Showing results by author "J. A. Johnstone" in All Categories

n the darkest days of the Civil War, Neville Goldsmith set the world on fire. As Captain for the Union Army, he marched with General Sherman through Georgia, setting homes and cities ablaze with sadistic glee. For Goldsmith, starting fires was a lifelong obsession. And when the war ended, he set his sights on the great American West—to burn it all to the ground. Years later, Luke Jensen learns about a series of fires wreaking havoc from the Dakota Territory to Kansas.

The last days of the Civil War. With Richmond under siege, Confederate soldier Luke Jensen is assigned the task of smuggling gold out of the city before the Yankees get their hands on it - when he is ambushed and robbed by four deserters, shot in the back, and left for dead. Taken in by a Georgia farmer and his beautiful daughter, Luke is nursed back to health. Though crippled, he hopes to reunite with his long-lost brother Smoke, but a growing romance keeps him on the farm.

At the Sugarloaf Ranch, Smoke and Sally Jensen prepare to welcome Preacher home for the holidays — unaware that their friend is trailed by a storm full of trouble. On a mission of vengeance, an old trapper is rescued by Ace and Chance Jensen from ruthless outlaws — and wanted by a driven bounty hunter named Luke Jensen.

The cattle town of Chugwater may not look like much to outsiders. But for Duff MacCallister and the determined settlers who’ve staked their futures here, it’s a land of opportunity. That’s why the whole town is fired up by the latest news. Young railroad developer Jacob Poindexter wants to run a rail line through Chugwater, making it easier to transport cattle. Everyone is on board with the plan — at first. Duff begins to suspect that Poindexter is only after the most valuable land, and he’s using strongarm tactics to force reluctant ranchers to sell.

Sam'l Flintlock has been hired to protect an innocent man who narrowly escaped the noose but everyone still seems to want dead. The murder of a school teacher sets in motion a battle to the death that pits Flintlock against the hidden man who pulls the strings in the town of Open Sky. But first Flintlock must find out who that man is, what he wants and why. As people start dying, the pieces start to fall together and Flintlock knows that for every evil deed there must be a reckoning....and Flintlock is that reckoning.

A prostitute. A virgin. A tomboy. A woman on the run. And a bank robber’s girlfriend. These five brides-to-be are ready to get hitched in San Angelo, Texas — and it’s Ace and Chance’s job to get them to the church on time. But this is no easy walk down the aisle. It’s one hard journey that could get them all killed....

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.

In his mountain-man days, Elwood “Firestick” McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name “Firestick.” His two best buddies are Malachi “Beartooth” Skinner—whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly’s chompers—and Jim “Moosejaw” Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat of battle. Of course, things are different nowadays.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the High Sierras. But Smoke Jensen and his children, Louis and Denise, won't let a little snow stop them from heading to Reno for the holidays. There are two ways for them to get there: the long way, going around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, or the short way, going right through them. Smoke decides to take a gamble. They'll follow the trail that, decades earlier, brought the legendary Donner Party to a gruesome, tragic end....

A beautiful young woman has an incredible story to tell: about her outlaw father, how he got busted out of jail, and then met a bloody end. Katherine Lupo believes her dad, a career train robber, was sprung by someone who wanted to set up Lupo for another crime — and then killed him when the job was done. A Texas Ranger believes her. And he turns to The Loner, a man with the guile and courage to go undercover and find out who was behind Lupo’s escape and murder.

When Duff MacCallister sees smoke rising from his neighbor’s ranch, he knows that something is very wrong. But he isn’t prepared for what he finds: smoldering buildings, a rancher and his wife brutally slaughtered, and a 14-year-old survivor who could not save her parents. Now, Duff is going after the killers — and his only companion is the headstrong girl who refuses to be left behind.

In a saloon north of El Paso, the legendary Doc Holliday is forced to kill a rancher's son in self defense. His father, Colonel Robert McHenry, is desperate for revenge. And now Doc is a hunted man on the run. Heading west, he turns to Jacob O'Brien, hoping to find refuge at the family ranch. Jacob knows it's a lose-lose situation — one that's bound to end in violence and blood. Colonel McHenry is the famous "Lion of Lynchburg," whose relentless courage in the Civil War earned the respect of fighting men everywhere.

In Broken Bridle, Wyoming, Jeremiah Purdy, the town's tinhorn sheriff is a college kid who wants to become governor some day. But outlaw Darius Pike couldn't care less about anyone else's ambitions. With Pike holding Broken Bridle in a bloody grip of terror, Purdy sends a desperate cry for help - to Shawn O'Brien, town tamer. Shawn's mission: ride to Wyoming and pry Broken Bridle loose from Pike's reign of fear.

For a posse chasing a murderous band of outlaws, a quiet kid with a lightning fast gun is good company. And when the outlaws turn around and attack the posse, The Loner doesn’t have a choice: he’s now caught up in a running gun battle across West Texas. The Loner knows the men he’s fighting are bad to the bone - led by a merciless killer named Warren Latch. But what about the guys on his side?

Keeping the peace in a West Texas town like Buffalo Peak should be easy for a legendary frontiersman like Marshal Elwood "Firestick" McQueen. He’s got his longtime buddies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks as his deputies — not to mention the famous rifle that earned him his nickname. But when Firestick learns that their ornery old friend “Rip” Ripley just rode into town, all bets are off.

When Matt and Sam are ambushed by a violent gang led by the scurrilous Zack Jardine, who has his own reasons for wanting the blood brothers dead, Matt is badly wounded. After leaving Matt in a Navajo village to get patched up, Sam rides off hot on the trail of the Jardine Gang. Sam finds the cutthroats selling guns to the Indians, a move that will likely explode into an all-out tribal war. Outnumbered and outgunned, the blood brothers aim to settle Zack Jardine's hash once and for all — with a little luck, a lot of bullets and the courage to shoot true.

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.

Duff MacCallister has just returned from a trip back to his native Scotland - more determined than ever to build a new future in Chugwater Valley, Wyoming. But Duff will do it his way, buying up a herd of rare Scottish black angus from the Kansas City market. He can’t know that his dream is threatened by a man driven by one desire: to take other people’s money and other people’s lives.

Three weeks before Christmas, the little town of Chug Water in Wyoming Territory is stunned by a brutal crime. The mayor's family has been slaughtered in cold blood on their ranch outside of Raw Hide Butte. As the townsfolk gather to pay their last respects, Duff MacCallister saddles up to go after the killers. He returns with two outlaws - a cold-blooded, nasty pair of snakes, Jesse and T. Bob Cave.

As both a prisoner and an undercover operative, US Marshal Hank Fallon has faced down some of the most vicious, terrifying, cold-blooded thieves and murderers in the West. Now, Hank is finally free, and he's got no intention of setting foot inside a jail ever again. But the new federal prison being constructed in Leavenworth, Kansas, needs a warden, and Hank is the right man for the job. He's got the scars to prove it - and to keep the peace. But keeping these lawless hornets in their nest is no easy feat.