Résultats de "William W. Johnstone" dans Toutes les catégories

At first, the job sounds easy: lead a small herd of horses across the Arkansas–Texas border to the Double-D ranch near Texarkana. No problem—at least not for a man like Perley Gates. In fact, he’s looking forward to the 150-mile journey with his old sidekick Possum Smith and young Sonny Rice, and doesn’t expect any trouble along the way. Unfortunately, trouble has a way of finding Perley Gates. This time, it’s a trigger-happy trio of horse thieves who take one look at old Possum, young Sonny, and the low-key Perley, and decide they’re three very easy targets.

Trigger-happy outlaws are giving the Texas Rangers a lot more trouble lately than they can handle, leaving most of Texas in a heap of trouble. So when Bodine and Two Wolves drift into the sleepy cattle town of San Angelo, Ranger Josiah Finch - knowing their reputation with the killing iron - convinces them to pin on badges and put their talents to work for his side of the law.

There are a million ways to die in the great state of Texas. And on the lawless streets of New Hope, the odds are even worse. Once the home of Comanche, the region has been up for grabs since the settlers drove off the natives. Now it’s a magnet for settlers looking for cheap land, merchants looking to exploit its resources—and outlaws looking for a place to hide in between robbing and killing.

Those Jensen boys, Ace and Chance, find themselves on the wrong side of the law—and the raw end of justice—inside the meanest, dirtiest prison in the Arizona territory. When a barroom brawl lands Ace and Chance Jensen in jail, it’s just the beginning of a nightmare that will never end. Their jailmates are army deserters. Even worse, their jailers assume Ace and Chance are deserters, too. Which earns them even more hard time—on a brutal prison chain gang.

In Montana Territory, one name above all others strikes fear and hatred in the hearts of the Crow Indians - John Jackson, better known these days as Liver-Eating Jackson. Consumed by grief and rage, the mountain man has brutally killed 10 braves so far in his one-man war of vengeance against the Crow, who murdered his beloved wife. Smoke Jensen knows Jackson by another name - "friend." He's not sure to what extent Jackson's exploits are true - devastating loss and frontier savagery have certainly driven lesser men mad.

n the darkest days of the Civil War, Neville Goldsmith set the world on fire. As Captain for the Union Army, he marched with General Sherman through Georgia, setting homes and cities ablaze with sadistic glee. For Goldsmith, starting fires was a lifelong obsession. And when the war ended, he set his sights on the great American West—to burn it all to the ground. Years later, Luke Jensen learns about a series of fires wreaking havoc from the Dakota Territory to Kansas.

It's hard country, but the pioneers of Fury (Population 112) are banding together to make it a home. With barren lands, blinding dust storms, drought, hostile Indians and violent bands of cutthroat outlaws against them, death is never far away. It's enough to make Jason Fury, whose father the town was named after, ride out for San Francisco. But a fiery young redhead named Megan McDonald keeps him Arizona bound - and just in time.

Founded in 1866, The Frontier Overland Company was no ordinary stagecoach operation. To begin with, its founding partners met in a Wyoming saloon brawl. After a raucous burst of punching, cursing, and chair smashing, the last two men standing become friends for life. Two kindred souls with the same fighting spirit, Tucker Cobb and former Texas Ranger Butch Keeling agreed to launch a business together: a brand-new stagecoach line through the wilds of Wyoming . . .

From Confederate marauder to rebel gunfighter to repentant preacherman, circuit rider Taylor Callahan’s road to perdition has been a hellish ride. Sinners beware. After riding with Missouri bushwhackers, Taylor Callahan vowed to never take another life. He’s making good on it in Peaceful Valley. By day, swamping a saloon. By night, preaching the Good Book. But this little settlement is about to become anything but peaceable. When the marshal takes a bullet in a sheepman-cattleman skirmish, he pins a badge on Taylor, leaving the circuit rider open to whole new world of hell.

