Smoke Mountain

In the bush country of South Texas, Captain Richard King built a sprawling ranch called Santa Gertrudis. But at the end of the Civil War, while King was in Mexico, his ranch was raided by Union troops led by a sadistic killer who burned Santa Gertrudis to the ground - and slaughtered everyone on it. Thirty years later, King's land is about to run with blood once more. Former Union Captain Jack Brant has gotten out of prison and is raring to pick up his rampage where he left off.

When preacher-gone-wrong Lazarus Cain sets his sights on pilfering a herd of cattle and a team of horses, his first mistake is crossing the Sugarloaf Ranch - and the owner, Smoke Jensen. Now, Cain will have to build an army of cut throats and brigands in order to stand a chance against Jensen and his gunfighter friends.

For Smoke, it starts at a high-class auction for a pureblood Hereford bull. Smoke wins the bidding - and earns the hatred of Pogue Quentin, Santa Clara’s leading citizen and a man living on bloodshed and lies. Then Smoke’s friend Pearlie drifts to Santa Clara. And when Pearlie runs afoul of Quentin, all hell will break loose. Now Smoke Jensen is heading to Santa Clara to face a man who already wants him dead - but Pogue Quentin never met anything like the fire of a mountain man....

Smoke Jensen has seen the worst that men can do on the lawless frontier. But even the mountain man is not prepared for the outlaw band that strikes Smoke’s ranch, kidnapping Sally and the daughter of Smoke’s neighbor. Now, the women are gone and a ranch hand and his young daughter are dead.

Kate Coldane has sweated blood for this saloon, and she won’t let it go down without a fight. Silas Atwood may be the richest rancher in Hudspeth County, but that doesn’t give him the right to push her around. When Atwood sends one of his goons to cause trouble at her watering hole, Kate’s son Rusty guns him down. It may have been self defense, but Atwood is the law, and that means Rusty has to run.

They're hanging Bobby Lee Cabot in Cloverdale, Nevada on Friday. Or so they think. Thursday brings Smoke Jensen to town. In another life, Bobby Lee was almost kin to Smoke, and guilty or not, Smoke will blast Cloverdale sky high if that's what it takes to set his old friend free. By midnight, Smoke and Billy Ray are riding hell-for-leather out of Cloverdale, and into a war between cunning railroad robbers and the organization sworn to stop them. Bobby Lee was working for the railroads until he was betrayed. Now, both men are pursued by deadly enemies on either side of the law.

They called him fastest gun alive, but Smoke Jensen is determined to stay on the right side of the law. That is, until he's jumped by six low-life robbers who steal his shirt - and his identity. Smoke's tried for robbery and murder, and sentenced to hang in morning. Someone's out to frame the Mountain Man...someone who's made a big mistake. Barely managing to escape on the morning of his hanging, Smoke's going after the desperados who've set him up.

If there’s one thing Smoke Jensen hates, it’s a man who fights dirty. And no one fights dirtier than a politician. Especially a lying, cheating, no-good grifter like Senator Rex Underhill. Luckily, with another election coming up, this senatorial snake in the grass has some serious competition: Smoke’s old friend, Sheriff Monte Carson. Carson’s an honest man, and he’s got Smoke’s full support. But Underhill’s got support, too: a squad of hired guns ready to hit the campaign trail - and stain it red with blood.

He calls himself The King. Once a respected professor, he was ruined by scandal. Now, he rules his own “country” — an area of western territory where an army of outlaws enforce his laws. Any town he claims as his own must pay “taxes,” collected from bank, stagecoach, and train robberies. When he learns that President Rutherford B. Hayes and General William Tecumseh Sherman are venturing into the far west on a tour of the nation, The King devises a plan to kidnap America’s leaders and expand his empire.

Smoke Jensen never would have come back to the gold-mining town of Red Light, Montana, if it hadn't been for his sister Janey's estate. That isn't the only thing the Last Mountain Man has to settle, however. There's also the score between him and Major Cosgrove, the man who owns Red Light and who is trying to lay claim to Janey's land. All that stands between Cosgrove and the land is an avenging gunslinger with a blazing .44 - and a good reason to use it.

Smoke Jensen is the most powerful man on the Sugarloaf frontier - and he's all that stands between a greedy group of Eastern slickers and their schemes for a criminal empire in the Rockies. When Smoke heads back to Boston with his wife, it gives his enemies the opening they'd been waiting for: to kill the mountain man and take over the West. But even on the unfamiliar turf of back alleys and teeming docks, Smoke is more than most men can handle...until his wife is kidnapped.

Framed for the murder of a rancher, Smoke Jensen must escape the angry lynch mob out for his blood, win the trust of the widow of his supposed victim, and clear his name by exposing the land-hungry killers responsible for the crime.

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.

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. Smoke once rescued her from raiding Cheyenne, but now Madame Francie is mysteriously dead...and Smoke's arrival in San Francisco is less than welcoming.

Original spiritual poetry. The words dance while your heart draws near to God. Do you have questions? There are answers. The printed book shows the poetry in elegant shapes. Most are wine glasses. The place where the piece comes together—where the listener can grasp hold of the message—is there a person picks up the glass to drink from. Contemplative complex poetry meant to feed the mind and soul with spiritual food.

Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and the quickest draw in the West. But he was tired of fighting every punk who wanted to make a reputation for himself, so he hung up his .45s. Like Smoke Jensen, the two Mexican gunfighters known as Carbone and Martine had put away their six-guns, married, and turned to ranching down in Durango. Then they came up against an army of outlaws under a warlord who called himself Carvajal. That was when they called on Smoke Jensen. Smoke didn't waste a minute.