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

There are two things a man can never escape: his past and his destiny. For Buck Trammel, that past includes a fatal mistake that ended his career as a Pinkerton and a deadly shootout with the Bower gang in a Witchita saloon. Call it luck or call it fate, but the famous Deputy Wyatt Earp was there to give Buck some advice: Run for your life. Maybe it was Earps warning that saved him from the gangs wrath. Maybe it was destiny that brought him to the town of Blackstone, Wyoming, where his biggest problem is a father-son brewing war. But Trammels luck is about to run dry....

William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone present Book 2 in the Man From Waco series.

A new railroad line is coming to Hansen's Bend—and the Old West will never be the same. Especially for the Callahans. They've been running the local wagon train outfit for years. But now a pompous rail boss named Arbuckle wants to put them out of business. This big-city weasel mocks the Callahans' "slow-poke" wagons-and bets he can finish laying track all the way to the end of the line before Callahan's wagon train even makes it over the mountains. Callahan accepts the challenge—and gets gunned down before it even starts . . .

Patrick Foley is a haunted man. After losing his family in a brutal Commanche raid, he drifts from town to town seeking justice and revenge. His mission—to track down the killers—has hardened his heart against all men, good or bad. But his icy resolve begins to melt when he arrives in the small Texas town of Christmas Creek—along with a massive winter storm that traps him there with a good woman, her little boy, and some very bad men . . .

Busted out of prison by an outlaw friend, Flintlock joins a hunt for a fortune - a golden bell hanging in a remote monastery. But between the smouldering ruin of his former jail cell and a treasure in the Arizona mountains there will be blood at a U.S. Army fort, a horrifying brush with Apache warriors, and a dozen bloody showdowns with the schemers, shootists, madmen, and lost women who find their way to Flintlock's side.

As the father of a young Crow tribesman, Preacher would like nothing more than to see the long-time natives and newly arrived settlers live together in peace. Then, the killing starts.... As a family man and frontiersman, Jamie Ian MacCallister is more than happy to help the officers at Fort Kearny negotiate a peace treaty with the Crow nation. Until it all goes to hell.... This is not the American dream they were looking for. This is a nightmare. A brutal, blood-drenched frontier war that two heroic men must fight and win - or one struggling nation will never come together.

They were innocent men, slaughtered in the Rockies. A party of land surveyors who met their grisly fate at the hands of the Crow Indians—or so it seems. Some folks think the story is a lie. And now it's up to US Army Lieutenant Ron Stanton to figure out what really happened up there in those desolate, blood-soaked mountains. As his guides, Preacher and Jamie McCallister agree to retrace the footsteps of the doomed party—come hell or high water—but first they'll have to pass through a particularly nasty piece of purgatory known as Fort Buzzard.

Once upon a time in the Old West, Buck Trammel was a Pinkerton agent with a promising future. But after a tragic incident in a case gone wrong, he struck out for the wide-open spaces of Wichita, Kansas. Working as a bouncer at the Gilded Lily Saloon, he hopes to stay out of trouble. But soon enough, his gun skills are put to the test. The Bower gang shows up, turning a friendly card game with a Wyoming cattle baron into a killer-takes-all shooting match. Buck saves the cattle baron's life, but at the cost of two Bower men. That's when Deputy Wyatt Earp arrives.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But old cowboys? That’s a different story—especially when those cowboys are trail-hardened cattlemen like Casey Tubbs and Levi Doolin. When these longtime buddies learn that their bosses are getting out of the beef business, they figure it’s probably time to retire anyway. Nothing left to do now but deliver the last two-thousand cows to Albilene and collect their pay. There’s just one problem. Their bosses’ lawyer is skipping town with all the workers’ cash—which means Tubbs and Doolin have one last job to do...

Some say the Wild West is no country for old men. But apparently no one told Eli Doolin and Casey Tubbs. This rowdy pair of cowboys may be a bit long in the tooth but—thanks to the success of their new business venture, the D&T Cattle Company—they’re riding high in the saddle. And raking in the cash. What’s their secret? They rob banks. Disguised as even older men than they are, Doolin and Tubbs have managed to pull off a string of bank jobs without a hitch, making just a few withdrawals to help fund their ranch.

On the American frontier, every gun tells a story. A boy in Texas waits for a Christmas present he chose from a Montgomery Ward catalog. The present, a brand new, lever action Winchester 1886 and a box of its big .50-caliber slugs, never makes it there. Instead, the rifle is caught up in a train robbery and starts a long and violent journey of its own - from the hands of a notorious, kill-crazy outlaw to an Apache renegade to a hardscrabble rancher and beyond.

There are some things in this world that can't be stopped. Like progress, a moving train, and the American Dream. When the bigwigs in Washington decide to build a transcontinental railroad to the West Coast, they need a man who's just as unstoppable to clear a path through Mexican territory. That man is Jamie MacCallister. Jamie knows it's a tough job. The territory is overrun with Apaches. The Apaches are gunning for a fight. And the first patrol sent in by the president has already been ambushed, kidnapped, and most likely killed.

Wyoming Territory, 1873. Tim Colter and his trusted guide, mountain man Jed Reno, are on the trail of a vicious gang of train robbers when they happen upon a bloody and shocking scene. Lying on the ground, barely breathing, a Secret Service agent has been left for dead in the wake of a brutal ambush. His final words: "President Grant . . . assassination . . . Dugan . . . trust nobody."

Crater City, New Mexico, is a bustling mining town brimming with the stench of men hungry to get rich the old fashioned way - by killing the competition. Dennis Conroy is the owner of the biggest saloon in town, and he needs a few good sharpshooters to help protect surveyors laying out a route for a spur line before his rival Hugh Thornton beats him to it. Joe Buckhorn's handy with a gun, so he takes the job. Against his best advice, he'll also take a liking to the boss's daughter. Worse, Buckhorn starts wondering exactly what kind of man he's working for.

In a twist of fate, Slash and Pecos are riding hard for the law, dispensing justice as they see fit, and determined to watch their final sunset as heroes...not outlaws.

For the first time, an epic account of a boy born into a struggle for survival on the harsh and unforgiving American frontier, the story behind the legend of Smoke Jensen.... On the eve of the Civil War, Kirby Jensen is the youngest of three children living on a hardscrabble ranch in Southwestern Missouri. But in 1861, shots were fired in Charleston harbor, and Kirby's father and brother went to war.

Meet Hunter Buchanon, a towering mountain of a man who learned how to track prey in Georgia, kill in the Civil War, and prospect in the Black Hills of Dakota. Now he's trying to live a peaceful gun-free life - but fate has other plans for him. When Hunter Buchanon rescued a wounded coyote pup - and named him Bobby Lee - he had no idea the cute little varmint would grow up to be such a loyal companion.

The sight of a rotting corpse hanging from a noose is enough to stop any man in his tracks—and Luke Jensen is no exception. Sure, he could just keep riding through. He's got a prisoner to deliver, after all. But when a group of men show up with another prisoner for another hanging, Luke can't turn his back—especially when the condemned man keeps swearing he's innocent. Right up to the moment he's hung by the neck till he's dead . . . Welcome to Hannigan's Hill, Wyoming. Better known as Hangman's Hill.

In this bold new series, a legendary gunslinger tries to outrun his past and start a new life. But after so many years, so many bullets—and so much bloodshed—he finds old habits die hard. And new enemies die harder . . .

William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone present Book 52 in the Mountain Man series.