Western Fiction

In a town like Chugwater, Wyoming, you know who your friends are, who your enemies are, and who your kill-crazy maniacs are. For Duff MacCallister, the last category belongs to Johnny Taylor and his gang. Duff has wrestled with this polecat before, and knows that his bite is worse than his smell. But when Taylor's gang tries to rob a bank - and Duff manages to shoot one and arrest Taylor's brother - the outraged outlaw raises a stink straight out of hell.

It’s been barely a decade since the notorious gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Rustlers and outlaws still terrorize the land, and the good citizens of Tombstone are at the end of their ropes. Enter Texas John Slaughter — the new sheriff of Cochise County and the toughest lawman west of the Rio Grande. With a young pretty wife, a sprawling cattle ranch, and a backbone of steel to match the iron law of his badge, Texas John is determined to bring peace to this parched desert hell even if it kills him.

1893 is a tough year in Montana, and any job is a good job. When Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer sign on as ranch hands at the secretive Bar-VR cattle spread, they're not expecting much more than hard work, bad pay, and a comfortable campfire around which they can enjoy their favorite pastime: scouring Harper's Weekly for stories about the famous Sherlock Holmes.

Enticed by the richest poker tournament the West has ever seen, a horde of cheating and ruthless of card players is gathering at Tombstone, Arizona. Lawman John Slaughter already has his hands full when a local Romeo takes off with a rancher’s daughter and draws the ire of her father and a blood-thirsty posse. Back in town, a murder shatters the poker tournament, where a beautiful Englishwoman is the prime suspect.

Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves were hard on a trail that led them deeper and deeper into Apache territory toward the Mexican border where a bunch of varmints, desperate men who hire out to most anybody to most anything, were operatin' two of the scummiest dodges in the west. Running guns to the Apache and white-slaving kidnapped children. Matt and Sam had hooked up with two companions along the way, a prideful mountain man who'd lost his granddaughter in an Indian raid and a miss searchin' for her brother, taken by the Apache a while back.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the High Sierras. But Smoke Jensen and his children, Louis and Denise, won’t let a little snow stop them from heading to Reno for the holidays. There are two ways for them to get there: the long way, going around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, or the short way, going right through them. Smoke decides to take a gamble. They’ll follow the trail that, decades earlier, brought the legendary Donner Party to a gruesome, tragic end....

In the fall of 1873, a wagon train of immigrants sets off from Kansas City, Missouri, bound for the Montana Territory. Leading the group is newly elected wagonmaster Jamie Ian MacCallister, a giant of a man and frontier legend who swears he can get them there by Christmas - come hell or high snow drifts....Plagued by brutally harsh storms and rugged terrain, outlaws and hostile Indians, the journey will be the greatest challenge these pioneers will ever face.

On the rolling Missouri River, a riverboat of fur traders, a US senator, and Prussian royalty are all heading to the Yellowstone from St. Louis. Preacher's onboard because the nation's fate depends on the passengers landing safe and sound. But it won't be easy.

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.

Riverboat gambling is a blast, until hot-headed Chance finds out just what he won in his final hand against a Missouri River gambler named Haggarty. Chance's "prize" is a beautiful Chinese slave girl named Ling. The twins want to set Ling free and keep their cash, but at Fort Benton, Ling gives them the slip, robbing them blind. When they hunt her down in Rimfire, Montana, she's with Haggarty, lining up their next mark.

Bull Hunter was a young Western boy of unusual size who eventually became known as the “Gentle Giant”. Because of his stature and prodigious strength, along with a sort of natural timidity, Bull was often derided, even by his cousins, as being “slow” mentally. Eventually, he met and was befriended by a famous gunfighter who taught him how to use a gun. That changed a lot of derogatory opinions about him, and he didn’t get bullied any more.

In the redwood country of northern California, Frank Morgan, a.k.a. the Last Gunfighter, discovers a mutilated corpse. A killing beast roams these woods. The loggers call it The Terror of the Redwoods. A local timber baron has put a bounty on the hide of this man-beast and the woods are teeming with so many trigger-happy dolts and half-cocked drunkards that someone's bound to get hurt. Frank Morgan doesn't believe in such creatures and decides to get to the bottom of this tall tale.

Harmony Briggs always knew what she wanted - until she realized she wanted more. The gorgeous Southern beauty knew that only one man would be able to fulfill her wildest dreams and fantasies, but unfortunately, he was just out of reach.... Hudson Reed was used to playing by the rules and sticking to reality. And for the rippling cop, reality meant loving her from afar.... When it comes to love, she'll learn that the heart wants what it wants, and he'll learn there's more to her than meets the eye in Discovering Harmony.

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.

The adventure begins for Falcon MacCallister in the town of Tombstone, where his new-found friend Doc Holliday gets an invitation to a dance of death at the O.K. Corral. From there, Falcon will travel from the Arizona border to the shadows of the Dragoon Mountains, pursuing a murderous band of Apaches led by the Mescalero chief Naiche. His warriors are bent on the slaughter of every man, woman and child they encounter on their way to a war council with Chief Gokaleh, better known as the infamous Geronimo.

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.

Hoping to escape the shame of her street urchin's life in Boston, Anna Reardon plotted a desperate scheme - to become Karl Lindstrom's mail-order bride in the beautiful, dangerous frontier of Minnesota. A kind and gentle man, Karl forgave Anna for her deceptions. But there was still one burning secret she had to hide from him, knowing its revelation would destroy the love they had come to cherish.

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.

Scream of Eagles is the fourth book in William W. Johnstone’s epic saga of the MacCallister clan, a family caught up in the vivid sweep of American history. Jamie Ian MacCallister has survived the bloodshed of the Alamo and the Civil War. Now the battle has gotten personal: Jamie is on a one-man vendetta against the Miles Nelson gang, the men responsible for the brutal murder of his wife Kate. His journey of revenge will take him from Atlantic City to the deadly landscape of the Colorado Rockies - and finally to the Battle of Little Big Horn.