Dramatized Westerns

When Smoke Jensen sees a gang of outlaws holding up a stagecoach, his gunfighter instincts take over and he storms in with guns blazing. He kills one of the gunmen, the rest scatter like the rats they are. Another notch on the sharpshooter's weathered grip. But the dead man is the brother of the notorious outlaw Gabe Briggs, and Briggs will want revenge....

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

It's hard country, but the pioneers of Fury (Population 112) are banding together to make it a home. With barren lands, blinding dust storms, drought, hostile Indians and violent bands of cutthroat outlaws against them, death is never far away. It's enough to make Jason Fury, whose father the town was named after, ride out for San Francisco. But a fiery young redhead named Megan McDonald keeps him Arizona bound - and just in time.

Call him man-hunter, tracker, or bounty hunter. As long as the cash was cold and the trail was hot, Lou Prophet would run his quarry into the ground before giving up the chase. He loved his work - it kept him in wine and women, and was never, ever dull. And his newest job sounds particularly attractive....Her name is Lola Diamond. She’s a showgirl, a chanteuse, and a prime witness in a murder trial that’s going on without her. Prophet is supposed to find her and "escort" her to the courthouse, whether she likes it or not.

In all his years of bounty hunting, not one injury could rival the pain Lou Prophet felt when he thought he’d lost his old partner Louisa Bonaventure. Now that he’s rescued her from the brink of death in Mexico, they’re seeking a fresh start in Juniper, Wyoming, which had once been called Helldorado before Lou’s friend, “Hell-Bringin’” Hiram Severin, cleaned it up. Or thought he had....

The mountains are brimming with the lure of fortunes — from gold to a booming fur trade. A man at home in this once pristine wilderness, Preacher knows there’s no turning back civilization now. What he doesn’t know is that beyond the plans of some men is a deadly enemy with far more dangerous designs....

Werewolf by Max Brand in Western Story Magazine (12/18/26) involves just such an inward journey for Christopher Royal, who is convinced he is a coward and flees a confrontation with Harry Main, who is a gunfighter. There comes a time in this story - when Christopher encounters the aged Indian, the old wise man - that the terrain shimmers with the multiple affinities of meaning conjured by the unconscious, which Vergil once sought to capture within an image both awesome and sinister: numina magna deum [the great divine power of a god].

A quick-draw tale from the wild west. T. T. Flynn has long been popular with listeners as a master of the Western story.

Brother Shotgun is about an old buffalo hunter whose return to the plains after the Civil War keeps being delayed by the needs of a young woman who has taken in a number of orphans.

The last thing Jason Fury wants is to lead this wagon train west to California. Hell, he just wants to head back east, where a smart young man like himself has a real shot at a better life. But halfway across Oklahoma the wagon train is attacked by bloodthirsty Commanche and Jedediah Fury - the leader of the settlers and Jason’s father - is counted among the dead. Before he knows it, Jason’s leading the wagons into Arizona Territory, where the squabbling settlers decide to stop for good and start a town they’ll name Fury in honor of Jedediah.

Life’s been pretty good for Cuno Massey since he went into the freight business with Wade Scanlon. Good, that is, until Scanlon stops in at a saloon and gets shot dead by a band of outlaws. When Massey comes upon his friend in a pine box with his freight wagon plundered and burned, he has one goal: to find the killers.

Andy Pickard felt ready to settle down, until the violent death of a good friend sends him on the road again, to bring a killer to justice. His trail takes him away from Bethel Brackett, but reunites him with old friends Rusty Shannon and Len Tanner. The bank-robbing fugitive he seeks may not even be the killer, but justice must be served. For many reasons, it's a hard trail to follow.

When Harry French left home he was just another kid looking to make his way. But when he comes back four years later, things are different. He's different. Or at least the town thinks so. Now nobody looks him in the eye. He isn't just Harry anymore, he's the Shifter, a gunfighter who brings trouble with him wherever he goes. And as hard as Harry tries, he finds that a reputation is a lot harder to put down than a gun.

Lou Prophet is in mixed company these days. He doesn’t mind being close to his pretty pistol-packing partner, Louisa Bonaventure. Known as the Vengeance Queen, she has his back — and dare he say it, part of his heart. But accompanying the vile outlaw Blanco Metalious back to Nugget Town to see him hang isn’t exactly Lou’s idea of a good time.

Nathan Stone returns to his Virginia home to discover that the horrors of the Civil War are not over; his family has been wiped out, and their home burned by seven renegades. Nathan swears an oath on his father’s grave to find and kill each of the men responsible. He begins a lonely journey that will take him south and west, on a vengeance trail that crosses the paths of some infamous figures, including “Wild Bill” Hickok, Roy Bean, and Frank and Jesse James.

Smoke Jensen and his adopted son Matt are cooling their heels in Colorado when they are called to the Dakotas. Preacher, the legendary mountain man, is in the midst of a vicious struggle. Someone has kidnapped a proud Indian chief’s daughter and grandchild. When the kidnapping turns to murder, and Preacher vanishes after clashing with a ruthless Union colonel turned railroad king, Matt sets out to infiltrate the Colonel's gang of killers; Smoke seeks out the only honest citizens in the crooked town of Hammerhead.

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.

John Henry Cole's life has quieted down from what it had always been, and he can now settle down and make improvements on his small ranch. But everything changes when an old rancher named Wilson rides in with his two sons. Wilson is willing to pay Cole $5,000 to help get back his wife Lenora who has been taken hostage by Lucky Jack Dancer, an outlaw who had robbed the train on which she was a passenger.

John Henry Cole had worked for years as a lawman and then as a detective for an agency out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was this work that he enjoyed, despite its dangers, that had inspired him to establish his own agency. He gathered ex-lawmen like himself, men he knew and trusted, most of whom he had worked with at one time or another. Cole's agency was located in just about the most dangerous place one could find in Red Pony, in the Cherokee Strip, commonly called No Man's Land because of the rampant outlawry.

John Henry Cole, working as a deputy U.S. marshal out of Judge Isaac Parker's court in Arkansas, was on assignment in the Indian Nations, in pursuit of a group of white renegades who were in hiding there - above all a particularly vicious renegade named Caddo Pierce. He had a wagon of captive renegades when he was shot and seriously injured. He managed to come out of the Nations with his prisoners, but decided that he had enough of that job and so resigned.