Showing results by narrator "Michael Alan White" in All Categories

Rachel looked down at her husband’s dead body, the long knife protruding from his gut. She knew she’d be hanged or shot if she stayed in Missoula, so she’d have to run. But where could she go? The only place that came to mind was the hidden valley northwest of town. It was owned by a loner named Marsh Anderson, whom she had never met. She was going to have to bet her life that he wouldn’t turn her in to the sheriff, the brother of her dead husband.

United States Marshal War Adams stared at the telegram in disbelief. His father had been murdered? As difficult as it was to come to grips with the news, it would become more disturbing when he discovered that the person arrested for the crime was the nurse that his father had hired to ease his suffering from his killing disease. Her position gave her both the means and opportunity to commit the crime, and he knew that the nurse was the same woman whose husband he had shot and killed years earlier, giving her the motive.

Susanna stared at her father’s body on the floor, his life’s blood still pooling near his head. She’d murdered her own father, and even as she stepped slowly away from the horror, knew that there was more terror in her future. Soon, a man with a badge would come through that door, arrest her, and then they’d slide a black hood over her head, and she’d plunge into cold darkness before her receiving her final, eternal sentence.

As Carl sat astride his roan gelding and stared at Pine Bluffs, he knew that his days of punching cattle were over. The long drives across the West were dying now that the railroads had crisscrossed the Plains. Ironically, his last formal education had given him the skills and knowledge to help build those railroads, and now he’d finally put them to use. His short-term plan of spending a quiet night or two in Pine Bluffs would soon be altered by a simmering man-made volcano in the mountains of central Wyoming at a mine that provided the coal for the railroad’s locomotives.

After five long years in the army, First Lieutenant John Flynn was finally being mustered out and would soon be going home to the family he hadn’t even heard from in all that time. But when he rode to the family home, he made two shocking discoveries: his family was gone, and he had been declared dead by the army four years earlier. He left to cross the plains of Nebraska to find his family, but he would find so much more.

Kyle raced away from the work camp with the posse’s bullets whizzing past his head. He had no idea why he was being pursued, but he wasn’t about to ask. As he pushed his black gelding across the frozen ground of Wyoming Territory, Kyle knew hIs job as a scout and hunter for the Union Pacific was over. After he disappeared into a pine forest, he was finally able to slow down. But as he wound his way through the trees, Kyle knew he’d have to make a decision when the Green River curved to the east. Should he head to western Utah Teritory or east into Coloratdo Territory?

Ada was angry as she prepared to go to see Mike Bergman, knowing he was doing nothing less than trying to steal their silver mine, and even though she knew that she, Elsa and Bridgette had little chance of standing against him much longer, she wasn’t about to give in. But even as she began that long ride down from the mining camp, a silver coin was being tossed into the air a few miles away that would change everything.

Matt finally had what he wanted; a ranch to raise his Morgans. Now he was ready to take the next step; the reason for building the ranch in the first place. He would finally begin his search for the right woman to help him start a family of his own. He thought that the difficult work in achieving that dream was behind him and now the much more pleasant part lay ahead. That belief was shattered when he received a visitor with a letter from an old friend – a friend who had been hanged north of Denton.

No one had seen the innocuous rock on the long climb to the pass on the Oregon Trail, and when the last covered wagon in the long line rolled onto the lump of granite, it shouldn’t have made much of a difference, but it caused almost instant tragedy. Just seconds later, the wagon plunged over the edge of the narrow trail, then began its deadly, tumbling roll into the abyss, spewing its contents as it fell to its destruction. Her precious children had been trapped inside, and Rebecca could only watch in horror. Her children had been her life, and now she had nothing.

James Everett was desperate. When his daughter had been kidnapped, and he couldn’t raise enough money for the ransom demand, no one; not the law, not the Pinkertons, and not even the army would intervene to try and free her. He had even had his offer of five thousand dollars turned down by a bounty hunter. But the bounty hunter suggested another man, one who had left the business almost two years ago but warned James that there was only a remote possibility that he would take the job. Yet no matter how slim it may be, James knew he had to try that last hope, his daughter’s only Chance.

Fifteen-year-old Joe Beck wasn’t listening as the minister eulogized his uncle but was already planning on what he would have to do as soon as they returned to the Quimby farm. He wasn’t welcome there even before his uncle had died and knew that his cousin John would soon order him to leave. While he had had a basic idea of where he would go after he left the farm, he didn’t know what he would do with the rest of his life.

Sheriff Joe Brooks was talking to a young prisoner who gave him some incredibly bad news. Three notorious gangs of outlaws had merged into one large band big enough to take over entire towns in his sparsely populated county. It was when they began to terrorize his county that he had to act, and he’d have to take them on alone.

Max could fix anything that had moving parts., but he couldn't fix what sent him to prison for five years. Now, he was back home and had to fix a lot more than machines, and found it was almost impossible to repair people that didn’t want to be fixed.

After twenty years of fighting; first the rebels and then the Apaches, Jonas was tired of it all and decided to return to his unfinished cabin to find the solace and peace that he craved. Yet once he’d returned the place to a livable condition, he realized that life wasn’t just about existing. He missed the camaraderie of the soldiers and he really wasn’t cut out for the life of a hermit. So, Jonas decided to return to his duties as an army scout at Fort Selden. The cabin would still be waiting for him when he was ready.

Eighteen-year-old Garrett Shaw and his father spotted the rustlers and pulled their Winchesters. They kept their muzzles pointed away from the three men who were stealing eight steers from their small ranch to give them a chance to leave peaceably. When they started throwing lead, Garrett and his father began returning fire. Garrett hit one of the rustlers just as his father’s horse went down. Hours later, as the doctor examined his father’s injury, Garrett knew that it was now his responsibility to provide for his crippled father, mother, and sisters.

Aaron hadn’t been caught by surprise by the early arrival of the Nebraska blizzard in November, so after hunkering down for the night to wait out the snow and gale-like winds, he set out in the predawn to resume his trek across the plains to get to his ranch. While he may not have been surprised by the storm, he was soon stunned by what he discovered on the frozen ground southwest of Scotts Bluff.

Wade stood in the dark street and watched his home being eaten by the raging flames. It was as if it was a horrible nightmare because it couldn’t really be happening. He knew his parents had been trapped in their room where the fire had started, but there was nothing he could have done to help. He didn’t feel the town marshal’s hand on his shoulder as he watched the fire brigade fight to keep the fire contained to his parents’ house. All he ever knew and cared about was gone and he didn’t know what would become of him now. He didn’t care.

Despite the large number of saloons and ever-changing population, Joe and Faith were comfortable living in Idaho City. They had a nice home, and hoped to raise Sam and Katie in the town even after the gold was gone. But those expectations were dashed when a sequence of unrelated events forced them to leave Idaho Territory.

As the temperatures rose, so did the surge of fortune hunters. They also brought more trouble to Boise County and Idaho City, so Sheriff Fulmer added more deputies to keep the peace. But before the year ended, the sheriff’s office would need to hire more lawmen to replace those it lost. And one of the new deputies would cause even greater changes that would impact the county as well as Joe and Faith’s future.

Joe and Faith were miles ahead of the long line of wagons as they ascended Cheyenne Pass. They knew that when they passed over the summit, the Laramie Plains would spread out before them. But just before they reached the top of the pass, Joe pulled up when he thought he heard gunfire. Just seconds later, he and Faith quickly rode to the summit where they witnessed what could only be called a massacre.