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

The accidental gunslinger Dooley Monahan has quit wandering and settled down to a farmer's life. But when the itch for adventure gets too strong, he packs up and rides west. Along with his horse General Grant, and Blue, a dog who's too smart for his own good, Dooley rides for the Black Hills to strike it rich in the gold fields of Colorado. But fate has other ideas.

Unaware of the forces marshaled against him, Captain Phinneus Shae and the crew of the Talion are headed into uncharted waters. With a doggedly determined killer from his past on his trail and cold-blooded pirates all around him, Shae’s contract to recover the treasure from a sunken ship seems destined to fail. But other, more nefarious individuals are after that same treasure, and whatever it is, it is destined to change the future of the Iron Kingdoms. Whether for good or ill all depends on who finds it first and who is buried at the bottom of the sea in the end....

There are a lot of ways a man can end up on a wanted poster. There's the easy way (murder), there's the hard way (robbery), and then there's Dooley Monahan's way (by accident). On the trail west with his trusty horse and dog, the hapless gunslinger stops a hungry bear from making lunch out of the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody. In turn, Cody grubstakes Dooley for the purchase of a silver mine in the lawless, violent boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. But when he guns down three deadly outlaws, the grateful townsfolk pin a sheriff's badge on Dooley. And that's when his luck runs out...

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.

In all the horrific corners of the Civil War, there was no hell worse than Andersonville, the Yankee prison camp run by evil, sadistic General Thomas Wainwright. In the war's aftermath, a survivor of Andersonville summons Joe Buckhorn to New Orleans and asks the gunslinger to kill the general - not simply for revenge, but to stop another atrocity. Wainwright has seized control of Wagontongue, a township on the edge of the Arizona desert, and he rules it as brutally as he once did Andersonville. With an iron grip on the town's only source of water, he keeps the locals cowering.

It's the dawn of a new century. But on the vast Sugarloaf Ranch not much has changed since legendary gunfighter Smoke Jensen and his wife Sally tamed the land two decades ago. Raising cattle is still a dangerous business - and just as deadly as ever. When Smoke is injured swapping bullets with some cow thieves, Sally puts out a call for help to Matt, Ace, and the rest of the Jensen clan. But time is running out. The bloodthirsty rustlers are ready to strike again - and there are lots more of them. And the Sugarloaf's last defense is Smoke and Sally's next of kin....

Mountain Man Smoke Jensen's long-lost brother Luke Jensen is a dead shot scarred by war - the perfect formula for a bounty hunter. And he's cunning, and fierce enough to bring down the deadliest outlaws of his day.... Luke Jensen has earned this bounty, hunting down the violent man charged with murdering a preacher's daughter. The outlaw Judd Tyler confesses to many crimes, but not the girl's murder. And he tells Luke they won't reach the town of White Fork alive because a corrupt sheriff does the bidding of a cattle baron, and that man's son is the true killer.

Wyoming Territory, 1873. Tim Colter and his trusted guide, mountain man Jed Reno, are on the trail of a vicious gang of train robbers when they happen upon a bloody and shocking scene. Lying on the ground, barely breathing, a Secret Service agent has been left for dead in the wake of a brutal ambush. His final words: "President Grant . . . assassination . . . Dugan . . . trust nobody."

Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are lifelong drifters who keep one eye on the horizon, one finger on the trigger, and one foot out the door. Roaming the West is what keeps them young, or so Scratch tells Bo. But when they save the life of Cyrus Keegan - the owner of a matrimonial agency - they receive an unexpected proposal that's hard to resist. Keegan needs to deliver five mail order brides to a mining town in New Mexico Territory. All Scratch and Bo have to do is get these gals to the church on time - and alive, if possible.

Welcome to the most dangerous town in the West. For Marshal Bob Hatfield, that means rough justice and 100 ways to die... In the shadow of the Prophecy Mountains, the ramshackle boomtown of Rattlesnake Wells draws schemers, predators, and desperate pilgrims. As for the law, that's the town marshal, a former Texas outlaw trying to make a new life for himself. But Sundown Bob Hatfield knows a man who's slick on the draw can't escape trouble for long. In Rattlesnake Wells, you fight fire with fire - and a new one has just exploded.

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....

There’s a new stranger in town, and he goes by the name of Lucas Blaine. Some folks say he’s the fastest gun in the West. But Ben Savage don’t put much stock in what folks say—until the killing starts. So far, Blaine has his sights set on just one target: a pretty widow who’s staying with the wife of a Baptist preacher. No one knows what the connection is between the two, but the local sheriff isn’t taking any chances.

Introducing Trace and Chaw: a pugnacious pair of Civil War veterans who nearly killed each other in battle—but lived to fight another day. Together . . . They met in a bloodbath. Two demons in uniform caught in the middle of one hell of a war. Private Chaw, the Rebel, liked chewing tobacco and fighting blue-bellied Yanks. Private Trace, the Yankee, hated Southerners, especially ornery cusses like Chaw. But when the smoke cleared after the Battle of Deadeye Gap, the Blue and the Gray of their uniforms didn't matter anymore. Both were stained blood red. And both were the last men standing . . .

Ever since the silver market crashed, the mining town of Dead Broke has been awfully quiet. The local marshal—legendary gunman Duncan "Mick" MacMicking—doesn't have much to do besides outshoot the occasional greenhorn looking to challenge him. But all this peace and quiet is about to end. Mayor Nugget has unearthed a mineral to rival his famous "Hope Diamond of Silver." He calls it the "Zinc of Zion," a 1,776-pound boulder of pure zinc carbonate. And when he announces his discovery, the quiet boomtown of Dead Broke goes boom—again—with a vengeance.

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.

Buckskin, Nevada, was once a boomtown, then died a peaceful death. But when a fresh vein of silver is struck, Frank Morgan lets himself get pinned with a tin badge at the worst possible time. It's not the petty swindlers, or the stray murderer or two that will give Morgan problems. Instead, Buckskin is heating up from a miners strike, industrial sabotage, a hostile state militia, and an outlaw gang that decides the time is ripe for an all-out assault on the town.

Life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy "Slash" Braddock and Melvin "Pecos Kid" Baker. But these reprobates are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it. They've managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer - Chief US Marshal Luther T. "Bleed-'m-So" Bledsoe - recruits them for a job only fools would take.

Some call it the most dangerous stagecoach in the West. But the hard-driving owners of the Frontier Overland Company will get you where you want to go—if you don't mind a detour through hell....

New Mexico Territory is no stranger to bad men. But south of the border, on the wild Mexican coastline, is another kind of wicked: a murderous Arab with a ship full of stolen women - to be sold as sex slaves in the four corners of the world. Among them is a missing local school teacher Shawn O'Brien has been searching for - a woman with a past she's kept carefully hidden.

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.