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

Preacher and Hawk ride out of the Rockies and into St. Louis, loaded with furs. It’s Hawk’s first trip to civilization and the moment he lays eyes on young Chessie Dayton, he’s lost in more ways than one. When Chessie unwisely signs on for a gold-hungry expedition into the lawless mountains, Hawk convinces Preacher to trail the outfit because they’re all headed straight to the sacred Indian grounds known as the Black Hills — a land of no return. To come out of it alive a lot of people will have to die.

From America's greatest storytellers comes a bold new chapter in the Will Tanner saga, an epic quest for justice at the crossroads of history - in a crossfire of bullets... US Deputy Marshal Will Tanner earned his badge the old-fashioned way. He shot the bad guys, saved the good guys, and won the fear and respect of everyone in between. That's how legends are born. But when he visits a friend at his ranch and ends up confronting a trigger-happy horse thief, Will earns the wrath of the deadliest, lowlife killers west of the Mississippi. This is how legends die....

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.

Cotton Pickens got where he is by virtue of a quick draw and slow wit. He knows the difference between lawbreakers you have to lock up...and the kind you might as well just let go. Deputy Rusty Irons, though, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. Someone kidnapped Rusty's mail order brides. They were probably doing Irons a favor, but a deputy in love is blind.

There are two kinds of traps in the Old West. One is the kind that Preacher and his buddy, Charlie, use to catch a mountain-load of fur pelts. The other is the kind that Charlie steps into — a trap set by a low-life gambler and his seductive partner in crime to swindle Charlie out of his fur money. Preacher hates to see a good friend get robbed. So he sets off after the grifters — on a riverboat bound for New Orleans.

Preacher is on the move, joining a trail drive led by freewheeling adventurer Wiley Courtland. Wiley has good horses to deliver to the American Fur Company at Fort Gifford. An Indian war party, led by the cunning and ruthless Red Knife, has other plans. Furiously fighting their way to safety, the horse traders make it to Fort Gifford, where the beautiful wife of the fort’s commander makes a raid of her own, with the help of Preacher’s newfound buddy Wiley.

They say that home is where the heart is. And no one knows that better than Perley Gates. After helping the lovely Miss Emma Slocum reunite with her sister’s family in Bison Gap, Perley can’t wait to rejoin his own kin at the Triple-G Ranch. No sooner does Perley settle in when he receives an alarming telegram from Bison Gap. Emma’s brother-in-law has been murdered. Her sister wants justice. And Perley is their only hope to get it. Perley can’t refuse a family in need. So he saddles up with his salty cowhand Possum Smith and heads to Bison Gap.

Big Rock, Colorado, has seen its share of wagon trains pass through town, but never one like this. For starters, it's led by a woman—a sweet southern belle named Annabelle—and the passengers are young Civil War widows and orphans. The only man on board is Annabelle's father, a former colonel blinded in the war. They're on their way to Purgatory Butte, Wyoming, to run the ranch the colonel inherited. Smoke's wife, Sally Jensen, thinks it's a noble goal and wants to help the women out—by volunteering her husband's protection on the treacherous journey north. In spite of his doubts, Smoke agrees.

With his epic novels of the Jensen family, William W. Johnstone has captured the pioneer spirit of America. Now he reveals the untold story of Smoke Jensen's long-lost brother Luke, thought to have been killed in the fiercest war in our nation's history. Smoke's Brother Luke: The Jensen Legend Continues...

Vance Brewster is a hardworking young cowboy. Stovepipe and Wilbur are two new ranch hands working at his side. And all three are caught up in a brewing, trigger-happy Montana range war between the Rafter M and Three Rivers. Then the fury suddenly explodes - in a hail of gunfire, the three men must show their hands: they’re all hiding their true identities. With Vance falling in love with the daughter of the Three Rivers manager, and Stovepipe and Wilbur paid by a tycoon who needs the violence to stop, all three are in mortal danger.

Preacher is no hired killer. When a wagon train is ambushed on the Santa Fe Trail, though, he can’t say no to the St. Louis businessman willing to pay him for justice. It’s not the stolen gold that’s convinced Preacher to take the job. And it’s not the missing body of one of the wagon train’s crew, a prime suspect who may have plotted the ambush and taken off with the gold. No, it’s the suspect’s lovely fiancée, Alita Montez. She believes her boyfriend is innocent—and has run off to find him. Preacher can’t abide the idea of a young woman alone on the Santa Fe Trail.

