Ever wonder what happens to a young man who is called of God into his ministry? Easy life - Right? Some time in the old west, we meet our new minister and find that he is very much like all the rest of us except - - - - Well, you read the story and decide.

Book I, The Lady of Athenia, deals with a 23-year-old widowed Southern Belle, punished by vengeful Union Officers who order the destruction of her Mississippi plantation, Athenia, forcing the now destitute Davida Julianna Asherton to head West. After much hardship, she finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy to murder President Andrew Johnson. Book II, The Bright Sentinel, concerns a 17-year-old emancipated slave. Her story covers Maryland plantation life, the cruelty of her Scottish father, and her perilous escape to Washington, D.C. The Creole beauty is enmeshed in a political scandal, grabs blackmail money and hurriedly boards the first stagecoach West. She meets her future husband, a gun-toting cattle ranch foreman, and both are hired by the government to discredit the leader of the Crow Indians, who are threatening to overrun Wyoming-Dakota Territory. Book III, Flaxen-Haired Warrior, focuses on a German Count's family destroyed in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. 19-year-old Countess Lisl Maria Von Ost flees toward France. An expert swordswoman, she is forced to kill three enemy soldiers who attacked her. Hired assassins chase her through warring France and neutral Belgium. paid killers pursue her even there. Desperate, Maria escapes into the western frontier.

"The Day Coffeyville Bled" begins at the end of the Dalton/Johnson Gang as they are shot to pieces and lie dying in gutters, alleys, and empty fields after spending thirteen minutes longer on this earth than necessary. From the morning of Wednesday, October 5, 1892, through to as late as the year 2001, immediate family members of this gang survived and buried their secrets, but not as well as they would have hoped. Five marriages, three murders, two illegitimate children, real estate companies, motion pictures, and newspaper, magazine, and book publications all became part of what legends are made of as the Dalton/Johnson outlaw gang rode out of the nineteenth century straight into the twentieth century, while two of their number escape apprehension.

It is 1871 in Idaho Territory, and fourteen-year-old Samuel Chambers is, in many ways, already a man. After journeying west with his father in search of a golden ledge, Samuel nds himself living in the midst of a raucous mining camp lled with gold-hungry Chinese. Gold is scarce, and everyone wants it-including Samuel, whose main goal in life is to get "lucky rich." But Samuel has no idea that the path to achieving his dream is lined with danger like he has never seen before.

Samuel refuses to believe all the naysayers as he embarks on a journey from placer mining to prospecting and from peddling merchandise to running assays. But life in the Wild West is unpredictable, and there are those so intent on nding riches that they will kill anyone who happens to get in their way. Even as danger lurks in the shadows, Samuel cannot keep his eyes o Miss Lilly, a beautiful dancehall lady who intrigues him more than he would like to admit. Despite his attempts to balance a courtship with achieving his dream, nothing prepares Samuel for what is about to happen next.

In this compelling historical tale, a teenager on a coming-of-age journey in remote Idaho faces prejudice and peril as he struggles to carve a living from the land and build a new future.

HIS RESTLESS HEART BEAT TO A RHYTHM OF ITS OWN- a rhythm that had once been so prevalent in the core of his soul, but had long been lost under the thick layers of routine, expectation, and responsibility created by a quiet, civilized life. Konrad Quintero de Leon, a young American man, having just returned home to New York after his schooling at Oxford University, decides to venture west to rediscover that lost rhythm and peel off the layers that have muffled it for so long.

Set in the 1840s, some of America's most restless years, Konrad begins an endless journey in search of his own "manifest destiny." He embarks on a westward expedition with the famous explorer John C. Fremont and legendary mountain man Kit Carson. He roams the wild Texas frontier with the Texas Rangers and fights in the bloody Battle of Monterrey under the command of General Zachary Taylor. But the life of a restless wanderer is not an easy one, as Konrad discovers when he falls in love with the beautiful and exciting Anastasia Carriere-the fiancee of another man. He is cast into a desperate battle where he must choose between the woman he loves and the adventure that he craves.

An Oregon reservation has suddenly been vacated and Henry Stall, a seasoned ranch owner, didn't get the news in time. He is driven to continue the expansion of his cattle empire in the American northwest, and when he goes to stake his claim, conflict erupts between the old and new guards of ranchers on the open range. Stall combats the restraints of his age, and sets off on a strenuous endeavor to confront Jim Montana, his former employee and the commissioner of the newly vacant property. Heads turn as Stall and Montana mobilize and contend for a share in this territory-and to claim it rightfully theirs. Stall is determined to defend his reputation as a veteran proprietor, while Montana wants to assert his own authority as an emerging official, and their collision sets off a whirlwind of scraps, skirmishes, and showdowns. It falls upon each ranch to wrangle whatever forces it can to carve out a corner of the expanding cattle country before its neighbors. When the law of the land overrides the governing regulations on boundary lines, what emerges is a full-blown range war-and putting down a stake on unclaimed territory becomes more hazardous than ever.

Collected here are eleven short stories by Jiggs Sluss. They cover a wide range of subject matter. Within these covers you will find tales of the Old West; stories about men who go off to three wars: World War Two, The Korean War, and the Vietnam War; there's even a story about a private detective whose canny eyes never miss a clue and another about two West Virginia boys who realize their dreams and play in the major league.

Johnny Montana was tall and dark, and sport a thin, neatly trimmed mustache and he had midnight black eyes. He was particular about his person; he shaved regular and put rosewater in his hair and preferred clean shirts when he could get them...Johnny Montana was the kind of man who made things happen. "You planning on sticking around these parts for the rest of your days?" That question completely changed Katie Swensen's life....She knew in an instant that her answer would be 'no' if Johnny Montana was asking her to go away with him. They left in the late hours of a warm evening, her daddy snoring in the other room. Johnny Montana was the handsomest man she'd ever met. It wasn't until a few days later that she learned he was also a gambler, a road agent and a killer. Henry Dollar was a man that knew horses and knew how to ride them, and he knew guns and how to use them. He'd been tested by gunfire in the sixteen years he'd spent with the D Company of the Texas Rangers. Henry Dollar never shirked his duty, he never backed down, and he never took what wasn't his...but then, he just hadn't been tempted enough, yet. Eli Stagg was a hard, cruel, friendless man with a talent for hunting, tracking and killing. The family of William F. Gray, the late Senator of Arkansas, engaged Stagg to find and kill the man who shot the Senator and left him to die in the dust of the road... Pete Winter, a young lawman, was asked to escort two prisoners across Indian Territory to the court of 'Hanging Judge' Parker... In this rich and complex novel of the Great American Frontier, these characters cross paths and raise arms as they each seek their individual destinies and desires-some will emerge victorious while others will be defeated by harsh climes and hardened men.