Western Fiction

Cord McMillan gave up his freedom at 18 when he went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Now, 10 years later, he’s about to give it up again for a piece of land. Nevada Britain, his neighbor, has just made him an offer he can’t refuse: If he’ll marry her, she’ll sign over a section of property that their families have been fighting over for 100 years. Nevada refuses to explain why, but Cord knows the bargain is in his favor. He just has one condition - she has to sleep in his bed every night for as long as their doomed marriage lasts. Nevada only wants to maintain her family’s legacy - and redeem herself for a wrong she did Cord years ago.

US Deputy Marshall Edward Spencer is re-assigned Colorado to the after the death of his wife. Sheriff Jacob Gannon manages grief over his son's suicide while keeping the peace in the town of Leadville. When an entire herd of cattle destroyed and a young settler girl dies, the two lawmen must join forces despite their differences to look into both...and how the two crimes just might be related.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Watson was an infamous brute who ruled his remote patch of Florida with an iron fist. He had no problem killing those who got in his way, and was even rumored as the murderer of legendary outlaw Belle Starr. By 1910, Watson’s neighbors had endured enough. They greeted him as he returned home and promptly gunned him down.

Before the legend of Preacher there was a man, and before the man there was a boy. In this thrilling new novel, William W. Johnstone tells the story of a young man filled with wanderlust and raw courage - who will someday become a hero. On nothing more than a lark, he leaves his family and begins a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he runs up against badlands and bad men, loses his freedom, gains his freedom, and learns the first rule of the frontier: Do whatever it takes to survive.

After a lifetime of robbing banks and holding up trains, Jimmy "Slash" Braddock and Melvin "Pecos Kid" Baker are ready to call it quits, though not completely by choice. Sold out by their old gang, they have to bust out of jail and pull one last job to finance their early retirement. The target is a rancher's payroll train. Catch is: the train is carrying a Gatling gun and 20 deputy US marshals who know they're coming. Caught and quickly sentenced to hang, their old enemy - the wheelchair-bound, bucket of mean, Marshal L. C. Bledsoe - shows up at the last minute to spare their lives.

Airman Connor O'Riley never believed in love until he saw proof of it in the most unlikely place - a battlefield in the middle of the Syrian civil war. Now he's in hot water with the Air Force, and if he wants to clear his name he'll have to put his new-found belief in love to the test-by convincing his superior officer's daughter to marry him.

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].

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....

A prostitute. A virgin. A tomboy. A woman on the run. And a bank robber’s girlfriend. These five brides-to-be are ready to get hitched in San Angelo, Texas — and it’s Ace and Chance’s job to get them to the church on time. But this is no easy walk down the aisle. It’s one hard journey that could get them all killed....

A beautiful woman, a powerful Mexican rancher, and an exotic new breed of cattle come to John Slaughter’s San Bernardino Valley ranch, along with the prospect of making a small fortune. While Slaughter’s men are out keeping the peace in Tombstone, an act of betrayal turns up the heat under his own roof, and a killer is stalking Slaughter’s wealthy Mexican guest. Indians suddenly savagely attack Slaughter’s ranch, but it is only the first shot in a bigger, blazing Arizona bloodbath.

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.

Hank Fallon used to be one of the best deputy marshals in the country. Then, he got framed for a crime he didn't commit. Got sentenced to 10 years in a federal penitentiary. And got out early for saving the life of the captain of the guards during a riot. When Fallon is released, a private detective is waiting for him. He wants to put Hank behind bars again - but this time, as an undercover agent....

A woman and an iron horse put Matt Jensen in the crosshairs of a man out to reap a fortune with a new railroad through Paiute land. First, Cyrus Longacre steals the land. Next, he frames Matt Jensen for the murder of a beautiful woman. The final step is to keep Matt’s father and grandfather far away from Nevada Territory.... Preacher and Smoke are otherwise engaged — until some hired killers get their attention. Suddenly, the elder Jensens have a hunch young Matt is in trouble and together they’re riding to Paiute country.

The MacCallister clan was raised on a harsh, unforgiving frontier, where courage and blood bonds mattered the most. While Falcon MacCallister followed his father's mountain man legacy, his brother and sister made their fame and fortune on the stages of New York and Europe.... Now they’re planning a family reunion. Andrew and Rosanna MacCallister are headed to Colorado to visit their kin — until they step into the crosshairs of a murderer's plan.

Lawmen don't last long in the town of Doubtful, Wyoming Territory. The last one quit, another ended up in a hangman's noose, and one more was backshot by the hired guns at the Circle L Ranch. But the town of Doubtful has never seen the likes of the man who's known only as Cotton, who aims to take the badge for $125 a month, save himself a nice chunk of money over the next year, and be on his way. At least, that's his plan.

Matt and Sam never could refuse a damsel in distress, so a whole coach load of lovelies, lead by the fetching Charity McKenzie, seems like a gift from heaven. But if it looks too good to be true, it usually is — and in short order the blood will start to flow. Matt and Sam rush in anyway and faster than you can say “soiled doves,” they’re up to their necks in trouble.

Young Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves became blood brothers on the day the rancher's son saved the half breed's life, forging a bond no one could ever break. Beneath the Montana big sky, Matt learned the ways of the Cheyenne from his friend. And as years passed, a legend grew of the breed and the white man who rode together — and who could jerk killing iron with the best of them....

The town called Fury, Arizona was started with a lick and a prayer and has been fighting for its life ever since. But in spite of drought, strife, and an attack by Mexican bandits, Fury has managed to grow and thrive. Jason Fury, the sheriff, is partly responsible for the town's success. He should be; Fury was named after his father. But now, a new relentless threat has appeared on the horizon. Lone Wolf and his Apaches are determined to bring the town to its knees.

Outlaws have again taken Frank Morgan's son and the Drifter is fortunate to get some help from an unexpected source. But just as Morgan gets close to the men he's hunting, he comes upon a ghost town nestled into a Rocky Mountain valley. For Morgan, the mystery of what happened to the town and of a deadly spirit that haunts it, has to take second fiddle to what's brought him this far. Determined to free his son, he'll face his enemies in this godforsaken place, where amidst the ghosts, the gunfighters, and the gunsmoke, he'll make sure the killing is real.

In a hail of thunder and gunfire, Jeston Nash fled a new Orleans billiards hall with a land deed in one hand, a blazing pistol in the other. He'd won his gamble with Quick Quintan Cordell fair and square. But in seconds, violence flared, Cordell lay dead, and Sheriff Pat Garret's voice still rang in Nash's ears...somewhere, someday, they would meet again....Jeston Nash learned about robbery from his cousin, Jesse James. But it was the wild outlaw Billy the Kid who taught him that even a wanted man is just a man. Nash catches up with the kid in a dusty town of drunken bottle-shooters.