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

A gunshot wound has robbed Audubon, Texas, of its top lawman at the worst possible time. Clete Lanagan and his band of outlaws have hatched a scheme to plunder the town bank of a small fortune in railroad money. When the acting sheriff, Dalton Conyers - half-brother of Smoke’s niece Rebecca - is unable to raise a posse to hunt down Lanagan’s gang, he calls on Smoke for help. But with so much cash at stake, Lanagan won’t go down without a fight.

Kirby — later Smoke — Jensen has just earned his first paying job as a deputy US marshal for the Colorado Territory and is sent to the lawless town of Las Animas. There, he finds a sheriff too cowardly to face the outlaw leader Cole Dawson, whose six-gun has left a lot of good men dead. Young Smoke feels no such fear. He takes Dawson down fast. Then the real fight begins.

On the trail to Hangtree, a gang of bandits give chase to a teenage gunslinger. Young Bill is bracing for the end when the crack of a Winchester scatters the bandits. Sam Heller, Hangtree lawman, has saved another life. And Bill will beg Heller to save one more.... Bill rode in from East Texas, where Cullen Baker, the original quick-draw artist, fights a life-and-death battle with a corrupt robber baron for control of the Torrent River. Bill came seeking help from Cullen’s old pal, Johnny Cross, who agrees to ride east to lend a bullet or two.

In Hangtree, Texas, any day could be your last. For on the heels of the Civil War, Hangtree is drawing gamblers, fast women and faster gunmen. Amidst the brawls and shooting, the land-grabbing and card-sharking, two men barely hold the boomtown together: Yankee Sam Heller and Texan Johnny Cross. Heller and Cross can’t stand the sight of each other. And Hangtree needs them more than ever. A Comanche named Red Hand leads a horde of warriors on a horrific path of bloodshed and destruction, with Hangtree sitting right in Red Hand’s path.

On nothing more than a lark, he leaves his family and begins a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he runs up against badlands and bad men, loses his freedom, gains his freedom and learns the first rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. With ruthless enemies after him - both white men and Indians - he’ll head for a place as brutal as it is beautiful - the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Two years later, he will come back down from the mountaintop with new skills and a new future as one of the most feared and admired men of his time...a man called Preacher.

In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield has a young man’s face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

The MacCallister clan was raised on a harsh, unforgiving frontier, where courage and blood bonds mattered the most. While Falcon MacCallister followed his father's mountain man legacy, his brother and sister made their fame and fortune on the stages of New York and Europe.... Now they’re planning a family reunion. Andrew and Rosanna MacCallister are headed to Colorado to visit their kin — until they step into the crosshairs of a murderer's plan.

The MacCallister clan has traveled far and wide, but none has traveled harder than Falcon MacCallister. Hired by a wealthy cattle baron, Falcon sets out from San Francisco for the town of Laramie with a magnificent Arabian horse in tow — and rides into a storm of treachery and murder.... Already stalked by a vengeance-crazed Yuma prison escapee, Falcon is distracted by two beautiful women — a seductress with a voice like an angel and a lovely widow with a gift for guns — while another outlaw lays down a villainous trap.

Born and bred in the Texas Pandhandle town of Comanche Crossing, William "Wild Bill" Longley gunned down a dozen of its men in cold blood before he got around to the sheriff and deputy - so he could take over the job himself. Then he found the perfect sidekick in a vicious career criminal named Booker Tate.

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.

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.

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.

It starts as a happy reunion between Preacher and his fellow trappers in a peaceful Indian village. But it ends swiftly in death and destruction when a rival tribe attacks the village, slaughters some of Preacher’s Crow and mountain man friends, and carries off the women and children as prisoners. Preacher was off hunting when it happened. Now he’s teaming up with old friend Lorenzo and half-breed Tall Dog, to get the prisoners back—and get revenge. But the road to justice is paved with some very dark omens. And the trail leads to the baddest place on God’s good earth.

Comanchero Cullen Brice has escaped from a Huntsville, Alabama, prison, where he was sentenced to hang. And he has sworn revenge against the man who killed his brother and put him behind bars, Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch. Freed from the hangman by his gang, Brice has kidnapped the lawman's daughter Cynthia along with other women and make tracks to the Texas Panhandle. Holing up in The Canyon of Weeping Women, the outlaws plan to sell their captives to Comanche raiders.

The Spencer family is part of a wagon train passing through Chugwater, Wyoming, bound for the valley of Longshot Basin. Unfortunately, the trail that leads there has been buried under an avalanche. The only route the homesteaders can take is the infamous Nightmare Trail—a treacherous, terrifyingly steep, and narrow mountainside path that has claimed many lives. If that wasn't dangerous enough, the trail is also a killing ground for the outlaw Hardcastle gang. The disreputable Arkansas Ozark clan don't take kindly to anyone trespassing on their road without paying—in blood.

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 U.S. 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.

A legend among bounty hunters, Luke Jensen is called to track down a deranged Yankee-turned-outlaw with a burning passion to torch the prairies, torment the townsfolks, and turn all he sees into a smoldering cinder....

Some say bad luck comes in threes. And if you’re a bandit, bank robber, or bloodthirsty killer, that bad luck comes in the form of three hard justice-seekers known as the Jackals. Each of the Jackals has his own path to follow: Former Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch is trying to protect a young Commanche from scalphunters.

Two outlaw brothers have been leaving a blood-trail on their way to infamy on the western frontier. Until bounty hunter Luke Jensen catches one of the black-hearted Kroll brothers away from his gang. But while Luke is trying to get Mordecai Kroll from jail to justice, he's ambushed by the Kroll gang and taken prisoner. And that draws Luke's own brother, Smoke Jensen, into the fight, guns drawn....

In a court of law, it takes 12 jurors to convict a killer. Two of them are Jensens. It all started when those Jensen boys, Ace and Chance, got roped into jury duty. It should have ended when justice was served with the killer dancing on the end of a rope. But no. This is just the beginning of the death sentence for Ace, Chance, and the other 10 terrified jurors. He's one of the most notorious outlaws in the west. He's also the brother of the hanged killer. Now he's here in town - and plans to slaughter the jurors, one by one.