For thousands of years, the lonely canyon knew only wind and rain, wild animals, and an occasional native hunter. Then a trapper found a chunk of gold, and everything changed overnight. In six days, a town called Confusion appeared... and on the seventh it could disappear, consumed by the flames of lawlessness and violence. On one side are those who understand only brute force. On the other are men who want law and order but are ready to use a noose to achieve their ends.

In one swift moment, a fall wiped away his memory. All he knew for certain was that someone wanted him dead - and that he had better learn why. But everywhere he turned there seemed to be more questions - or people too willing to hide the truth behind a smoke screen of lies. He had only the name he had been told was his own, his mysterious skill with a gun, and a link to a half million dollars’ worth of buried gold as evidence of his past life. Was the treasure his? Was he a thief? A killer? He didn’t have the answers, but he needed them soon. Because what he still didn’t know about himself, others did....

Crispin Mayo was a reckless young brawler who’d left his tiny fishing village for the vast American frontier. Headed west to join a railroad construction crew, he came upon an isolated station - and a mystery. The shack was abandoned, but fresh blood spattered the floor, and the telegraph was clicking away unattended. When Mayo stepped inside and put a hand on the telegraph key, he had no way of knowing the course of his life would change forever.

He left the West at the age of seventeen, leaving behind a rootless past and a bloody trail of violence. In the East he became one of the wealthiest financiers in America—and one of the most feared and hated. Now, suffering from incurable cancer, he has come back to New Mexico to die alone. But when an all-out range war erupts, Flint chooses to help Nancy Kerrigan, a local rancher. A cold-eyed speculator is setting up the land swindle of a lifetime, and Buckdun, a notorious assassin, is there to back his play.

He was a tough enforcer for a New York gang. But when young Tom Shanaghy made one too many enemies, he skipped town on a fast-moving freight. He landed in a small Kansas town that had big dreams, no name, and the need for an honest lawman. Tom figured that a knuckle-and-skull man from Five Points would be perfect for the job. He didn't know that a high-stakes cattle drive was headed his way and that leading it was a vindictive rancher bent on settling an old score.

Hopalong rode into cattle country just east of the California line looking for his old friend Red Connors. He found Red holed up in a mountain cave with a bullet in his side and a story to tell. The ranchers around Tascotal had been losing their stock, and when Red caught the rustlers in the act, they hunted him down, shot him, and left him for dead. Jack Bolt, a savage, ruthless killer, has brought in a tough band of hardcases to run his operation.

Major James Brionne brought Dave Allard to trial for murder. Just before the hanging, Dave swore his brothers would take vengeance.... Four years later, the Allard boys returned to settle the score. Only Brionne's son escaped. They murdered his wife, destroyed his home, and left Brionne nothing but the charred ruins of his past to haunt him. Seeking peace and a new life, Brionne and the boy headed west. But the Allards hadn't finished with him. He knew they'd call him for a showdown - and this time he'd be ready....

Matt Bardoul was a good man to have as a friend and a bad one to make trouble with. He was also a single-minded drifter—until he met his match in an outspoken beauty named Jacquine Coyle. She was headed into the Bighorn Mountains with her father and an expedition in search of gold. After Matt signs on to join them, he discovers that there is a group of outlaws in the party—gunfighters and thieves that Matt wouldn’t trust for a minute.

A woman ahead of her time, Mary Breydon knew how to get things done. Raised on a Virginia plantation, she learned how to care for livestock, respect her workers, and keep good books. But after her husband is killed, Mary must provide for her young daughter by running a stage coach station on the Cherokee Trail. With the help of an Irish maid and a mysterious stranger, Mary faces challenges that even the men eagerly anticipating her failure would have a difficult time overcoming.

Rye Tyler was 12 when his father was killed in an Indian raid. Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for books and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the hard lessons of life in the West. But after killing a man, he is forced to leave his new home. He rides lonely mountain passes and works on dusty cattle drives until he finds a job breaking horses. Then he meets Liza Hetrick, and in her eyes he sees his future. After establishing himself as marshal of Alta, he returns, only to discover that Liza has been kidnapped.

Dal and Mac Traven left Texas young and idealistic. They came back from opposite sides of a living hell, a war that had torn the nation in two. They wanted only to reclaim their old lives - but one man held their futures hostage. Colonel Henry T. Ashford had gathered an army of criminals and renegade soldiers, leading them on a path of destruction and kidnapping through Texas to the Gulf. Among Ashford’s captives were the Travens’ sister and Dal’s tough-minded fiancée, Kate. Now Mac and Dal must take up arms once again and ride together against Ashford’s army.

When beautiful Angelina Foley presents Tom Radigan with a Spanish grant and claims ownership of his land, he realizes he's up against a cunning and deadly opportunist. Foley wants him off Vache Creek immediately, and with 3,000 head of cattle, an outfit of hardcase gunfighters, and winter coming on, she is unwilling to take no for an answer.

The story was that Eli Patterson had died in a gunfight, but Mike Shevlin knew it couldn't be true: The man who'd been like a father to him had been a Quaker. But when Shevlin rides back to Rafter Crossing to uncover the truth, he finds that the quiet ranching community has become a booming mining town. Newfound wealth has not made Rafter a peaceful place, however, and the smell of fear and greed is thick in the air.

Considine and Pete Runyon had once been friends, back in the days when both were cowhands. But when Runyon married the woman Considine loved, the two parted ways. Runyon settled down and became a sheriff. Considine took up robbing banks. Now Considine is planning a raid on the bank at Obaro, a plan that will pit him against Runyon...and lead to riches or suicide. The one thing he never counted on was meeting a strong, beautiful woman and her stubborn father, hell-bent on traveling alone through Apache territory to a new life.

The abandoned cabin seemed like a good place to settle down...except for the dead man in the front yard. But Doby Kernohan and his father had traveled a long way seeking a new start, and they were in no position to be choosy. Unfortunately, the mysterious man's violent end was an omen of darker events to come, for a cycle of violence that had begun long ago was about to reach an explosive conclusion. Caught in a tangle of murder, greed, and blood vengeance, the Kernohans have no choice but to get involved.