Western Adventure

There's nothing like family. At least that's what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo's family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he's in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman.

Lily Salt has sworn off men. After finally gaining her independence, the last thing she needs is another man telling her what to do. But the handsome railroad engineer from New York isn't at all what she expected. He's kind, gentle...and tempting. A self-acknowledged black sheep, Roen Shepard knows what it means to feel alone. Recognizing a kindred spirit in the reserved widow whose fascinating blue-green eyes have seen too much and charmed by the warmth of her ready-made family, the two begin an unlikely friendship.

In 1866, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is a hotbed of gunrunners, mercenaries, and the Emperor of Mexico's spies, saboteurs and double agents. On top of which, West Texas is plagued by Comanche warriors. Into this mix ride two massive gangs of the meanest, most kill-happy bunch of bloodthirsty ravagers to ever draw a breath. Sam Heller and Johnny Cross have got the marauders in their sights, but they aren't ready for the slaughter and destruction the raiders unleash on Hangtree County.

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.

In Hangtree, Texas, any day could be your last. For on the heels of the Civil War, Hangtree is drawing gamblers, fast women and faster gunmen. Amidst the brawls and shooting, the land-grabbing and card-sharking, two men barely hold the boomtown together: Yankee Sam Heller and Texan Johnny Cross. Heller and Cross can’t stand the sight of each other. And Hangtree needs them more than ever. A Comanche named Red Hand leads a horde of warriors on a horrific path of bloodshed and destruction, with Hangtree sitting right in Red Hand’s path.

Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves were hard on a trail that led them deeper and deeper into Apache territory toward the Mexican border where a bunch of varmints, desperate men who hire out to most anybody to most anything, were operatin' two of the scummiest dodges in the west. Running guns to the Apache and white-slaving kidnapped children. Matt and Sam had hooked up with two companions along the way, a prideful mountain man who'd lost his granddaughter in an Indian raid and a miss searchin' for her brother, taken by the Apache a while back.

If there’s one thing Smoke Jensen hates, it’s a man who fights dirty. And no one fights dirtier than a politician. Especially a lying, cheating, no-good grifter like Senator Rex Underhill. Luckily, with another election coming up, this senatorial snake in the grass has some serious competition: Smoke’s old friend, Sheriff Monte Carson. Carson’s an honest man, and he’s got Smoke’s full support. But Underhill’s got support, too: a squad of hired guns ready to hit the campaign trail - and stain it red with blood.

Trueman Rock is a daring young cowboy and rider. Six years ago he had to leave the cowtown of Wagontongue because of a history of gunfights and run-ins with bad hombres. Since then, he's become a man who only uses his gun when he needs to, on rustlers and crooks. Now, he's returning to his hometown. But things have changed. The town and its people aren't what they used to be. He expects to find some of his enemies there to welcome him, but instead finds they're all dead. In their place is the Preston family.

Thanks to a new line, Duff MacCallister can transport his 250 Black Angus cattle herd with ease by Iron Horse instead of enduring a two-day traildrive. But the day after depositing $15,000 in his Cheyenne account, Duff learns that bank president Jeremy Brinks embezzled every cent - totalling $65,000 - and then, guilt-ridden, committed suicide. The widow Brinks doesn't believe her husband was a thief or that he killed himself. Duff agrees. And after getting an appointment as Territorial Marshal, he's aiming his barrel at putting every double-crossing lawman.

In the west, there’s always work for the kind of men willing to get their hands dirty — from rounding stray cattle to stringing barbed wire. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are just such men. Now they’ve been hired for the one job they’ve never tried: wearing badges — in a little stain of a town called Whiskey Flats.

A killer is on the loose in the Arizona Territory. One by one, Tonto Basin ranchers are being murdered for their livestock -and the Cattle Raisers Association has hired two range detectives to catch the culprit. From the looks of them, Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman are just another pair of high plains drifters. But with their razor-sharp detective skills and rare talent for trouble, they’re the last remaining hope for one young cowboy who’s been arrested for the murders.

Two friends committed to one another and their destiny of exploring the wilderness known as French Louisiana. A land that would soon become the Louisiana Purchase and a part of the growing nation of the United Colonies. But another man, wealthy, influential, and vindictive, is determined to see Gabriel Stonecroft pay the ultimate price for the death of his son, a ne'er-do-well troublemaker who surrendered his life in a duel with Stonecroft. After a perilous journey down the Ohio River aboard a flatboat, the two friends now set out to explore the West.

Marshal Miller is on a mission to bring a Cherokee renegade, Cal Mankiller, to justice. She follows his trail of blood to the rugged and mysterious Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma Territory. Will she finally see justice served? Will she welcome Mankiller to his first day in hell? Find out in Lady Law.

Sometimes when a man’s luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens.

Sometimes, it’s bad to be good. That’s what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man’s bacon. The catch: This mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That’s when they discover that the thieves aren’t who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all — the kind that can steal your heart.

Preacher, against his better judgment, agrees to lead a wagon train of women across the West. He hires a pack of mountain men to assist him, but he gets more than he bargained for when a gang of cutthroats follows the train with murder, rape and slave trafficking in mind. Led by the nefarious Easterner Victor Bedell, the outlaws will accomplish what few have done before: they will get a bullet into Preacher. But they’ll make a fatal mistake. They’ll leave him for dead. Soon the mountains will echo with avenging gunfire.

Itching for a challenge, Count Frederick von Hausen sails from Germany to hunt down Smoke Jensen. And with a party of the toughest hardasses in the West, von Hausen shadows Smoke into Wyoming's high Rockies. But Smoke Jensen is the last mountain man, and he knows the country like the back of his hand. He also knows that these doomed backtrailers couldn't have picked a prettier place to be buried.

When gold is discovered near the little town of No-Name, Colorado, the citizens are overjoyed at their good fortune...until trouble gallops down Maine Street on a horse straight out of Hell. For gold's closest companions are greed and murder, and every two-bit gunslick from the Atlantic to the Rockies is beating a path to the gold strike - which is practically on the doorstep of Smoke Jensen. They're looking to get rich quick...and never mind how it's done. But this legendary mountain man never learned how to back away from a good fight - and this one promises to be a whopper.

In 1863, a teenaged boy fled his home in Atherton, Missouri, to escape the power-hungry men who murdered his father and stole his family’s land. He joined the Confederacy under an assumed name and led guerilla raids in the Civil War. Then came a decade as a Texas Ranger. Now, after ten blood-soaked years, he is finally coming home. Finally using his real name. And finally getting revenge against the cold-hearted devils who destroyed his family and his life....

The Reckoning is the first in the series of Jess Williams Western novels written by Robert J. Thomas. Jess Williams is an ordinary young boy with a loving family, growing up in Black Creek, Kansas. That all changes when he comes home and finds his entire family brutally murdered. Forced to become a man overnight, he vows to avenge his family's savage deaths.