Showing results by author "William Johnstone" in All Categories

What started as a routine hunt and grab - putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison - has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke’s direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke’s side in the war - but the war is over and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold. Now Luke is riding back into the Wyoming wilderness to hunt down McCluskey and his woman to finish what he started.

Trigger-happy outlaws are giving the Texas Rangers a lot more trouble lately than they can handle, leaving most of Texas in a heap of trouble. So when Bodine and Two Wolves drift into the sleepy cattle town of San Angelo, Ranger Josiah Finch - knowing their reputation with the killing iron - convinces them to pin on badges and put their talents to work for his side of the law.

The Lucky Lizard is bad luck. Not that the Nevada mine is empty; it’s full of silver. But the man who thinks he owns it fair and square is in for a very unpleasant surprise — a ruthless, hard driving Easterner named Dex Brighton shows up with a seemingly valid claim. Town marshal Frank Morgan has his suspicions and sends for some San Francisco legal eagles. They don’t make it to Buckskin alive....

In the fall of 1873, a wagon train of immigrants sets off from Kansas City, Missouri, bound for the Montana Territory. Leading the group is newly elected wagonmaster Jamie Ian MacCallister, a giant of a man and frontier legend who swears he can get them there by Christmas - come hell or high snow drifts....Plagued by brutally harsh storms and rugged terrain, outlaws and hostile Indians, the journey will be the greatest challenge these pioneers will ever face.

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.

The Buchanans are no strangers to hard times—or making hard choices. After losing a hefty number of livestock to a killer grizzly, Hunter Buchanan is forced to sell a dozen broncs down in Denver for some badly needed cash. Everything goes smoothly—until he's ambushed on the way home. The culprits are a murderous bunch of prairie rat outlaws, as dangerous as any Buchanan has ever tangled with. But Hunter is hell-bent on getting his money back. Even if means pursuing the thieves into Dakota Territory—where even deadlier dangers await.

He was raised by the mountain man called Preacher, and he was said to be the fastest gun alive. Until he hung up his gunbelts to raise a family. Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and a force of nature. But Lee Slater and his gang of low life desperadoes didn’t know that. Stirring up a motherlode of trouble for the retired gunslinger was Slater’s first mistake. Shooting Smoke Jensen’s wife Sally was his second.

Unwilling to die behind the bars of the hellish prison where life is worth less than a peso, Long's band of desperadoes break out of jail and split up to escape. Now, Two-Horses, Luke Fischer, Gabriel Santana, Billy Lightning, and Long are scrabbling along a desolate landscape, heading for Texas to reclaim their ill-gotten gains, hunted by dogged lawmen, merciless Comaches, and a violent gang of bandits who also want the stolen gold.

When the war ended, Dr. Samuel Knight went home to Texas—but the life he expected was in ruins, his wife married to a carpetbagger. Trying to defend what’s left of his previous existence, the good doctor is branded an outlaw and driven from Texas. Now he’s laying low in New Mexico, with his image on wanted posters everywhere. But when the town explodes in violence, Knight will risk his neck to save innocent lives.

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.

In the land of towering mountains and howling winds, the young man named Preacher has found a home. In the wilds, he has learned the rules of survival — and he has killed in order to live. Now, something is forcing Preacher out of his Rocky Mountain range for the so-called “civilized” world. It is the memory of a woman, his first and only true love. It is her blood calling out for revenge.

Ex-Rebel tracker Hunter Buchanan is down on his luck. He lost his family's ranch in a fire. He lost his gold to a thief. And he just might lose his fiancee - a beautiful saloon girl named Annabelle - to a stinking-rich rival. But Hunter's not ready to give up just yet. He's got a temporary sheriff's badge, a long-range plan to rebuild his ranch, and his loyal coyote, Bobby Lee, by his side to make things right. Too bad it all goes wrong - when Annabelle gets kidnapped....

Smoke Jensen never would have come back to the gold-mining town of Red Light, Montana, if it hadn't been for his sister Janey's estate. That isn't the only thing the Last Mountain Man has to settle, however. There's also the score between him and Major Cosgrove, the man who owns Red Light and who is trying to lay claim to Janey's land. All that stands between Cosgrove and the land is an avenging gunslinger with a blazing .44 - and a good reason to use it.

Smoke Jensen is mighty proud of his son Louis for finishing law school. But he can't help being a little disappointed that Louis isn't returning to the Sugarloaf Ranch. Instead, he's setting up his own law practice in nearby Big Rock - a career choice that turns out to be every bit as dangerous as fending off cattle rustlers. The boy's first case lands him smack in the middle of a heated dispute between two riled-up ranchers over water rights. The whole thing could blow up into a bloody range war. Then a scheming con man shows up in town to stir up trouble - and ends up dead.

Building a ranch takes heart and grit. Smoke and Sally Jensen are more than capable of meeting the challenges of shaping the land, raising the livestock, and establishing their brand. But Smoke wasn’t always an entrepreneur. He’s more apt to settle accounts with a fast draw than a checkbook. And when he learns his old friend Preacher has been ambushed by outlaws, he wastes no time saddling up and hitting the vengeance trail with his fellow mountain men Audie and Nighthawk.

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.

When Smoke Jensen sees a gang of outlaws holding up a stagecoach, his gunfighter instincts take over and he storms in with guns blazing. He kills one of the gunmen, the rest scatter like the rats they are. Another notch on the sharpshooter's weathered grip. But the dead man is the brother of the notorious outlaw Gabe Briggs, and Briggs will want revenge....

After surviving a brilliantly plotted murder attempt, the richest man in San Francisco is looking to hire the best protection money can buy. Enter Matt Jensen, who, for the princely sum of $5000, agrees to escort millionaire John Gillespie and his very fetching daughter on a railway journey from Frisco to Chicago. There’s just one catch: The world’s deadliest killers are coming along for the ride....

Twelve years ago, newspaperman John Bryce saved an innocent man from the hangman's noose. That man was Matt Jensen. In gratitude, Matt gave Bryce four gold nuggets and told him, "If there's ever anything I can do, just let me know." Now, that day has come. As editor of the Fullerton Defender, Bryce has become the target of a powerful - and ruthless - English lord. A feared master duelist, his aim is fixed on the Dakota Territories.

Kitty Wellington inherited her uncle’s 20,000-acre ranch — and a mortgage — on the Snake River. She plans to pay her debt by selling thoroughbreds to the US Army. But a relative is trying to steal it all…until Matt enters a fight whose most dangerous combatants have yet to show their hand. Behind one man’s evil plot is a small army of vicious killers masquerading as peace officers in Boise. For men who are used to getting their way, the odds in this fight look pretty good…until they meet Matt Jensen.