Smoke Mountain

From his Missouri farm, the boy traveled west. In his hand was a Navy Colt given to him by Jesse James. By his side was the old mountain man named Preacher, who would teach young Smoke Jensen everything he needed to fight like the devil and die like a man. And in his heart...was vengeance. His enemies destroyed everything he'd ever loved. But they made one mistake. They let Smoke Jensen live.

There is a place where bears can live in peace, where there is sea-ice all year, where the forests are full of prey, where flat-faces never go. Polar bears Kallik and Taqqiq, black bear Lusa, grizzly Toklo, and the shape-shifting Ujurak believe that this fabled bear paradise must be the destination of their quest. But the path they follow is dangerous. The burning Smoke Mountains are more treacherous than anything the bears have faced before, and tensions run high as they encounter obstacle after obstacle.

The gold-mining town of Red Light, Montana is the kind of backwater hole less famous for the folks that live there than the ones who die there - like Janey Jensen, Smoke Jensen's sister. Smoke never would have gone there if it hadn't been for her estate. But that isn't the only thing the Mountain Man's got to settle. There's also the score between him and Major Cosgrove. The man who owns Red Light - lock, stock and barrel - is six feet of trouble looking for somebody like Smoke to bring out the worst in 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.

When Big Max Huggins, the outlaw leader of a nearby cutthroat town, tries to impose his influence on Barlow, Smoke Jensen promptly sends the gang packing, but they retaliate by kidnapping his wife, and Smoke must save her as well as the town.

He was raised by the mountain man called Preacher, and he was said to be the fastest gun alive. Until he hung up his gunbelts to raise a family. Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and a force of nature. But Lee Slater and his gang of low life desperadoes didn’t know that. Stirring up a motherlode of trouble for the retired gunslinger was Slater’s first mistake. Shooting Smoke Jensen’s wife Sally was his second.

Smoke Jensen was the last Mountain Man and the fastest gun in the west. But this time, Smoke is going to put his reputation to the test in the southern reaches of Mexico. When two Mexican Gunfighters, and old friends of Smoke Jensen, send a letter asking Smoke for help, he can't possibly say no. He quickly straps on his hog legs and heads down into the middle of a war. A crazy Mexican Bandito, that fancies himself the resurrection of Montezuma, has formed a vast and unstoppable army, and he marches across the land.

Clint Black ran the biggest cattle operation in Montana. His Circle 45 spread controlled the best water, the richest graze, and he had his own personal army of cutthroats. And he didn't like competition. Only a fool could fail to see trouble when Smoke Jensen brought 3,500 head up from Colorado to sell to Black's neighbor. When Clint's greed overcomes his common sense and he butchers Smoke's entire crew, Smoke will seek a vengeance never before seen in the wild west. Clint Black has a lesson to learn, and this lesson will cost him the most important thing of all: Blood.

Sally has traveled to the silver-mining town of Goth, Colorado to open a restaurant with a friend. That's where she crosses paths with five bank robbers in a hurry to strike it rich. With the local sheriff lying dead in a pool of blood, Sally fights for her life while a frontier surgeon tries to work a miracle. Burning with fury, armed with a gun and a badge, Smoke Jenson goes on the hunt - a posse of one against a gang of outlaws more dangerous than he can know.

A gunshot wound has robbed Audubon, Texas, of its top lawman at the worst possible time. Clete Lanagan and his band of outlaws have hatched a scheme to plunder the town bank of a small fortune in railroad money. When the acting sheriff, Dalton Conyers - half-brother of Smoke’s niece Rebecca - is unable to raise a posse to hunt down Lanagan’s gang, he calls on Smoke for help. But with so much cash at stake, Lanagan won’t go down without a fight.

In the depth of a cruel High Lonesome winter comes a cryptic message for Smoke Jensen. The letter tells of skullduggery by gold barons, railroad magnates, and Chinese tongs in San Francisco. Smoke knows only one person in the city by the bay: the well-rounded, open-natured Francie, mistress of one of the town's most notorious pleasure palaces.

The trouble with being the fastest gun alive was having to prove it to all the trigger-happy gunmen who scoured the West itching for a challenge. Some traveled even further — Count Frederick von Hausen sailed across the Atlantic from Germany to hunt the most dangerous game of all — Smoke Jensen. Gathering together a hunting party of the toughest, most ruthless hard cases in the West, von Hausen shadowed Smoke into Wyoming's high Rockies — the odds were worse than 50 to 1.

Smoke Jensen couldn't have cared less about a range war that had erupted in far-off Montana. But when his cousin Fae is stuck right in the middle of the hundred-gun showdown that's exploding in bullets and blood, he rides to intercede in the name of family. He's joined on his mission by the Moab Kid and legendary gunfighters Charlie Starr and Pistol Le Roux.

Smoke Jensen has come to Corpus Christi, Texas, to take delivery of 500 horses he purchased from and old friend. That's when a Mexican revolutionary, Colonel Butamante Keno, brazenly crashes the border, slaughters 22 innocent US citizens in cold blood, and steals a thousand head of cattle - along with 200 of Smoke's horses.

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.

Robber baron Clifton Satterlee's plan is twofold and simple: Wrest the timber-thick hills in New Mexico Territory from the Tua Pueblo and then populate the town with his own subservient labor force. But in his near-perfect campaign of terror, Satterlee has overlooked one mighty obstacle: Smoke Jensen.

Mountain man Smoke Jensen lives by the rules of the frontier. The first rule is: the strongest survive. But when bad breaks, bad weather and bad bovines back Smoke into a corner, he needs something to go right. Instead, he faces the kind of tough luck only a gun can beat....A contract to deliver 3000 head of cattle might just do the trick. But a renegade Cheyenne warrior uses an early winter blizzard to attack Smoke and his out-gunned cowboys.

In Montana Territory, one name above all others strikes fear and hatred in the hearts of the Crow Indians - John Jackson, better known these days as Liver-Eating Jackson. Consumed by grief and rage, the mountain man has brutally killed 10 braves so far in his one-man war of vengeance against the Crow, who murdered his beloved wife. Smoke Jensen knows Jackson by another name - "friend". He's not sure to what extent Jackson's exploits are true - devastating loss and frontier savagery have certainly driven lesser men mad.

Joey Wells has a score to settle in Pueblo: Find Jacob Murdock and the band of vaqueros who attacked his wife and drown them in their own stinking blood. Smoke Jensen, the trigger-ready legend of the "High Lonesome," is more than willing to strap on a brace of 45's to help out Wells - especially if it involves nailing some dirty renegades to the wall. But things are tougher than Jensen imagined. Murdock and his men aren't just hiding out in Pueblo - they've taken it over.

The town of Bury took up a piece of Idaho Territory that was still raw, untamed frontier. It was no place for the cowardly or faint-hearted, but Smoke Jensen was neither. Nor were Stratton, Potter and Richards, the three bloodthirsty outlaws who came there to live. Or, if Smoke had his way...to die! It had been years since hired gunhands had murdered Smoke’s wife and son, but the pain was as fresh as yesterday. And so was Smoke’s need for revenge. He's come a long way to find the bandit trio responsible for his family's brutal massacre.