Showing results by author "William W. Johnstone" in All Categories

Johnstone Country. Draw quick, Aim true. Pinkerton. Sheriff. Lawman. Buck Trammel has spent his life fighting for justice. Now, he must defend a town against corrupt businessmen and scurrilous outlaws from turning it into a bloody battleground. Family feud. Blackstone, Wyoming, belongs to "King" Charles Hagen. The rancher bought land, built businesses, and employs most of the townsfolk. Unfortunately, Sheriff Buck Trammel is not on His Majesty's payroll. The lawdog won't be tamed or trained to accept King's position as master of the territory, but neither will he threaten his empire.

The cattle town of Chugwater may not look like much to outsiders. But for Duff MacCallister and the determined settlers who've staked their futures here, it's a land of opportunity. Young railroad developer Jacob Freemantle wants to run a rail line through Chugwater, making it easier to transport cattle. Everyone is on board with the plan - at first. Duff begins to suspect that Freemantle is only after the most valuable land, and he's using strongarm tactics to force reluctant ranchers to sell. Things only get worse when Freemantle's hired guns show up - and the violence really begins.

Young Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves became blood brothers on the day the rancher's son saved the half breed's life, forging a bond no one could ever break. Beneath the Montana big sky, Matt learned the ways of the Cheyenne from his friend. And as years passed, a legend grew of the breed and the white man who rode together — and who could jerk killing iron with the best of them....

Preacher is no hired killer. When a wagon train is ambushed on the Santa Fe Trail, though, he can’t say no to the St. Louis businessman willing to pay him for justice. It’s not the stolen gold that’s convinced Preacher to take the job. And it’s not the missing body of one of the wagon train’s crew, a prime suspect who may have plotted the ambush and taken off with the gold. No, it’s the suspect’s lovely fiancée, Alita Montez. She believes her boyfriend is innocent—and has run off to find him. Preacher can’t abide the idea of a young woman alone on the Santa Fe Trail.

The Sante Fe Trail stretches from the Mississippi River to New Mexico Territory through the West's most savage lands. That's why a wealthy trader hires the mountain man called Preacher to keep his trade goods safe. But then, a towering, seemingly supernatural grizzly bear attacks. Both outlaws and Comanches ambush the wagon train. And the travelers find themselves surrounded by predators of every shape and stripe. For Preacher, there is only one way to go - straight into the heart of danger, to blaze a killing trail of his own....

It's the kind of job Luke Jensen hates. A millionaire mine owner is willing to pay $5,000 to the man who captures the half-breed outlaw Tom Eagle. Normally, Luke would turn down an offer like this-it smacks too much of being a hired gun. But when the millionaire tells him that Eagle is responsible for killing his son, Luke agrees to take on the job. Which means he'll have to take the road to hell itself - a.k.a. Hard Rock, Montana. Hard Rock is supposed to be a ghost town. But when Luke arrives, the ghosts are alive and well - and gunning for his hide.

Long before there was a mountain man called Preacher, a young adventurer set off with a team of fur traders from St. Louis for the time of his life. On a wild frontier, he sought a fortune. Instead, he found blood, betrayal, and the beginning of a legend. Armed only with a knife, surrounded by a fierce Blackfoot war party, the young man was forced to kill a warrior chief in an act of audacious courage. But when a grizzly bear attack left him half-dead, he could no longer protect himself.

The last days of the Civil War. With Richmond under siege, Confederate soldier Luke Jensen is assigned the task of smuggling gold out of the city before the Yankees get their hands on it — when he is ambushed and robbed by four deserters, shot in the back, and left for dead. Taken in by a Georgia farmer and his beautiful daughter, Luke is nursed back to health. Though crippled, he hopes to reunite with his long-lost brother Smoke, but a growing romance keeps him on the farm.

On the eve of the Civil War, Kirby Jensen is the youngest of three children living on a hardscrabble ranch in Southwestern Missouri. But in 1861, shots were fired in Charleston harbor, and Kirby's father and brother went to war. Smoke Jensen: The Beginning follows the Jensen clan during these volatile years, from Civil War battles to border state raids to the kind of frontier justice achieved only by bullets and blood.