Luke Jensen has seen some sorry looking bounties in his time, but this one takes the cake. A wanted poster is offering a reward of one dollar and 42 cents — plus one busted harmonica — to capture Three-Fingered Jack McKinney. Turns out, McKinney’s 12-year-old son Aaron wants revenge on his daddy for abandoning him and his mom. The reward is all the money Aaron can scrape together. Luke can’t say no to the poor boy — or his beautiful mother — so he agrees to go after McKinney and his bank-robbing gang.

Sheriff Jess Carey and his oddball band of sidekicks have pulled off the impossible, taming Hell’s Half Acre, the most lawless town in Texas, infamous for murder, mayhem, prostitution, and every random act of bloodshed imaginable. Now the no-good politicians in Austin have decided it’s cheaper to dump hordes of criminals on Jess Carey’s town than hanging ‘em. In one dreadful week, it seems as if the gates of Hell have burst open.

It starts with a prison break in Missouri. When notorious bank robber Ansel McCoy busts out, he teams up with five other outlaws. Then he and his gang rob a bank in Kansas. Now they’re crossing state lines into Oklahoma Indian Territory. And that’s where US Marshal Will Tanner steps in.

For Smoke and Sally Jensen, the Sugarloaf Ranch is the American Dream come true. A glorious stretch of untamed land near the Colorado-Kansas border, it’s the perfect place to stake their claim, raise some cattle, and start a new family. But when a man claiming to be an army colonel arrives in Big Rock—with a well-armed militia—the Jensens’ dream becomes a living nightmare. This stranger calls himself Colonel Lamar Talbot. He’s come to warn them about a looming war with the Cheyenne Indians. And only he can save them from a bloody massacre—by launching a counterattack that’s even bloodier.

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.

Building a ranch takes heart and grit. Smoke and Sally Jensen are more than capable of meeting the challenges of shaping the land, raising the livestock, and establishing their brand. But Smoke wasn’t always an entrepreneur. He’s more apt to settle accounts with a fast draw than a checkbook. And when he learns his old friend Preacher has been ambushed by outlaws, he wastes no time saddling up and hitting the vengeance trail with his fellow mountain men Audie and Nighthawk.

As sleepy as Buffalo Peak's been, legendary marshal, Elwood "Firestick" McQueen, and his deputies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks never expected a couple of drifters to wake it up—by kidnapping two lovely ladies in town. Hardly the sharpest quills on a cactus, these dim drifters call it courtin'. Firestick doesn't see it that way. Now the woman snatchers are heading for West Texas with their reluctant brides-to-be—and unwittingly plunging trackers Firestick and Moosejaw headlong into a rescue.

In the criminal underworld of Laramie County, Lucien Clay was king. He terrorized the locals, robbed the coffers, and ruled the place with an iron fist. Thankfully he’s behind bars now—along with a load of other lowlife scum—thanks to Laramie’s new sheriff, Buck Trammel. Unfortunately, Buck can only enforce the law while others specialize in working around it: namely, lawyers. And no lawyer is more crooked or corrupt than the belly-crawling snake Clay hired to get him out. By any means possible.

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.

In Killing Ground, legendary gunslinger Frank Morgan is content as marshal of his Nevada hometown. Trouble rides in, however, when Dex Brighton shows up with an authentic-looking claim to the local silver mine. Suspicious of this stranger, Frank sends for some legal eagles. But after they’re gunned down, Frank realizes the looming standoff must be settled by the law of hot lead.

On the wild western frontier, the three men known as the Jackals stand between the law and the lawless—delivering their own brand of justice with a fast draw, dead aim, and enough bullets to populate Boot Hill. Apache renegade Bloody Hand plays a role in each of the Jackals’ lives. To bounty hunter Jed Breen, he is man with a price on his head. To retired cavalry segeant Sean Keegan, he is a cellmate after a drunken brawl. And to former Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch, he is the key to a mystery that has long haunted him.