Showing results by author "Matt Braun" in All Categories

Print Oliver gave his blood and his soul for the Confederacy. Then he came home to find his family ranch under siege from Union carpetbaggers and his neighbors turned against him. For the Texan there was no choice but to blaze a trail toward power, rounding up wild longhorns and driving them toward markets from Galveston to Abilene.

In the Texas Panhandle, Newt Bascom and Sam Jordan are stock detectives who have the brains to outwit most rustlers - and the brawn to outfight the rest.

When Luke Starbuck takes on a wealthy banker as a client, the only thing more compelling than the paycheck is his prey. The James-Younger gang has confounded countless detectives, including the men of the Pinkerton Agency. Now it's Starbuck's chance to bring down the most notorious group of outlaws the West has ever seen-led by none other than cold-blooded killer Jesse James. Undercover work and patient tracking take Starbuck from Kansas City straight through the Indian Territory

Ben Thompson carved out a name for himself as a gambler and a shootist - from Dodge City to the Rio Grande. But settling down in Austin with a wife and young son didn't settle Ben's taste for the sporting life. He still found himself in the gambling dives - where the turn of a card too often led to a shootout. Soon a circle of powerful businessmen decides that Thompson is the only man who can tame Austin's wild side. They ask him to rule the streets - and take no prisoners. They want him to take on the job of a marshal in a town in which every man packs a gun.

Cole Braddock, a Western detective, is hired to take on the Santa Fe Ring, a secret conspiracy of businessmen and politicians determined to gain control of New Mexico.

In California, the Southern Pacific Railway was prying the West wide open, and the land was worth its weight in gold. While some men got in on the action, and some got out of the way, one group of settlers was making a stand and holding up the railway. Turning to Alan Pinkerton's Chicago detective agency, the railroad robber barons hire the perfect agent to penetrate the settlers' organization, a man who had learned a spy's trade in the Civil War. Tall, debonair, and pleasure-loving Ash Tallman can fight when he has to.

They'd killed five men already and stolen a quarter of a million dollars in silver and gold. Now a band of vicious thieves has drawn the best man that Wells Fargo can send: the rangy, mysterious Chicago-based Pinkerton agent named Ash Tallman. An operator who works with a pleasure-loving beauty who goes by many names and does her best work in the least amount of clothes, Tallman is heading to Red Rock, Arizona territory.

It is 1881. El Paso, the wildest border town in an untamed Texas, is at a crossroads. A booming sin city crawling with corrupt politicians and gunslick outlaws, the town now faces its greatest challenge: the savagery of the notorious Banning Brothers. Dallas Stoudenmire is the marshal El Paso has hired to bring a quick end to the Bannings' reign of terror. Bloodshed erupts as the Bannings hire an assassin to send Stoudenmire to an early grave. Now the former Texas ranger will rely on nerves and a quick gun to save his own life - and bring swift justice to a desperate town....

He was an Indian fighter turned trailblazer and cattleman. Then he risked it all for a spread of Texas land in the uncharted Llano Estacado - and for the adventure of a lifetime. Jack Jordan was a legend before he turned 30. But his greatest quest lay ahead. he came to a breathtaking canyon called Palo Duro with a herd of cattle, a courageous woman, and an iron will. Jordan had already made and lost fortunes. Now he would make an extraordinary stand - with a fast gun and a vision that wouldn't die.

In 1889 Bill Tilghman joined the historic land rush that transformed a raw frontier into Oklahoma Territory. A lawman by trade, he set aside his badge to make his fortune in the boomtowns. Yet Tilghman was called into service once more, on a bold, relentless manhunt that would make his name a legend for all time - in an epic confrontation with outlaw gang leader Bill Doolin.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here is the most varied collection of short stories by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here's the most varied collection of short stories, by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.