Showing results by author "J. A. Johnstone" in All Categories

When Smoke Jensen sees a gang of outlaws holding up a stagecoach, his gunfighter instincts take over and he storms in with guns blazing. He kills one of the gunmen, the rest scatter like the rats they are. Another notch on the sharpshooter’s weathered grip. But the dead man is the brother of the notorious outlaw Gabe Briggs, and Briggs will want revenge.... Tired of the savagery of the lawless countryside, Smoke’s wife Sally heads back east for a spell, only to find the big city choking in filth, violence, and corruption. Before Sally can head back home, though, she’s snatched right off the street.

In the best-selling novels of William W. Johnstone, mountain man Smoke Jensen is a legend. Now, Johnstone presents the adventures of Smoke's long-lost brother Luke, who was reported killed during the Civil War. The war is over and Luke is very much alive, his soul forged by the violence he witnessed on the battlefields. His job is now tracking down the worst outlaws - by any means necessary.

Luke Jensen brings a body to Rio Rojo. After all, it's his job and he's going to get paid. But before he can collect the bounty for killing a killer, two notorious criminals hit the Rio Rojo bank. Now Luke can't get paid unless he catches bandit Gunner Kelly and his Apache sidekick Dog Eater. Unfortunately, a would-be man hunter is after the money-toting outlaws, too, and young Hobie McCullough is mostly a menace to himself. With a green kid to protect, renegade Mexican soldiers, and a beautiful runaway bride crossing Luke's trail, the blood hunt takes one deadly detour after another.

After a long hard journey up the Chisholm Trail, Kate Kerrigan is in Dodge City, facing a mystery of murder. A cowboy she hired, a man with a notorious past, has been accused of killing a prostitute and sentenced to hang. Kate still trusts Hank Lowry. And when a hired killer comes after her, she knows she has struck a nerve. Someone has framed Hank for murder - in order to cover up a more sinister and deadly crime spawned in the musty backrooms of the Kansas boomtown....

Kate Kerrigan has seen the blood-soaked face of war. But nothing has prepared her for the assault on her land that begins with an eviction order hammered onto the door of her family's cabin. Beautiful, cold-blooded Savannah Saint James has her sights set on the Kerrigan property - and 12 of the deadliest hired guns in Texas are ready to back her play. Kate has her sons by her side, a ragtag group of ranchers who don't like outsiders messing with their cattle, and a fighting spirit passed down from her Irish ancestors.

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.

Framed for murder, Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac’s never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west — as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He’s as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun — which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins....

As proprietors of the growing DT Cattle Company, Casey Tubbs and Eli Doolin finally have a business of their own. If they’re going to spend their remaining years corralling cows, at least they can line their own pockets with the fruits of their labor instead of making wealthy ranchers even wealthier. Unfortunately, the meat market has seen better days and the DT’s finances are drying up faster than a rain puddle—leaving Casey and Eli no choice but to procure cash by any means necessary—usually robbing banks.

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.

There’s something rotten in Wyoming, and it’s not just the smell of cow pies — the first whiff is coming off the Laramie County Cattlemen. Right off the bat, Duff notices something odd: no small-time ranchers allowed. It’s big-leaguers only. And none are bigger than Brad Houser, owner of the sprawling Twin Peaks ranch. He’s up in arms over the small-timers claiming the unbranded mavericks who escape their herds. Which is perfectly legal. No brand, free cow.

Descended from a long line of fighters, lovers, and dreamers, the MacCallister clan are legends in their homeland of Scotland. But when Duff MacCallister came to America, it seems he brought the legend - and the war - along with him.... Here in America, life is full of surprises. Duff never expected to hear from his old friend Charles McGregor, his battalion commander from the Black Watch Regiment of Her Majesty's army. Turns out McGregor lives in New Mexico now. And he needs Duff's help.

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.

When Duff MacCallister sees smoke rising from his neighbor’s ranch, he knows that something is very wrong. But he isn’t prepared for what he finds: smoldering buildings, a rancher and his wife brutally slaughtered, and a 14-year-old survivor who could not save her parents. Now, Duff is going after the killers — and his only companion is the headstrong girl who refuses to be left behind.

He's the most notorious cattle rustler in all of Texas. His name - Jebediah Cotton - strikes fear into the hearts of every rancher in the territory. So it's more than a little strange that someone would shoot Cotton's youngest son in the back. Whoever did it is either a coward, a fool, or a crazy man. Whoever did it must die. Even if he's a US deputy marshal named Will Tanner....

Doing time in Texas is no picnic. But getting sent to The Walls in Huntsville is a fate worse than hanging. If the guards don't kill you, the prisoners will. And if it weren't for the fact that the man who framed Hank Fallon and murdered his family could be inside The Walls, Hank would never step one foot in that heinous helltrap - let alone go undercover as an inmate. But this isn't just another assignment. This is his chance for revenge.

South Texas, 1854. Regis Royle is determined to turn eighteen-thousand acres of raw prairie into the greatest cattle ranch in the world. But he can’t do it alone. The region is wilder than a herd of mustangs—and crawling with rustlers. Teaming up with the Cattlemen’s Justice Consortium, Regis hopes to stop the rustling and start laying tracks for a new railway. Problem is, the cattlemen—including Jarvis “Bone” McGraw, Regis’s own ranch manager—can’t help but lock horns with the Texas Rangers. And it doesn’t take long for this brewing pot of very bad blood to get a whole lot worse.

On the American frontier, every gun tells a story. A boy in Texas waits for a Christmas present he chose from a Montgomery Ward catalog. The present, a brand new, lever action Winchester 1886 and a box of its big .50-caliber slugs, never makes it there. Instead, the rifle is caught up in a train robbery and starts a long and violent journey of its own - from the hands of a notorious, kill-crazy outlaw to an Apache renegade to a hardscrabble rancher and beyond.

As both a prisoner and an undercover operative, US Marshal Hank Fallon has faced down some of the most vicious, terrifying, cold-blooded thieves and murderers in the West. Now, Hank is finally free, and he's got no intention of setting foot inside a jail ever again. But the new federal prison being constructed in Leavenworth, Kansas, needs a warden, and Hank is the right man for the job. He's got the scars to prove it - and to keep the peace. But keeping these lawless hornets in their nest is no easy feat.

The sight of a rotting corpse hanging from a noose is enough to stop any man in his tracks—and Luke Jensen is no exception. Sure, he could just keep riding through. He's got a prisoner to deliver, after all. But when a group of men show up with another prisoner for another hanging, Luke can't turn his back—especially when the condemned man keeps swearing he's innocent. Right up to the moment he's hung by the neck till he's dead . . . Welcome to Hannigan's Hill, Wyoming. Better known as Hangman's Hill.

There are two things a man can never escape: his past and his destiny. For Buck Trammel, that past includes a fatal mistake that ended his career as a Pinkerton and a deadly shootout with the Bower gang in a Witchita saloon. Call it luck or call it fate, but the famous Deputy Wyatt Earp was there to give Buck some advice: Run for your life. Maybe it was Earps warning that saved him from the gangs wrath. Maybe it was destiny that brought him to the town of Blackstone, Wyoming, where his biggest problem is a father-son brewing war. But Trammels luck is about to run dry....