Dramatized Adaptation Western

Long before there was a mountain man called Preacher, a young adventurer set off with a team of fur traders from St. Louis for the time of his life. On a wild frontier, he sought a fortune. Instead, he found blood, betrayal and the beginning of a legend. Armed only with a knife, surrounded by a fierce Blackfoot war party, the young man was forced to kill a warrior chief in an act of audacious courage. But when a savage grizzly bear attack left him half-dead, he could no longer protect himself.

Jeston Nash bears a striking resemblance to his cousin Jesse Woodson James of Clay County Missouri. After killing a Yankee soldier in self-defense, Jeston meets his cousins, Jesse and Frank, and joins them to fight in Quantrill's guerilla forces. Later, after the war, he rides with the James-Younger gang as they invent their special brand of bank and train robbery. All the while, Jeston seeks vengeance against Daniel Zanone of the Free Kansas Militia - the man responsible for the death of his child.

There's nothing like family. At least that's what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo's family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he's in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman.

Long ago, the legendary trapper known as Preacher took shelter with the Absaroka, and fell in love with a girl called Bird in the Tree. Twenty years later, he rescues a woman and her son from an ambush by the hated Blackfoot. The woman is Birdie, and the valiant young warrior is Hawk That Soars — Preacher’s son. Now the greatest fighter on the frontier is about to go to war, to protect a family he never knew he had.

Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is wanted for a killing he didn’t commit. He saved his hide once by signing on as a cattle drive chuckwagon cook and bolting the territories. Turned out Mac was as good at fixing vittles as he was at dodging bullets. But Mac’s enemies are hungry for more — and they’ve hired a gang of ruthless killers to turn up the heat....

It's fur trapping season and Preacher is about to discover the Rocky Mountain trail holds more than wild game - it's also infested with murderers and trail trash quick to deceive, steal, and hunt Preacher down. Among them are Jebediah Druke, his ruthless band of killers, and most terrifying of all, the barbaric renegade Crow warrior known as Blood Eye. When Preacher shows up and gets on their bad side, he stirs up a clash that could lead to a brutal and bloody battle.

Preacher, against his better judgment, agrees to lead a wagon train of women across the West. He hires a pack of mountain men to assist him, but he gets more than he bargained for when a gang of cutthroats follows the train with murder, rape and slave trafficking in mind. Led by the nefarious Easterner Victor Bedell, the outlaws will accomplish what few have done before: they will get a bullet into Preacher. But they’ll make a fatal mistake. They’ll leave him for dead. Soon the mountains will echo with avenging gunfire.

A wagon train of pioneers is struggling Westward toward Oregon through the howling winter and a band of Arikara warriors are hot on their trail. Little do the Arikaras suspect that they're about to come face-to-face and gun-to-gun with a ferocious fight they never expected, courtesy of the wily mountain man called Preacher. As Preacher struggles to bring the settlers to safety, he learns the real reason they were attacked and begins to suspect that the secrets they've been keeping equal a worse kind of danger.

Jane Candia Coleman is a natural storyteller whose characters come from the lands between the southwestern valleys of Arizona and the Gila Mountains of New Mexico. The night Billy the Kid died is hauntingly depicted in "Corrido for Billy". "Lady Flo" is a memoir, based on historical fact, of the black wife of an Irish nobleman. "Moving On" depicts a young girl abandoned by her family who finds her way with an itinerant Jewish peddler. And "Are You Coming Back, Phin Montana?" is the winner of the 1995 Spur Award for Best Western Short Fiction.

Preacher and Hawk ride out of the Rockies and into St. Louis, loaded with furs. It’s Hawk’s first trip to civilization and the moment he lays eyes on young Chessie Dayton, he’s lost in more ways than one. When Chessie unwisely signs on for a gold-hungry expedition into the lawless mountains, Hawk convinces Preacher to trail the outfit because they’re all headed straight to the sacred Indian grounds known as the Black Hills — a land of no return. To come out of it alive a lot of people will have to die.

For the greatest trapper in the country, there’s no place like the Rocky Mountains. Preacher and his son Hawk are riding the High Lonesome when the clear mountain air is split by a girl’s savage screams. A gang of ruthless trappers has kidnapped a Crow woman, but before they escape with her, Preacher and Hawk burst out of the tree line, guns spitting fire.

There are a million ways to die in the Rockies - and a million predators, natural or otherwise. But even a seasoned mountain dweller like Preacher is shocked by the latest horror lurking in the hills. Trappers are being hunted down like animals. Captured. Murdered. Mutilated. Their hearts carved out of their chests. Some of the victims were Preacher's friends. Now two others - Audie and Nighthawk - have gone missing. Preacher is determined to track them down before they end up on the chopping block. But nothing can prepare him for what's waiting at the end of the trail....

On the rolling Missouri River, a riverboat of fur traders, a US Senator, and Prussian royalty are all heading to the Yellowstone from St. Louis. Preacher's onboard because the nation's fate depends on the passengers landing safe and sound. But it won't be easy. Two beautiful women make a play for Preacher. So does a killer. So does a band of river pirates. No sooner does Preacher beat back these threats than the riverboat lands in the middle of a blood-soaked Indian ambush - with a Prussian nobleman and his family taken hostage.

Agon Bordner is dead, and the ranch he cheated for has been handed over to Deed Corrigan and his brothers. But before they can get the Bar 3 back on its feet, Deed, Holt, and Blue must fight to rebuild the town by buying the bank and appointing a marshal. For a moment, peace looks possible for these three weary veterans of the trail — until the guns begin to fire.

No one remembered when he’d come to the mountains - it seemed like Preacher had always been there. He’d seen a world of wonders in the unmapped mountains and forests of the vast North American frontier. In fact, he figured he wouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. But that was before Preacher traveled into the Ferris Range of Wyoming and discovered the city of Nova Roma....

Twelve years ago, newspaperman John Bryce saved an innocent man from the hangman's noose. That man was Matt Jensen. In gratitude, Matt gave Bryce four gold nuggets and told him, "If there's ever anything I can do, just let me know." Now, that day has come. As editor of the Fullerton Defender, Bryce has become the target of a powerful - and ruthless - English lord. A feared master duelist, his aim is fixed on the Dakota Territories.

Rusty Shannon has left the Rangers and feels the need to settle down. He has brought up Andy Pickard, once a captive of the Comanches, now in his 20s and eager to see more of the world. Rusty's dream of marrying Josie Monahan and living the life of a farmer seems like paradise, compared to the Civil War and the evils of Reconstruction. His dreams and plans, and the lives of the Monahans, are shattered by tragedy, and Rusty seeks revenge. By his side are Andy and an old friend from Ranger days, Len Tanner.

Dick Rutherford, known simply as the Colonel, had set out into the West to find his fortune, accompanied only by his young companion, Christy Deever. But it looked like the frontier would provide more danger than money...until the Colonel and Christy met Stone-That-Shines, a Mandan warrior who possessed a medicine stone that gave him his name. As soon as the Colonel got a close look at the medicine stone, he knew immediately what made it shine — a rich vein of quartz gold.

On the eve of the Civil War, Kirby Jensen is the youngest of three children living on a hardscrabble ranch in Southwestern Missouri. But in 1861, shots were fired in Charleston harbor, and Kirby's father and brother went to war. Smoke Jensen: The Beginning follows the Jensen clan during these volatile years, from Civil War battles to border state raids to the kind of frontier justice achieved only by bullets and blood.

Tom Dallas has changed his way of living. All the shootings in which he was involved were justified, but there are many who want his scalp which prompts him to make a vow that he will not pack bullets in his .45 for a year. Then a situation develops that can only result in breaking his vow.