Showing results by author "William W. Johnstone" in All Categories

Nursing a bitter hatred for Smoke Jensen, the man responsible for landing them in Yuma Territorial Prison, Olin Buckner, Ralph Tinsdale, and twisted archenemy Victor Spectre manage to escape and rally an army of gunslingers and cutthroats for the purpose of getting even. And their first act is to kidnap Sally, Smoke Jensen's wife.

Drawn to a killing ground... Ten thousand dollars. That's the bounty on the head of the most hated man in Texas - the man Flintlock has been hired to guard. The crime was the brutal murder of a young schoolteacher. The verdict was not guilty for lack of evidence. And the suspected killer's first guard was murdered by a shotgun blast.

It is the fall of 1867. Twenty-two years have passed since Tim Colter and his family were ambushed on the Oregon Trail, forcing the young boy to grow up, forge ahead, and find an unlikely ally in one-eyed mountain man Jed Reno. Now a widowed deputy, US marshal, and Civil War veteran, Colter is finally ready to remarry and settle down - until a dangerous new assignment becomes a life-or-death struggle for the soul of a town and the heart of its people....

In No Man's Land, Frank Morgan, a greatly feared and greatly admired gunslinger, comes to Oklahoma, a lawless territory, with only Dog, his horse Stormy, and his reputation. He's itching for a fight, but will he be able to find any pardoners in this seemingly God-forsaken land?

Preacher has agreed to escort Barnaby Cooper through Dakota Territory’s hills to establish a trading post. Accompanied by his friends Lorenzo and Tall Dog, the mountain man hopes they’ll be able to protect Cooper from Sioux warriors who don’t want any white man trespassing on their sacred grounds. But the Sioux aren’t the only hostiles staking their claim in the region.

Kate Coldane has sweated blood for this saloon, and she won’t let it go down without a fight. Silas Atwood may be the richest rancher in Hudspeth County, but that doesn’t give him the right to push her around. When Atwood sends one of his goons to cause trouble at her watering hole, Kate’s son Rusty guns him down. It may have been self defense, but Atwood is the law, and that means Rusty has to run.

Matt and Sam never could refuse a damsel in distress, so a whole coach load of lovelies, lead by the fetching Charity McKenzie, seems like a gift from heaven. But if it looks too good to be true, it usually is — and in short order the blood will start to flow. Matt and Sam rush in anyway and faster than you can say “soiled doves,” they’re up to their necks in trouble.

Captain Peter Joseph Kellerman was once a promising career soldier who’d proven his mettle in battle time and again. Now he’s fighting a battle with a whiskey bottle. He’s also in charge of Fort Benjamin Grierson, located west of hell, deep in Arizona Territory’s Mohawk Valley on the arid edge of the Yuma Desert. The men under his command aren’t fit to wear the uniform. Killers, thieves, and ravagers condemned to death but who’ve chosen to serve, holding down the hated Fort Misery.

In South Texas, Captain Richard King built a ranch called Santa Gertrudis. But at the end of the Civil War, his ranch was raided by Union troops led by a sadistic killer who burned Santa Gertrudis to the ground. Thirty years later, King's land is about to run with blood once more. Former Union Captain Jack Brant has gotten out of prison and is raring to pick up his rampage where he left off. Called to Texas, mountain man Smoke Jensen is ready and willing to help King fight fire with fire.

There were some who knew Smoke Jensen as a hero...and there were others who believed the dark side of the legend — that he was an outlaw who'd killed over 300 men. But when Smoke wakes up with a gut-wrenching headache in a New Mexico jail cell, he feels as helpless as a newly whelped cougar cub — with a lease on his life shorter than the blink of an eye.

U.S. Marshal Will Tanner is a man of the law, not a gun for hire. Except when a friend’s in danger and needs the Tanner brand of help that comes out the barrel of a gun.

Luke Ransom was just 18 years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed 100 enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River - the longest in North America - all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job - and one of the few to survive....

A legend among bounty hunters, Luke Jensen is called to track down a deranged Yankee-turned-outlaw with a burning passion to torch the prairies, torment the townsfolks, and turn all he sees into a smoldering cinder....

The gold-mining town of Red Light, Montana is the kind of backwater hole less famous for the folks that live there than the ones who die there - like Janey Jensen, Smoke Jensen's sister. Smoke never would have gone there if it hadn't been for her estate. But that isn't the only thing the Mountain Man's got to settle. There's also the score between him and Major Cosgrove. The man who owns Red Light - lock, stock and barrel - is six feet of trouble looking for somebody like Smoke to bring out the worst in him.

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.

Unlike his brothers, Jacob, Sam, and Patrick, Shawn O'Brien isn't content to settle down on the family ranch in New Mexico territory. With his razor-sharp eye, lightning-fast draw, and burning thirst for justice, Shawn is carving out a reputation of his own. As a town tamer, he takes the most dangerous, lawless towns in the West and makes them safe for decent men, women, and children.

Smoke Jensen never wanted to kill, but fate had other plans, and the Mountain Man has left plenty of blood, tears and fury in his wake. Angus MacDougal, the father of one of Smoke’s victims, wants revenge. Riding up to Big Rock, Colorado, MacDougal has decided that killing Smoke won’t be enough. He intends to bring him back to Pueblo and hang him before a crowd. It’s a bloodthirsty plan that might have worked, except for a beautiful young woman, and the small knife she slips into Smoke’s hand.

Orphaned at the age of seven and adopted by Indians, Jami Ian MacCallister grew into a man more at ease in the wilderness than among men. But when the westward strike drove him across the Arkansas Territory into Texas, he finally found himself a home — in the middle of a bloody war. Texans like Jim Bowie and Sam Houston were waging a fierce struggle against Santa Ana’s Mexican army and Jami MacCallister made the perfect scout for the fledgling volunteer force.

Doing time in Texas is no picnic. But getting sent to The Walls in Huntsville is a fate worse than hanging. If the guards don't kill you, the prisoners will. And if it weren't for the fact that the man who framed Hank Fallon and murdered his family could be inside The Walls, Hank would never step one foot in that heinous helltrap - let alone go undercover as an inmate. But this isn't just another assignment. This is his chance for revenge.

In all the horrific corners of the Civil War, there was no hell worse than Andersonville, the Yankee prison camp run by evil, sadistic General Thomas Wainwright. In the war's aftermath, a survivor of Andersonville summons Joe Buckhorn to New Orleans and asks the gunslinger to kill the general - not simply for revenge, but to stop another atrocity. Wainwright has seized control of Wagontongue, a township on the edge of the Arizona desert, and he rules it as brutally as he once did Andersonville. With an iron grip on the town's only source of water, he keeps the locals cowering.