Western Action

Eight years ago, vicious bandits killed Marshal Tobias Cassidy and left his daughter for dead. They thought they got away clean. Now a contest to determine the top shootist in the Wild West is set to take place in Fortune’s Cross and lady gunslinger Hope Cassidy has come to town…only it’s not for glory, it’s for vengeance. After gunning down one of the men who murdered her father, Hope is given a stark choice: swing from a rope, or take the dead man’s place in the contest.

They are just about as bad and evil as outlaw gangs come. But in the end, they finally go straight.

In Book Four, the brave, passion-filled characters of Uncompahgre struggle in this unknown wilderness, racing against an early, foreboding winter to establish their homestead, some preoccupied with serious pre-birth complications of the next generation of Threads West characters, other's compelled by an inner sense to blaze a separate trail, but all united to fend off ever-present dangers. The different personalities of their surviving offspring begin to manifest, some in disturbing ways.

Out of nowhere Comanches attack, and sixteen year-old Jane narrowly survives the slaughter of her family and the kidnapping of her baby sister. Driven by grief and fury, she rides headlong into Indian territory, seeking vengeance. But the odds are stacked against a young girl on the trail, and Jane soon realizes she must disguise herself as a boy to join forces with a tough company of cowhands on a cattle drive to Dodge City.

After the tragic death of his Crow Indian wife, Graham Davidson is left adrift, searching for a purpose that always seems just out of reach. His journey leads him to join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, where he crosses paths with Sitting Bull, Annie Oakley, and other legends. He meets an aspiring horsewoman named Grace, whose friendship awakens feelings he thought were buried forever.

Will and Maggie have big dreams. Not just for themselves and their baby. For their friends, family, and Texas, too. Can Will secure his old homestead before a carpetbagger snatches it up? What dangers await the Walking Gallows when they return to the Thicket? Meanwhile, despite Captain Culp's best efforts, big trouble is brewing with the bluebellies. Why? Through it all, Will and Maggie work hard for a better future. But if Will's enemies succeed, he won't have any future at all.

Rance Kirby returns from Mexico rich enough to buy back the ranch that was once his father's. But his hope is darkened when the current owner, who has agreed to the sale, is mysteriously murdered. Rance Kirby also finds himself under the spell of the strong and determined Libby Caddo, a woman who has her own ideas about Rance's future.

Two adventuresome young boys, one white, one black, leave the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and head west in 1830 to see the Rocky Mountains that they've heard about. They drive freight wagons down the Santa Fe Trail, learn the beaver trade, and attend the Great Rendezvous of 1833. It's the first book in a series, as only R. O. Lane can tell it.

Leaving their Pennsylvania home to forge a new life in the untamed Oregon Territory of 1845, the Colter family is ambushed by a kill crazy gang of cutthroats on the Oregon Trail. Fifteen-year-old Tim Colter manages to escape and hide — only to return and find his parents butchered, his sisters Nancy and Margaret missing, and one last killer waiting for his return.

Riverboat gambling is a blast, until hot-headed Chance finds out just what he won in his final hand against a Missouri River gambler named Haggarty. Chance's "prize" is a beautiful Chinese slave girl named Ling. The twins want to set Ling free and keep their cash, but at Fort Benton, Ling gives them the slip, robbing them blind. When they hunt her down in Rimfire, Montana, she's with Haggarty, lining up their next mark.

Shaving his beard and posing as a farmer from Ohio, Preacher comes face-to-face with Shad Beaumont and insinuates himself into his organization — as Beaumont's own personal bodyguard. But before Preacher can take down the sadistic leader, innocents — and not-so-innocents — are drawn into Beaumont's intricate web and Preacher finds the stakes of the game have become alarmingly high.

Having saved Sweet Apple, Texas from disaster, Matt and Sam decide to stay and help the new marshal break in his spurs — not to mention squeeze in a well-deserved vacation with the help of the lovely, spirited daughters of two feuding cattlemen. Quicker than you can say dosy do, Matt and Sam find themselves on the verge of a full-scale range war. But even worse trouble heads into town when an old foe shows up with hired killers masquerading as dry goods salesmen.

hn Signal, fleeing from a murder charge in a fair fight, arrives in the mining town of Monument. Calling himself John Alias, he is made a deputy sheriff by Sheriff Peter Ogden, who puts Alias between two crooked factions and fails to give him any support.

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life...Now, from the bustling streets of St. Louis to the vast stillness of the Missouri headwaters, Breckinridge is discovering a new world of splendor, violence, promise and betrayal. Most off all, he is clawing his way to manhood behind the law of the gun.

Those Jensen boys, Ace and Chance, find themselves on the wrong side of the law - and the raw end of justice - inside the meanest, dirtiest prison in the Arizona territory.

Some say bad luck comes in threes. And if you're a bandit, bank robber, or bloodthirsty killer, that bad luck comes in the form of three hard justice-seekers known as the Jackals. Each of the Jackals has his own path to follow: Former Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch is trying to protect a young Commanche from scalphunters. Retired cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan is dodging bullets in a prison breakout planned by the notorious Benteen brothers. And bounty hunter Jed Breen is bringing in one of the bank-robbing Kruger twins - while the other one's out for his blood....

Elijah Rable rides into Destitution looking for some fun but ends up with a badge on his chest, a price on his head, and two women vying for his heart. Destitution is just a miserable little frontier town in the middle of nowhere. So why is the air thick with fear and greed? And why are its most powerful citizens hiring gunslingers? Joined by a female sharpshooter with more grit than a sandstorm, Rable gets busy trying to solve the mystery. But he’d better be quick if he wants to stop the war, save the folks counting on him, and get out of Destitution alive.

Jim sets off with his friend Rute to meet Jenny, a young woman Rute says is special. Rute breaks a leg in a fall and heads for Frozen, Nevada to heal up with friends and finds himself pursued by three widows intent on matrimony. Jim finds Jenny and frees her from a mayor who wants to marry her. On the way, Jim kills a man in self-defense after stopping him from abusing a waitress. As Jim and Jenny head for Frozen, he must fight off assassins sent by the man's mother.

Texas Ranger Loren Williams is chasing six bank robbers who killed and beheaded three fellow Rangers who were chasing them. He meets up with Jim Thornton, a former Confederate gunman, who has found a little blind girl named Shelby Jean at a burned out wagon, her father and uncle murdered and her mother kidnapped and murdered by the men the Ranger is chasing.

Gil Daly had started working for his wages at sixteen, saving his money for the ranch he eventually bought. Then the banks in far-away New York started sinking and with them cattle prices fell and credit became almost impossible for small ranchers to get. The final blow had been the drought. He lost everything. For a year he had drifted, working for cowhand wages . . . but even a year of drifting didn’t make him a saddle bum. He’d signed on with Brewster as a cowhand, but after only a week, he was ready to leave. He didn’t like Swallowfork or the man who owned it or the men who worked here.