No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That's the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to - dazed and confused - until he slowly pieces together what happened. The last thing he remembers: He agreed to help out a friend of Duff MacCallister's. A pretty lady and her husband at a horse ranch. He also recalls their cross-country trip through hell to deliver the horses safely to market. That's when the outlaws showed up. That's when the shooting began.

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.

No one remembered when he'd come to the mountains - it seemed that Preacher had always been there. He'd seen a great deal in the unmapped mountains and forests of the grand North American frontier. In fact, he'd just told a friend that he wasn't surprised by anything anymore. But Preacher hadn't seen Nova Roma yet. Suddenly, Preacher is faced with the strangest, most dangerous army the High Lonesome has ever seen. It's leader is a blood-mad fanatic right out of the ancient history books. All Preacher's got on his side are his brother mountain men.

The Indians around Fort Laramie, Wyoming, are peaceful. Or so it has seemed - until killers ambush a detail of US soldiers and an officer's wife. One man, an ambitious cavalry officer, flees the carnage and lives to tell the story - his own story, an outright lie. When Duff MacCallister and a few brave men go after the attackers, they discover the officer's wife is very much alive and at the cold merciless hands of the sadistic warrior Yellow Hawk. To free the woman, Duff touches off a fierce battle.

This second book in William W. Johnstone's classic First Mountain Man series finds Preacher leading a wagon train of settlers into the Rockies - and through dangerous territory. Trapped on the Continental Divide by a blinding snowstorm, Preacher must fend off the gunfire of the wicked Pardee gang, and a band of marauding Utes.

As the father of a young Crow tribesman, Preacher would like nothing more than to see the long-time natives and newly arrived settlers live together in peace. Then, the killing starts.... As a family man and frontiersman, Jamie Ian MacCallister is more than happy to help the officers at Fort Kearny negotiate a peace treaty with the Crow nation. Until it all goes to hell.... This is not the American dream they were looking for. This is a nightmare. A brutal, blood-drenched frontier war that two heroic men must fight and win - or one struggling nation will never come together.

There's serious trouble brewing in the Choctaw nation, and it goes by the name of Tiny McCoy. This small-time cattle rustler is expanding his brand by brewing batches of whiskey in the Chocktaw territory of Muddy Boggy Creek. Tiny and his partner have also turned the illegal brewery into a robber's roost for outlaws, cutthroats, and killers of every bent. Local lawman Jim Little Eagle is under attack and outgunned. But when he sends a wire to Fort Smith asking for backup and the US Deputy Marshal Tanner shows up, Little Eagle knows they're in for one hell of a bloodbath.

Once, Frank Morgan had a wife and a future on the land - until a rich man with a grudge drove him out of Colorado. Since then, Morgan's taken up the one skill that always came easy - gunfighting - and drifted to a mining town in the New Mexico Territory. But there's nothing easy about two vicious gangs descending on the town and threatening to wreak havoc. With his reputation preceding him, Morgan is elected to stand in the outlaws' way. And with nothing left to lose, he's the last man who will ever back down....

There's a storm brewing in Oklahoma Territory, and this time, it's deadly serious. Local cattle ranches are being targeted by Texas rustlers - and the only man who can keep it from turning into a bloodbath is US Deputy Marshal Will Tanner. The newly married lawman hates to leave his beautiful bride Sophie, but duty calls - for better or worse. In Tanner's experience, it's usually worse. An unexpected confrontation with outlaws is just the bloody beginning. Then an escaped convict catches wind of the fact that Tanner killed his brother. Now Will's really in the crosshairs.

They slaughtered his family. Killed his young bride. And ever since that tragic day, Nathan Stark has devoted his life to fighting the hostile tribes who massacred those he loved. As a civilian scout for the army, he's served with such famous commanders as Custer and Crook. He's battled against such notorious war chiefs as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Among the fiercest natives of the untamed West, Nathan Stark is a living legend - one that must be destroyed.

In the Wyoming wild, Blackfoot warriors prepare for battle, their bloodlust stirred by a legendary prophet promising victory in a war that will forever rid the plains of the white man. To legendary mountain man Preacher, it isn't a promise - it's a threat. But being out-numbered in a savage frontier means justice will be as hard-earned and uncertain as...survival.