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

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....

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.

Almost overnight, they take over the Springerville. They snatch up the real estate. Turn old-fashioned stores into fancy boutiques. Transform the schools. And bring crime and corruption with them. Now one of these invaders—a predatory media mogul from New York—is running for mayor and plans to turn Springerville into a sprawling urban enclave . . . just like the ones the northerners left behind . . . Not if Gus Fuller can stop it. A former army sergeant and lifelong townie, Gus runs the old luncheonette his grandfather built—and plans to give the media mogul a run for his money.

Civil War is brewing. Everything is about to change. Based on true events. When Regis Royle dreams, he dreams big. And since everything’s bigger in Texas, his dream is to make the Royle Ranch the biggest cattle supplier in the country. Problem is, the country is splitting apart, people are taking sides, and everyone’s gearing up for a full-blown War Between the States. Regis’s kid brother, Shepley, has enlisted in the Army. His trusted foreman “Bone” McGraw has left to rejoin the Texas Rangers. And the rail lines have been rerouted for the war effort.

Keeping the peace in a West Texas town like Buffalo Peak should be easy for a legendary frontiersman like Marshal Elwood "Firestick" McQueen. He’s got his longtime buddies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks as his deputies—not to mention the famous rifle that earned him his nickname. But when Firestick learns that their ornery old friend “Rip” Ripley just rode into town, all bets are off. It’s darn near impossible to keep the peace when Rip’s specialty is disturbing it. Firestick finds a decade-old wanted poster for Rip—the reward is one dollar.

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.

Jonas Madigan is dying. He spent his life taming towns and upholding justice across the west with no regrets. Along the way, Madigan took the measure of good men like Smoke Jensen, who has traveled to Salt Lick, Texas to pay his respects to the lawman. But when bandits gun down the small town’s current marshal—and Smoke sends the killers to Boot Hill—Madigan asks his friend to wear the badge and keep the peace until a permanent replacement is sworn in. Turns out the bandits were members of Bishop’s Mauraders, a twenty-man gang of trigger-happy thieves led by the vicious Snake Bishop.

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.

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.

At the Sugarloaf Ranch, Smoke and Sally Jensen prepare to welcome Preacher home for the holidays - unaware that their friend is trailed by a storm full of trouble. On a mission of vengeance, an old trapper is rescued by Ace and Chance Jensen from ruthless outlaws - and wanted by a driven bounty hunter named Luke Jensen. And, just released from prison, a criminal mastermind assembles a vicious gang of cutthroats to extract his final revenge against his enemy - the sheriff of Big Rock, Colorado.

While most folks are busy preparing for Christmas, the tight-knit Jensen clan can only hope they'll make it home. Luke Jensen is in San Antonio tracking down a dangerous outlaw. But when he finds the man leading a wholesome life - as a charity-working Hill Country pastor - Luke agrees to wait until after Christmas to bring him to justice. Meanwhile, Smoke and Sally Jensen head out from Fort Worth by stagecoach, only to be stranded by unrelenting rains - and stalked by a crazed Commanche killer.

Three weeks before Christmas, the little town of Chug Water in Wyoming Territory is stunned by a brutal crime. The mayor's family has been slaughtered in cold blood on their ranch outside of Raw Hide Butte. As the townsfolk gather to pay their last respects, Duff MacCallister saddles up to go after the killers. He returns with two outlaws - a cold-blooded, nasty pair of snakes, Jesse and T. Bob Cave. But the day before they're sentenced to hang, the Cave brothers escape their fate...

Borders of Blood Smoke Jensen has come to Corpus Christi, Texas, to take delivery of 500 horses he purchased from an old friend. That's when a Mexican revolutionary, Colonel Bustamante Keno, brazenly crashes the border, slaughters 22 innocent U.S. citizens in cold blood, and steals a thousand head of cattle - along with two hundred of Smoke's horses. Going where the U.S. Army and the Texas Rangers cannot, Smoke crosses the border in hot pursuit of Keno.

Smoke Jensen has journeyed up to the Colorado Rockies to a sell a prized bull to a local rancher. Instead, the rancher and his wife have been mercilessly slaughtered by outlaws only moments before Smoke's arrival. In a hail of bullets, Smoke pulverizes two of the murderers and drags two others to the town of Brown Spur for justice. Come hanging day, the two killers are on the way to the gallows when a thundering gang of raiders crashes into town and rescues them from the jaws of death.

In the town of 34 Corners, Colorado, Matt Jensen rides into a savage blood feud. Thirty years ago two friends came West and built a thriving cattle business. Now, their families have become kill-crazy enemies and the town is awash in a frenzy of killing. Add in hired gunmen on both sides of the fight, and two lovers crossing the dividing line, and the terror will never end. Eager to put as many miles between himself and 34 Corners, Matt Jensen just can't bring himself to leave without trying to stop the bloodshed.

Smoke Jensen and his adopted son Matt are cooling their heels in Colorado when they are called to the Dakotas. Preacher, the legendary mountain man, is in the midst of a vicious struggle. Someone has kidnapped a proud Indian chief’s daughter and grandchild. When the kidnapping turns to murder, and Preacher vanishes after clashing with a ruthless Union colonel turned railroad king, Matt sets out to infiltrate the Colonel's gang of killers.

Shady Rest, Texas, has the dubious reputation for being the deadliest town in America. Getting yourself killed is as easy as blinking and twice as quick. Sure enough, Matt Jensen hasn't swallowed his whisky before the town's marshal is gunned down.

USA Today best-selling author William W. Johnstone built a reputation for crafting unmatched stories of true Western courage - a tradition J. A. Johnstone now continues. In A Rocky Mountain Christmas, Matt Jensen’s scenic trip on the Denver railway is derailed when an avalanche strikes the train. Far from an accident, its cause is a reckless band of outlaws out to free their leader. Surrounded and outgunned in a driving snowstorm, Matt must lead to safety a ragtag group of survivors that includes a senator’s sick daughter and a beautiful woman with a dark past.

There’s nothing particularly unusual for a legendary gunman to be summoned to the lawless, bullet-riddled territory of Arizona. But when Frank Morgan, a.k.a. 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.

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. Of course, things are different nowadays.