Dramatized Westerns

An unplanned murder during a bank robbery has another sheriff on the trail of those on the lam.

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.

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.

Werewolf by Max Brand in Western Story Magazine (12/18/26) involves just such an inward journey for Christopher Royal, who is convinced he is a coward and flees a confrontation with Harry Main, who is a gunfighter. There comes a time in this story - when Christopher encounters the aged Indian, the old wise man - that the terrain shimmers with the multiple affinities of meaning conjured by the unconscious, which Vergil once sought to capture within an image both awesome and sinister: numina magna deum [the great divine power of a god].

He was 15 when he killed his first man. Before his murderous ways ended, Hardin killed 42 men in cold blood - one, the legend goes, because he snored too loudly. From then on, John Wesley Hardin stayed true to his calling, killing man after man after man, spending most of his life being pursued by both local lawmen and federal troops.

They are strangers in a strange land — a band of German immigrants trespassing across the Jensen family spread. Led by a baron fleeing a dark past in Germany and accompanied by a woman beautiful enough to dazzle young Matt, the pilgrims are being pursued by a pack of brutal outlaws hungry for blood, money — or maybe something else.... The Jensens are willing to help the pioneers get to the promised land in Wyoming.

Two years after Wild Bill Hickok made his mark on Deadwood, Scratch Morton and Bo Creel make theirs. Their job is guarding gold shipments from the mining camps — shipments that keep getting hijacked by a gang called the Devils of Deadwood who plunge pitchforks into their victims’ bodies. With Thanksgiving approaching, Scratch just wants to carve a turkey with a handsome widow woman at his side. Course, when the US Army comes to the rescue, all hell breaks loose. The widow gets taken hostage. So do a bunch of soldiers. Now, Scratch and Bo are going after missing gold.

Gray Horse. The magnificent young Comanche warrior made strong by the medicine of the wolf, skilled at stealing horses and counting coup in the war raids of his people. Through his bravery and his wisdom, he would rally his beleaguered tribe against the tide of white settlers that swept over their land.

How does a kid who can barely ride a horse, and who’s better with his fists and a team of mules than a six-shooter, think he can track and kill the most notorious killer on the Plains? Simple: Cuno Massey's thirst for revenge runs deep. Deeper than his skills. But when Rolf Anderson and Sammy Spoon killed the young man’s step-mother and his father, nothing would stand in young Cuno’s way.

In Massacre at Goliad, tensions mount between Mexican authorities and American newcomers. Revolution is in the air, something Thomas Buckalew welcomes but his brother Joshua fears, since Joshua is in love with a Mexican girl. The story touches on the immortal battle of the Alamo but centers on the infamous Goliad massacre, and ultimately the decisive battle of San Jacinto, which made Texas an independent republic.

If there's anything better than coming home to Texas, it's getting paid to do it. For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler, Texas for trial. Little do they know that one of the criminals, the one that's a beautiful woman, is the most dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and another double cross - until Scratch and Bo are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash through the land of their birth...or the land of their death....

On the West Texas border, a behemoth is bellowing smoke, fire, and death. This monster is the infamous Abaddon Cannon Foundry, whose weapons of war have spread death and destruction around the world — and made a few men in Big Buck, Texas incredibly rich. Now, a Mexican-born teenager has disappeared into this fortress factory, where men work and sweat as slaves. This boy’s sister wants to learn her brother’s fate, and she just happens to know a man named Shawn O’Brien, the town tamer.

One day, cold-blooded killers stole the life of Cuno Massey's young, expectant bride. Now, Cuno realizes his fate - and with his .45 in hand, he's going to make certain the killers realize theirs. Because if there's one thing Cuno has come to thirst for, it's the bittersweet taste of revenge.

With a handful of murderous rogues, Captain Jed Foster has run off with four wagons containing new Springfield rifles, bayonets, and ammunition meant to resupply the troops at Fort Bowie in Arizona Territory. Foster plans to sell the weapons to the highest bidder — whether it’s Apaches, Mexican revolutionaries, or Confederate veterans who still dream of destroying the Union. But that’s the least of Foster’s problems.

With Apaches on the prod, ex-cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan, bounty hunter Jed Breen, and ex-Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch take shelter in a West Texas way station — along with a hot-as-a-pistol female bound for the gallows, a spiteful newspaper editor, and a coward with $50,000 who promises them five grand if they’ll deliver his blood-soaked stash to his wife.

Exiled from the Smoky Mountains for gunning down a man in self-defense, Breck Wallace tries to make a new home in St. Louis, even tries his hand at romance, but some men are too wild to settle down. Breck is soon back on the trail, where a vicious gang of trappers, after his goods, picks up his scent and begins to dog his every step, until Breck’s only choice is to bed down for the winter with a tribe of friendly Indians. In the frigid, brutal cold of a Rocky Mountain winter, he hopes to find peace...but death is not done with Breck Wallace.

Luke Jensen brings a body to Rio Rojo. After all, it's his job and he's going to get paid. But before he can collect the bounty for killing a killer, two notorious criminals hit the Rio Rojo bank. Now Luke can't get paid unless he catches bandit Gunner Kelly and his Apache sidekick Dog Eater. Unfortunately, a would-be man hunter is after the money-toting outlaws, too, and young Hobie McCullough is mostly a menace to himself. With a green kid to protect, renegade Mexican soldiers, and a beautiful runaway bride crossing Luke's trail, the blood hunt takes one deadly detour after another.

Sometimes when a man’s luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens.

A strong, beautiful mother of five, Kate Kerrigan has made do since losing her husband in the bloody Battle of Shiloh. Now, two years after the Civil War, there’s nothing left for them in Tennessee but poverty and bad memories. So Kate decides a better life awaits them in far-off West Texas. Thus begins a 1000-mile trek through some of the harshest and most dangerous territory on the frontier.

A killer is on the loose in the Arizona Territory. One by one, Tonto Basin ranchers are being murdered for their livestock -and the Cattle Raisers Association has hired two range detectives to catch the culprit. From the looks of them, Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman are just another pair of high plains drifters. But with their razor-sharp detective skills and rare talent for trouble, they’re the last remaining hope for one young cowboy who’s been arrested for the murders.