Western Fiction

Two outlaw brothers have been leaving a blood-trail on their way to infamy on the western frontier. Until bounty hunter Luke Jensen catches one of the black-hearted Kroll brothers away from his gang. But while Luke is trying to get Mordecai Kroll from jail to justice, he's ambushed by the Kroll gang and taken prisoner. And that draws Luke's own brother, Smoke Jensen, into the fight, guns drawn....

When Ben Savage receives a telegram informing him that an old friend died - and left him his saloon - he’s not sure what to think. Western saloons are as wild as it gets, full of rowdy ranchers and cocky cowboys, high-stakes gamblers and low-life drifters, hard liquor and easy women. Then there’s the occasional outlaw gang. But when Savage travels to Buzzard’s Bluff, Texas, to check out his inheritance, he meets the saloon’s lovely manager, Rachel Baskin, and has a change of heart.

Opening in the settlement of Long Grass, Texas - not quite in Kansas, and nearly New Mexico - we encounter the taciturn Wyatt, whiling away his time in between bottles, and the dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc, more adept at poker than extracting teeth. Now hailed as heroes for their days of subduing drunks in Abilene and Dodge - more often with a mean look than a pistol - Wyatt and Doc are living out the last days of a way of life that is passing into history, two men never more aware of the growing distance between their lives and their legends.

Jess Bailey broke Cade Walker's heart when she left for the city - but she was just trying to find her own way in the world. When Jess's dad calls her home and tells her he's selling the ranch, she realizes she's about to lose the life she was born to live. And when she sees Cade again, she knows how much she's lost already. As their nearest neighbor, Cade is always trying to help. But he's got his own ranch and his horse training business to think about. Even though his heart fills with hope for a second chance when he sees Jess, she left him once when things got tough.

Jonas Quarrel has tracked Verity from Mexico to Northern California. Just what is he after? Verity Ames finds herself fighting an attraction to Jonas from the moment he knocks on the door of the No Bull Cafe. He seems far too good to be true. Together they will discover a shared passion and a shared danger.

The legendary members of the Jensen family gather together at the Sugarloaf Ranch for one Christmas homecoming they’ll never forget - if they live through it....Smoke Jensen looks forward to spending a quiet holiday with the family. But an unexpected arrival from south of the border has him reaching for his guns, defending his land - and risking everything he loves....

In Dale, Colorado, any cowboy with good sense knows better than to step through the batwings of the Plowshare Saloon - and any sheep-herder crazy enough to belly up to the bar at the Red Dog is ordering the last taste of whiskey he’ll ever lift to his lips. The town of Dale is heading for an all-out war that will pit father against son and brother against brother.

When Luke Jensen traps fugitive Ben Craddock in Arapaho Springs, he’s ready to collect on his bounty. But the job’s not done - not by a long shot. A raid by a savage gang known as the Legion of Fire has left the peaceful settlement looted, burned to the ground, and the ashes scoured for female hostages - including the marshal’s daughter. For Luke this is more than a hunt. It’s now a rescue. And with Craddock busted out of jail and thrown in with the gang, it’s also revenge. Wrangling a small posse, Luke heads for the Legion’s hideout in the Kansas badlands.

What started as a routine hunt and grab - putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison - has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke’s direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke’s side in the war - but the war is over and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold. Now Luke is riding back into the Wyoming wilderness to hunt down McCluskey and his woman to finish what he started.

Now a deputy US Marshal, Chet Byrnes hunts down the baddest hombres the west can throw at him. Chet and his crew must travel to New Mexico to free his cousin J.D. from a corrupt sheriff and his band of deputies. New allies will emerge to help Chet as he squares off with his greatest challenge yet; stopping bandits along the Arizona-Mexico border. Friendship will carry Chet across the Mexican border into a land where the only justice is found at the end of a six-gun.

Chet Byrnes is building a new life in Arizona Territory as he expands his cattle ranching operation - but trouble just keeps coming. A brutal Apache attack on his cattle drive. A friend's young daughter is abducted, and the search leads Chet and his men to the wild town of Tombstone and ultimately south of the border, where everything comes with a price...and life is cheap.

Three days before Christmas, Matt Jensen is traveling the Denver and Pacific railway when an avalanche slams down onto the train, trapping it in desolate Trout Creek Pass. But it wasn’t an act of nature that caused the accident; it was a gang of outlaws attempting to rescue their leader, who is being taken to Red Cliff to be hanged. As Smoke Jensen and Duff MacCallister frantically try to make their way to the scene, Matt struggles to save the survivors, among them a young woman with a dark past, a merchant seaman turned rancher, and a senator with his very ill young daughter.

In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield has a young man’s face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

Trapped in a remote cabin, surrounded by ruthless gunmen, Matt Jensen and his adoptive father Smoke Jensen join forces with their old friend, Preacher, in the greatest fight of their lives. A ruthless cattle baron has waged an all-out war against the peaceful native tribesmen who have become Preacher's friends. In a bloodthirsty bid for land, power, and wealth, the baron's drafted an army of professional killers to destroy the homesteaders - among them the Jensens are the only men brave enough to stand in his way.

Colby McNichols, otherwise known as the baby-faced assassin, is the left wing for the Western Wildcats hockey team. All he has to do is sign his name on the dotted line and he’ll play for the pros after his senior season. What I’ve heard from the girls on campus, who aren’t shy about spilling the tea, is that he’s totally earned his reputation. For reasons I can’t fathom, Colby has decided to insert himself in my life. Everywhere I go, there he is. Which makes holding him at a distance nearly impossible. He might be smoking hot but there’s zero point in starting something with this guy.

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].

Règle N°1 de la meute: Ne jamais rien révéler à un humain. J’ai enfreint cette règle le jour où j’ai rencontré la belle doctoresse. Je suis peut-être un champion de rodéo, mais un seul regard sur elle et j’ai perdu ma concentration. Le taureau m’a éjecté et m’a encorné, et maintenant la belle femelle est après moi. Quand j’ai guéri en quelques heures, elle a su que quelque chose clochait.

Business lately has been deadly for Ike Kelly. Recent unexpected gunplay has left his agency to a single operative. John Henry Cole is that operative. Kelly has received a letter from former lover Lydia Winslow, who operates an escort service in the new mining camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. "Three young women have been murdered since they arrived in camp." It is obviously a dangerous assignment, and Cole is advised that he must take every precaution - as if he needed such advice.

In his mountain man days, Elwood "Firestick" McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name "Firestick". His two best buddies are Malachi "Beartooth" Skinner - whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly's chompers - and Jim "Moosejaw" Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat of battle.

Lilly Preston took a leap of faith and moved to Gracely a year ago to save her nephew from an abusive situation. She would do anything for him, even sacrifice her glamorous job. Reluctantly, the former PR hot shot takes a job at the ruggedly handsome Evans brothers' Mile High Adventures, a company offering restorative Rocky Mountain vacations. Brandon thinks PR is pointless, and Lilly knows less than nothing about the outdoors. Which is exactly why they need each other - in ways neither ever imagined.