Western Action Adventure

Before the legend of Preacher there was a man, and before the man there was a boy. In this thrilling new novel, William W. Johnstone tells the story of a young man filled with wanderlust and raw courage - who will someday become a hero. 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.

A hot meal, a hard drink, and maybe a friendly hand of poker - that's all Dewey "Mac" Mackenzie wants when he drifts into the small town of Harcourt City, Montana. What he gets is a fistful of trouble. When he defends a saloon girl from the unwanted advances of some local toughs, he earns the wrath of the town's powerful namesake, Oscar Harcourt.

A wagon train winding through the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountain high country can attract plenty of scavengers - some of them human - like Vic Bedell and his gang of cutthroats. All he wants is the women, who can be traded for gold mine supplies...or used for whatever else he has in mind. But he didn't count on Preacher leading that train.

Johnny Greenway was once a family man. A well-respected marshal who always played fair. Then his wife and son were killed by cutthroats. Johnny killed the killers. Then he hung up his badge and picked up a bottle. Now a shadow of his former self, he has nothing much to live for. But when he singlehandedly stops a bank robbery, he catches the eye of the banker’s daughter. She’s impressed by Johnny’s gun skills, and offers him a job riding shotgun. First he’ll have to stop drinking and clean up his act. But that’s not all that needs cleaning.

No one remembered when he'd come to the mountains - it seemed that Preacher had always been there. He'd seen a great deal in the unmapped mountains and forests of the grand North American frontier. In fact, he'd just told a friend that he wasn't surprised by anything anymore. But Preacher hadn't seen Nova Roma yet. Suddenly, Preacher is faced with the strangest, most dangerous army the High Lonesome has ever seen. It's leader is a blood-mad fanatic right out of the ancient history books. All Preacher's got on his side are his brother mountain men.

The little town of No-Name, Colorado is jubilant when they strike gold there, until every no-account degenerate and desperado for hundreds of miles shows up on their doorstep. It's up to mountain Man Smoke Jensen and his over-the-hill companions to save the town's bacon, and do their best not to get killed in the process.

Smoke Jensen’s daughter Denny can outride, outrope, and outshoot any man who gets in her way. But being a pretty woman, Denny sometimes attracts the attention of unsavory suitors. Like the lecherous Count Malatesta. Denny met the seductive Sicilian on her trip to Europe - and almost fell head over heels for the swindler. What’s he doing in America?

What started as a routine hunt and grab - putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison - has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke's direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke's side in the war - but the war is over, and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold.

Mac Mackenzie has enough problems on his plate. He's got bounty hunters on his tail, no one on his side, and no place to hide. Just when he thinks it can't get any worse, he hears the rumbling of a cattle stampede - heading straight for his camp. Mac's got two choices: Get trampled like a weed or saddle up and help get the herd under control. At first, the traildrivers ain't too pleased to have a stranger help them out.

A wagon train of pioneers is struggling Westward toward Oregon through the howling winter and a band of Arikara warriors are hot on their trail. Little do the Arikaras suspect that they're about to come face-to-face and gun-to-gun with a ferocious fight they never expected, courtesy of the wily mountain man called Preacher. As Preacher struggles to bring the settlers to safety, he learns the real reason they were attacked and begins to suspect that the secrets they've been keeping equal a worse kind of danger.

Framed for murder, Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac’s never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west — as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He’s as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun — which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins....

In 1870s New Mexico, the territory is at a crossroads. The indigenous population is being driven out—and driven down—by the white settlers migrating west after the Civil War. The center of power isn’t the governor but rather the Santa Fe Ring, a group of wealthy politicians, businessman, and landowners who exercise power through organized crime, theft, graft, and murder. Their main source of income is a mercantile store in Lincoln known as the House.

During a trip back east for a family reunion, Preacher learns that even the civilized Midwest can attract a motherlode of trouble...especially when a gang of local bully boys decides to pick a fight. Now, wealthy landowner Elam Parks lies dead - and there's a $5,000 reward on the head of the man accused: the first mountain man. The fortune in blood money has dispatched a small army of bounty hunters after Preacher. Now, back in his once-peaceful homestead in the High Lonesome, as he sights down the barrel of his '33 Hall North breechloader, Preacher is ready for target practice.

During a trip back east for a family reunion, Preacher learns that even the civilized Midwest can attract a motherlode of trouble...especially when a gang of local bully boys decide to pick a fight. Now wealthy landowner Elam Parks lies dead - and there's a $5,000 reward on the head of the man accused: the first mountain man. The fortune in blood money has dispatched a small army of bounty hunters after Preacher. Now, back in his once-peaceful homestead in the High Lonesome, as he sights down the barrel of his '33 Hall North breechloader, Preacher is ready for target practice.

Alone on the merciless prairie, Caleb Miller faces a nightmare: his wagon train lies in ashes, slaughtered by Cheyenne warriors. With his young bride, Nettie, depending on him, he must outwit hostile tribes, master the brutal wilderness, and forge himself into a warrior worthy of the frontier. 1857, Western Prairies—Freshly married and dreaming of a homestead in the Sweet Water Valley, Caleb and Nettie’s hopes are shattered by violence. Now, survival means more than building a life—it means becoming the shield between civilization and chaos.

When a wealthy cattle baroness hires Joe Buckhorn to track down her son, it sounds like easy money. But when he learns that the boy has run off with a girl - whose father is the leader of the cattle-rustling Riley clan - Buckhorn's only hope is to infiltrate the gang. Gain their trust. Live the outlaw life, even at the risk of death. There's just one problem: there's more than one gang. The Riley girl may have stolen a runaway boy's heart but the other gangs are stealing the baroness's cattle.

In a remote corner of Utah lies the secret outlaw kingdom of Ben Curry. For 15 years Curry has ruled supreme, as his men have pulled jobs from Canada to Mexico. But the king is getting old...he wants to turn his legacy over to someone younger, tougher. Mike Bastian is Ben's adopted son, a young man who can handle a knife, a gun, his fists, but a man who's never broken the law. Now, as treachery explodes among Ben's riders, and two honest lawmen - Tyrel Sackett and Borden Chantry - begin to zero in on the gang, Mike must choose....

Gold. Silver. Cold hard cash. Stagecoach guard Red Ryan and his driver Buttons Muldoon have ridden shotgun on some pretty valuable cargo in their day. But they're about to learn - the hard way - that the most dangerous cargo of all is human. They've been hired to escort a cowardly traitor facing an army court martial in New Orleans. Every hired killer in Texas wants him dead, including gun-handy Hannah Huckabee, a woman with a mysterious past and an agenda of her own. But she's just one of the dangers they'll face along the way.

Building a ranch takes heart and grit. Smoke and Sally Jensen are more than capable of meeting the challenges of shaping the land, raising the livestock, and establishing their brand. But Smoke wasn’t always an entrepreneur. He’s more apt to settle accounts with a fast draw than a checkbook. And when he learns his old friend Preacher has been ambushed by outlaws, he wastes no time saddling up and hitting the vengeance trail with his fellow mountain men Audie and Nighthawk.

It was there for the taking: $75,000 in gold bullion, the combined payrolls of the three productive gold mines, just waiting to be stolen from under the noses of a bickering sheriff and city marshal. Billy Ray Gilmore and his band of kill-crazy outlaws have a plan to do it, too.... That is, until Sixkiller comes to town. Hiding his badge to conceal his identity as a US Marshal, Sixkiller goes undercover to smoke out the culprits before they strike.