell-raisers will not take this lying down, and Sheriff Pickens is fighting bootleggers and vigilantes when the next boot drops. The righteous women push through an even worse law bound to spark an outright insurrection.

To wealthy rancher Ira Dunellen, the frontier prairie land surrounding his spread is his for the taking. His cattle need room to roam and the one-horse town of Tinhorn, Texas is standing in his way. On the bank of the Neches River, the small community of merchants is just wasting a precious resource that Dunellen's growing range needs. As stray cattle wander into town, followed by rowdy cowboys, Sheriff Flint Moran and partner Buck Jackson start corralling up any man or beast disrespecting the citizenry and breaking the law.

When the Missouri farm boy named Jensen came west, he started fighting, surviving, and learning every brutal step of the way. He learned from a mountain man named Preacher. He learned from Indians. And from outlaws. And he learned that nothing burns the souls of men faster than the lure of glimmering gold. From one ramshackle frontier mountain town to another, Smoke sees gold strikes - and gold fever - drawing crooks and cold-blooded killers from across the nation.

It begins with a massacre. A crime so brutal and bloody, the local sheriff isn't smart enough to solve it. But when young deputy Dan Caine sees the slaughter for himself—an entire family murdered—he can't let it go. Especially when the eldest daughter is missing. Right there and then, Caine makes a fateful decision: throw away his badge, form a vigilante team, and go after the killers . . .

When the war ended, Dr. Samuel Knight went home to Texas—but the life he expected was in ruins, his wife married to a carpetbagger. Trying to defend what’s left of his previous existence, the good doctor is branded an outlaw and driven from Texas. Now he’s laying low in New Mexico, with his image on wanted posters everywhere. But when the town explodes in violence, Knight will risk his neck to save innocent lives.

No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That's the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to - dazed and confused - until he slowly pieces together what happened. The last thing he remembers: He agreed to help out a friend of Duff MacCallister's. A pretty lady and her husband at a horse ranch. He also recalls their cross-country trip through hell to deliver the horses safely to market. That's when the outlaws showed up. That's when the shooting began.

In the shadow of the Prophecy Mountains, the ramshackle boomtown of Rattlesnake Wells draws schemers, predators, and desperate pilgrims. As for the law, that’s the town marshal, a former Texas outlaw trying to make a new life for himself. But Sundown Bob Hatfield knows a man who’s slick on the draw can’t escape trouble for long. In Rattlesnake Wells, you fight fire with fire — and a new one has just exploded.

Charlie Dawson and his partner Clem don't consider themselves bad guys. But they definitely made a bad error in judgment on a gold mine deal—turns out there was no gold—and ended up in a shootout with some very angry claim jumpers. Now a posse is in hot pursuit of Charlie and Clem. The unlucky pair hightail it to San Francisco, where they try to blend into the red-light district known as Barbary Coast. Another bad decision on their part.

Holt’s latest job is in Devil’s Gulch in Colorado Territory. But wiping out bands of bank robbers is just the beginning. More disorder is brewing, and the skittish mayor has handpicked Holt as the new sheriff. Holt is what the town needs: a mercenary with a badge, a loaded Remington, and a deadeye-aim for trouble. Devil’s Gulch has the vigilance committee. The man behind it—Joe Mullen, the largest rancher and mine owner in the valley—isn’t keen on an outsider like Holt muscling in on a good thing. Mullen already has his hand in all the crime in Devil’s Gulch.

Jonas Madigan is dying. He spent his life taming towns and upholding justice across the west with no regrets. Along the way, Madigan took the measure of good men like Smoke Jensen, who has traveled to Salt Lick, Texas to pay his respects to the lawman. But when bandits gun down the small town’s current marshal—and Smoke sends the killers to Boot Hill—Madigan asks his friend to wear the badge and keep the peace until a permanent replacement is sworn in. Turns out the bandits were members of Bishop’s Mauraders, a twenty-man gang of trigger-happy thieves led by the vicious Snake Bishop.

For Smoke and Sally Jensen, the Sugarloaf Ranch is a glorious stretch of untamed land near the Colorado-Kansas border, the perfect place to stake their claim, raise some cattle, and start a new family. But when a man claiming to be an army colonel arrives in Big Rock—with a well-armed militia—the Jensens’ dream becomes a living nightmare. Colonel Lamar Talbot claims there’s a war looming with the Cheyenne Indians. And only he can save them from a bloody massacre—by launching a bloody counterattack… Smoke and Sally aren’t sure they trust him.

Orphaned at the age of seven and adopted by Indians, Jami Ian MacCallister grew into a man more at ease in the wilderness than among men. But when the westward strike drove him across the Arkansas Territory into Texas, he finally found himself a home — in the middle of a bloody war. Texans like Jim Bowie and Sam Houston were waging a fierce struggle against Santa Ana’s Mexican army and Jami MacCallister made the perfect scout for the fledgling volunteer force.

Keeping the peace in a West Texas town like Buffalo Peak should be easy for a legendary frontiersman like Marshal Elwood "Firestick" McQueen. He’s got his longtime buddies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks as his deputies — not to mention the famous rifle that earned him his nickname. But when Firestick learns that their ornery old friend “Rip” Ripley just rode into town, all bets are off.

No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That’s the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to — dazed and confused — until he slowly pieces together what happened. The last thing he remembers: He agreed to help out a friend of Duff MacCallister’s. A pretty lady and her husband at a horse ranch. He also recalls their cross-country trip through hell to deliver the horses safely to market. That’s when the outlaws showed up. That’s when the shooting began.

Smoke Jensen sat in a cave and boiled the last of his coffee. He figured he was in Idaho — somewhere south of Montpelier — but he was certain about only two things: He was cold and he was being hunted by a small army of men. Smoke knew why he was cold — it was winter. He just didn't have a clear idea of why anyone was after him.

The little town of No-Name, Colorado is jubilant when they strike gold there, until every no-account degenerate and desperado for hundreds of miles shows up on their doorstep. It's up to mountain Man Smoke Jensen and his over-the-hill companions to save the town's bacon, and do their best not to get killed in the process.

The year is 1884. A 10-year-old British boy has come to visit his uncle’s Wyoming spread, just as the vicious Yellow Kerchief Gang has the ranch under siege. Outgunned and outmatched, a British rancher is willing to pay $5000 for help. That is more than enough money to bring Matt Jenson into the fray. A huge, bloody gunfight, fueled by betrayal, erupts at the Powder River. But Matt has to shoot carefully. The Yellow Kerchief Gang has a hostage — the British lad named Winnie.