It starts as a happy reunion between Preacher and his fellow trappers in a peaceful Indian village. But it ends swiftly in death and destruction when a rival tribe attacks the village, slaughters some of Preacher’s Crow and mountain man friends, and carries off the women and children as prisoners. Preacher was off hunting when it happened. Now he’s teaming up with old friend Lorenzo and half-breed Tall Dog, to get the prisoners back—and get revenge. But the road to justice is paved with some very dark omens. And the trail leads to the baddest place on God’s good earth.

Mountain man Smoke Jensen lives by the rules of the frontier. The first rule is: the strongest survive. But when bad breaks, bad weather and bad bovines back Smoke into a corner, he needs something to go right. Instead, he faces the kind of tough luck only a gun can beat....A contract to deliver 3000 head of cattle might just do the trick. But a renegade Cheyenne warrior uses an early winter blizzard to attack Smoke and his out-gunned cowboys.

Mountain Man Smoke Jensen's long-lost brother Luke Jensen is a dead shot scarred by war - the perfect formula for a bounty hunter. And he's cunning, and fierce enough to bring down the deadliest outlaws of his day.... Luke Jensen has earned this bounty, hunting down the violent man charged with murdering a preacher's daughter. The outlaw Judd Tyler confesses to many crimes, but not the girl's murder. And he tells Luke they won't reach the town of White Fork alive because a corrupt sheriff does the bidding of a cattle baron, and that man's son is the true killer.

They call him Preacher. And they call him when they need help. Now, a Mexican brother and sister have asked the legendary frontiersman to accompany them into the Sangre de Cristo mountains - to find a missing family fortune of gold and silver. In a land stained by cruelty and war, the Spanish treasure has drawn the interest of a treasure hunter with ruthless paid killers as his partners. And by the time Preacher finds the bounty, bullets have begun to fly. No gunfight will ever scare Preacher. But betr

As sleepy as Buffalo Peak's been, legendary marshal Elwood "Firestick" McQueen and his deputies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks never expected a couple of drifters to wake it up - by kidnapping two lovely ladies in town. Hardly the sharpest quills on a cactus, these dim drifters call it courtin'. Firestick doesn't see it that way. Now the woman snatchers are heading for West Texas with their reluctant brides-to-be...and unwittingly plunging trackers Firestick and Moosejaw headlong into a rescue.

South Texas, 1854. Regis Royle is determined to turn eighteen-thousand acres of raw prairie into the greatest cattle ranch in the world. But he can’t do it alone. The region is wilder than a herd of mustangs—and crawling with rustlers. Teaming up with the Cattlemen’s Justice Consortium, Regis hopes to stop the rustling and start laying tracks for a new railway. Problem is, the cattlemen—including Jarvis “Bone” McGraw, Regis’s own ranch manager—can’t help but lock horns with the Texas Rangers. And it doesn’t take long for this brewing pot of very bad blood to get a whole lot worse.

There are two kinds of traps in the Old West. One is the kind that Preacher and his buddy, Charlie, use to catch a mountain-load of fur pelts. The other is the kind that Charlie steps into - a trap set by a low-life gambler and his seductive partner in crime to swindle Charlie out of his fur money. Preacher hates to see a good friend get robbed. So, he sets off after the grifters - on a riverboat bound for New Orleans. First, he infiltrates the criminal underworld of the French Quarter. Then, he’s enslaved on a pirate ship heading straight to hell.

The train grinds to a halt somewhere in the Indian Nations, and the bandits get onboard. They take everything on the train worth stealing and gun down a guard to make their escape — just another notch on the belt for Ben Trout and Zack Larsen, two of the most savage killers in the west. US Deputy Marshal Ed Pine follows them to Muskogee. There the trail runs cold, and Ed Pine disappears.

Cotton Pickens made it through fifth grade. That and a tin star were good enough to make him the sheriff in the boomtown of Doubtful, Wyoming. And Doubtful's name is no accident. The saying around town is, "If you're a lawman, it's doubtful you'll last a day." Spoiled, brash King Bragg is going to hang for the murder of three men in a barroom. But King's arrogant father - and his beautiful sister - use their powers of persuasion to convince Cotton to look into the shooting.