Résultats de "C.J. Petit" dans Toutes les catégories

When Drew Campbell turned sixteen and had to leave St. Thomas Home for Boys, he knew he wasn’t fully prepared to face the world on his own. But he thought his years as a blacksmith’s apprentice would give him a start. But after failing to find work at any of the town’s smithies, Drew traveled to Brainerd and found work in the Northern Pacific’s maintenance yard as a common laborer. He was eighteen when he met pretty Anne McDuff and wanted to prove himself to her father. So, he volunteered for the well-paying job as a brakeman.

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.

In his haste to escape a scalding death, the engine operator panicked and fell. Dylan lifted his heavy shovel as high as his 12-year-old arms could manage and swung at the thundering machine. It could've killed him, but he had to try. As the shovel’s steel head slammed into the machine, it set in motion a series of events that would shape his entire life.

Ed's life changed that first day of September when that deadly twister had roared across his Texas ranch and destroyed his house. But what was much worse was that it had ripped his Bessie and their boys from him and destroyed much more than the wooden structure; it had destroyed his life. Rather than rebuild, he had taken the coward’s way out and crawled into a bottle to escape the loneliness. But Bessie’s anger and disappointment finally made him understand that he had a life to live and other people to help.

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.

The days of unrelenting rain had kept the wagon train from moving for almost a week, and the folks were getting frustrated and angry. So, rather than try to cross the swollen Platte River, the wagon master had them rolling southwest hoping to cross when its level dropped. As Joe and Faith led their tent-cart ahead of the lead wagon, they didn’t allow the foul weather to affect their good mood. But it wasn’t Mother Nature who would soon cause them grief.

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?

Morgan was meeting with an important client in his well-appointed law office in San Antonio when his clerk tapped on the door and entered without waiting for a reply. Morgan didn’t mind as he expected Jim Cooper had a good reason for the interruption.

Bounty hunters were generally viewed as little better than the men they hunted. Ted Shepard usually didn't pay any mind to what others thought. He was good at what he did. But now, he was trailing a body to his hometown of Wilmore. He might change his mind.

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.

Clara was angrier than she’d ever been before. But even her fury took second place to her deep frustration. They’d murdered her first husband as a warning to the others. Then six months later, after she’d convinced her second husband to join her crusade against the town’s corruption, he’d been shot in the head to put an end to her editorials. They thought she’d pack up and leave Cottonwood, but she refused to give up or back down. Two weeks ago, Clara had wired the Arizona territorial governor in Prescott, hoping he would send help. But now, those hopes were gone.

After clearing up an almost comedic issue in Dodge City, Cy received an assignment to go to the town of Granite in New Mexico Territory to investigate a claim of massive overcharging by the telegraphers. It wasn’t a particularly challenging issue, but it would mean a long ride and Cy actually looked forward to it. He was still in a good mood as he rode out of Dodge City and eventually Kansas. He didn’t expect to spend much time in Granite and hoped that his next job would be a little more exciting. He’d had a few that reached that level but doubted that this one would be even difficult.

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.

Jake Fletcher thought he’d been blessed among all men when he stood at the aisle across from his bride. How such an ordinary man like himself had won her heart still astounded him. It wasn’t until a month later that he understood what had attracted her attention, and that discovery would drive him across the plains of Colorado and Kansas to find her.

After leaving his job as sheriff of Boulder, Sam Brown decides to visit his sister and her family on their ranch south of Denver, but discovers them all gone. He searches to find them, and what he discovers becomes his mission.

It hadn’t been a bad winter, but the townsfolk of Idaho City were anxious for spring to arrive. Like everyone else, Joe would appreciate the warmer weather and longer days. But he and Sheriff Fulmer both dreaded the influx of gold hunters and the trouble they would bring. They needed more good men, but after losing two deputies, not a single acceptable candidate had applied.

Clay County Sheriff Rusty Price had been following the two killers since they galloped out of his town but kept out of sight until the sun set. In the low light, he closed the gap and planned to wait until they crawled into their bedrolls to take them down.

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.

When the postal inspector in Carson City discovered a counterfeit one-dollar bill, he notified the Secret Service. That was why they’d been created just a decade earlier. Secret Service Agent Sean Brady was assigned to the case and prepared to make the day-long train ride from Ogden to start his investigation. Before he left, he was presented with a minor mystery by the Union Pacific freight manager that had nothing to do with counterfeiting.

Before the wagons left the Laramie Plains, a quiet epidemic began infecting some of the settlers. It was a disease without a cure and threatened to create havoc among the families. It started as just a passing remark, but soon word of a recent discovery surrounding Idaho City, just three hundred miles away inspired intense gold rush fever in many of the men. The first to become infected was Joe’s fellow scout, Chuck Lynch.