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

Red Ryan should've known this job would be trouble. The first stop is a ghost town and the cargo is a coffin. But things start to look a little brighter when Red and his stage guard Buttons Muldoon deliver the corpse to a ranch run by the beautiful Luna Talbot. Luna asks the boys to help them find the Lucky Cuss Gold Mine, using a map tucked inside the dead man's pocket. Red has a feeling they're playing with fire. Especially when the map leads them straight into crossfire of a ferocious range war.

For Smoke and his daughter Denny, life on the Sugarloaf Ranch is more valuable than all the gold in the world. Which works out fine, since all the gold mines in Big Rock were squeezed dry years ago. Even so, that won’t stop a pair of businessmen from the East from trying to squeeze out a little more. One of them has developed a newfangled method for extracting gold—something called “hydraulics”—and they’ve bought up all the old mines to do it. Smoke isn’t sure what to think of. Especially when they hire a small army of gunfighters to protect their mines from sabotage.

A new railroad line is coming to Hansen's Bend—and the Old West will never be the same. Especially for the Callahans. They've been running the local wagon train outfit for years. But now a pompous rail boss named Arbuckle wants to put them out of business. This big-city weasel mocks the Callahans' "slow-poke" wagons-and bets he can finish laying track all the way to the end of the line before Callahan's wagon train even makes it over the mountains. Callahan accepts the challenge—and gets gunned down before it even starts . . .

Vance Brewster is a hardworking young cowboy. Stovepipe and Wilbur are two new ranch hands working at his side. And all three are caught up in a brewing, trigger-happy Montana range war between the Rafter M and Three Rivers. Then the fury suddenly explodes - in a hail of gunfire, the three men must show their hands: they’re all hiding their true identities. With Vance falling in love with the daughter of the Three Rivers manager, and Stovepipe and Wilbur paid by a tycoon who needs the violence to stop, all three are in mortal danger.

When Frank Morgan gets to a town called Los Angeles, he can see the forces gathering around him. For the Spanish landowners, wealth is measured in cattle on the open range. For hard nosed oilmen, a fortune is in the ground - in the form of shining black crude oil.... When blood is spilled on the sun-seared land, Morgan allies himself with a beautiful, widowed rancher - even as he cuts a deal with an ambitious wildcatter. Morgan is not trying out treachery.

There's nothing like a wedding to bring families together. And there's no place like the Sugarloaf Ranch to throw a foot-stomping hoedown - even if it turns into a gun-blazing showdown. Smoke and Sally Jensen are delighted that their son, Louis, is marrying the lovely widow he met during a perilous stagecoach journey through the Donner Pass. The whole family welcomes the bride and her young son with open arms.

As a teenager, John McMasters won the Medal of Honor as a sniper for the Union Army during the Civil War. Thirty years later, McMasters lives a peaceful life in the Arizona Territory, raising a family and running cattle. These days, he needs eyeglasses to hit a distant target. But that doesn't stop his wife and four children from buying him a special present for his 50th birthday: a beautiful new Remington shotgun. Turns out, he's going to need it....The Butcher gang has come to town. By the time McMasters learns of their arrival, they've invaded his ranch and slaughtered his family.

After spending most of his young life driving cattle from Texas to Nevada, Will Tanner is ready to wash the trail dust from his throat. Maybe it was fate that brought him to the Morning Glory Saloon on the border of Indian Territory - or just plain bad luck - because right after his sits down three rough-looking characters walk into the bar with vengeance in their eyes, guns at their sides...and fingers on their triggers. The trio's target is the famous US Deputy Marshal Dove who arrested one of their kin - and who's sitting in the bar near Will Tanner.

The year is 1884. A 10-year-old British boy has come to visit his uncle’s Wyoming spread, just as the vicious Yellow Kerchief Gang has the ranch under siege. Outgunned and outmatched, a British rancher is willing to pay $5000 for help. That is more than enough money to bring Matt Jenson into the fray. A huge, bloody gunfight, fueled by betrayal, erupts at the Powder River. But Matt has to shoot carefully. The Yellow Kerchief Gang has a hostage — the British lad named Winnie.

Busted out of prison by an outlaw friend, Flintlock joins a hunt for a fortune - a golden bell hanging in a remote monastery. But between the smouldering ruin of his former jail cell and a treasure in the Arizona mountains there will be blood at a U.S. Army fort, a horrifying brush with Apache warriors, and a dozen bloody showdowns with the schemers, shootists, madmen, and lost women who find their way to Flintlock's side.

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.

Deadwood, South Dakota. Miners flock there seeking fortunes, while cardsharps, bandits, and businessmen seek to deprive those who strike gold by means fair and foul. Legendary former lawman Seth Bullock plans to keep the peace by any means necessary—especially when his good friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, is expected in town to celebrate the anniversary of Deadwood's founding.

Preacher has agreed to escort Barnaby Cooper through Dakota Territory’s hills to establish a trading post. Accompanied by his friends Lorenzo and Tall Dog, the mountain man hopes they’ll be able to protect Cooper from Sioux warriors who don’t want any white man trespassing on their sacred grounds. But the Sioux aren’t the only hostiles staking their claim in the region.

It's one of the great mysteries of the Old West. The unexplained disappearance of a hunting party of Prussian nobles who entered the American wilderness - and never returned. Now, years later, the Prussian government demands an explanation. In response, the US Army hires Preacher and Jamie MacCallister to join their search party - along with a band of Prussian soldiers led by the sinister Baron Adalwolf von Kuhner. Some believe it's a hopeless mission, that the original party was slaughtered by the Blackfeet. Others think there may be survivors, likely women held captive as slaves.

Once a respected lawman in Kansas and Oklahoma, Ty Brannigan ended his career as town marshal of Warknife while he was still young enough to marry, start a family, and raise cattle. Now nearly sixty, he’s a proud husband, father of four, and proprietor of the Powderhorn Ranch. He’s more content wrangling cows than criminals. But for every outlaw Brannigan put in jail, noosed, or left to the vultures, he made even more enemies. They’ve made the mistake of targeting his wife and children—only to discover that Ty Brannigan enforces his own law with a lightning-fast draw.

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.

There's nothing particularly unusual for a legendary gunman to be summoned to the lawless, bullet-riddled territory of Arizona. But when Frank Morgan, aka the Last Gunfighter, rides into Tucson, he finds himself ambushed and kidnapped by ruthless Mexican bandit Ramirez's army of thugs. The only way out is for Frank's son, Conrad Browning, heir to the vast Browning fortune, to ransom his father free. But Conrad isn't giving up one cent. He's got a far deadlier currency in mind.

Wagon Master Clayton Scofield has led countless families across the dusty, wide open territories of the West, helping the brave, sometimes reckless, pioneers settle into new lives brimming with the promise of good fortune. Accompanied on his latest trail by his nephew Clint Buchanan, riding as scout, and cook Spud Williams, Scofield finds himself guiding a train of thirty wagons from Independence, Missouri, to the distant dream of Oregon.

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.

Unlike his brothers Jacob, Sam, and Patrick, Shawn O'Brien isn't content to settle down on the family ranch in New Mexico territory. With his razor-sharp eye, lightning-fast draw, and burning thirst for justice, Shawn is carving out a reputation of his own. As a town tamer, he takes the most dangerous, lawless towns in the West and makes them safe for decent men, women, and children.