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.

This was the climax; the end of a lifetime of bitterness and hate-Rusty Maxwell and Ben Sharp, both grown old, grizzled, and rich; one the owner of a barbed-wire empire, a sea of grass larger than some Eastern states; the other risen to great political power, ruthlessly scheming to break the man with whom he had clashed ever since both had driven their longhorn herds over the trail to Dodge. To cut that empire in two, to bring its over-lord to his knees, had long been Ben Sharp's purpose. And in the South Western Pacific Railroad he found a weapon admirably forged to accomplish this end. But Rusty Maxwell, for all his years, had not forgotten how to fight; nor had Lance Kincaid, the fledgling eagle he had reared, if not sired. Here is the last-stand fight between the valiant Old West, bred to the plains and the saddle, fearless, a six-shooter the tool of its trade; and the raw, dollar-driven progress of the New. Lance Kincaid was certain of his position, the issues clear-cut in his mind, until proud, smiling Valerie Pickett reached the end-of-steel in her father's construction car. In a novel that catches the soul of the windswept plains, Will Ermine has painted a canvas of historic action and drama which far exceeds the dimensions and depth of the usual cowboy story. Its tense, gripping reality strikes a singular note in Western fiction.

When a federal penitentiary, 'Hellhole,' was built in Yuma, the native Quechans discovered a way in which they could succeed in the world of the white man; they put their uncanny tracking abilities to use catching and returning prison fugitives. Immune to the searing heat, cunning, and tenacious, the Indians moved like wraiths pursuing dangerous criminals. Of all the Quechans, perhaps the greatest tracker was Ho-Nas Good. He was tall and powerfully strong, and in his youth, saw nothing wrong in aiding the white man. He dreamed of wealth and saw that even an Indian could do much in the white man's world-if he had money. Honas prospered; he was happy with his land, his wealth, and his pretty young wire. Until the day that three of Yuma's toughest prisoners escaped the territorial prison and brutally raped and murdered his wife. When they were caught, the bigoted judge added a paltry few years to their sentences. Honas changed. He became as a new man. A man charged with hate; a man powered by the overwhelming desire for revenge. Honas put his whole life and his considerable skills in the service of his revenge. And the terror came to Hellhole.

Reb Santee was his name. He appeared to be just a rough-and-tumble cowboy, with an unruly shock of flaxen hair, and a puckered frown in his laughing blue eyes. But when he first rode into Wind River Basin, the law already had a grudge against him-and the grudges multiplied in a hurry, all because he wanted to be honest. In self-defense, he made a chain store business of outlawry. Brown's Park, over the line in Colorado; the Robbers' Roost, down in the purple wastes of Utah; the Hole-in-the-Wall; the Lost Cabin wilderness-he made them way stations on the outlaw trail, where men on the dodge could get grub, fresh horses, and information. Rustling became organized; banks and railroads began to feel the sting of their activities. The notorious "Wild Bunch" was blazing a wide trail up and down Wyoming. Stockmen organized; posses scoured the range; guns roared in dark canyons. But no one suspected Reb Santee, everybody's friend and the best-liked man in the Basin, until one fateful day... Thrills, excitement, romance, and the best assortment of laughs you ever had in a Western story.

Their cowboy days behind them though they d never get the cow smell out of their Levis and Pinkerton badges in their pockets, Bill Robuck, Happy Jack Dean, and Laughing Ed Leffler ride the owlhoot trails from Canada to Mexico, a collective scourge to desperadoes and rustlers. They live by the code "One for all and all for one" until they arrive in Flathead and a treacherous trail opens before them, proving to Robuck that even a partner can t be trusted. Robuck rides that trail to its last long mile, and transforms it to a trail of vengeance. His work done, embittered as only a man can be who s been sold out by his best friend, he s ready to move on, weary of gunsmoke and wanting only to forget. But the days of drifting and moving on are over, for in that valley of treachery and bushwhack death is girl who s the end of all trails for him."

It was a lonely life the Wolfer led. He ate when he felt hungry, drank as he wanted, and slept where he fell. It hadn't always been that way...Once there had been a cabin filled with the warmth of Katie's smile, a bright flower that touched every corner of his life with love...that was all gone now. He'd left her one furious winter's night, and when he'd returned, Katie lay in the snow outside their cabin, dead, surrounded by wolf tracks. Roan McCrae had been taking his revenge on wolves ever since. Soon, however, he learns that the wolf isn't the real scourge of the land. That epithet belongs to Azle Steppe and his men. A powerful man, Azle Steppe's greed knows few limitations. When he decides to take over the valley, Roan McCrae is the first one he'll burn out and run off. And then the Wolfer will become the Wolf..and the Hunter will become the Hunted.

For many years Oliver Colfax worked as a hired killer. But after he developed a friendship with one of his targets, Colfax lost heart in that line of work and quit. A few odd jobs keep body and soul together, but until Colfax decides what to do with the rest of his life, he s content sitting in his St. Louis hotel room and drinking fine whiskey. When a rancher from Colorado asks him to deal with some cattle rustlers, Colfax declines, thinking it is just one more case of a big landowner wanting it all. But when Colfax learns that a production of Titus Andronicus is playing in nearby Pullman, Colorado, he has a change of heart. He has always longed to see someone play Titus. Dealing with the cattle rustlers proves to be a routine job, but investigating the tragedy that hits the touring Shakespearean drama troupe turns out to be a tough assignment. It may be the hardest case he s ever taken on, one that is certain to change his life forever."

It makes a lot of difference who is the sheriff in the town of Lariat. When Grubb was sheriff, Kurt Dodd and his men ran wild. Cattle rustling was a business to them, and they went about it in a business-like fashion. Save for the valor and alertness of Bob Lee and his Texas men, they d have wiped out the whole Tomlinson outfit. When Bob Lee becomes sheriff, the war on the rustlers begins in earnest. Bob is elected to the tune of barking six-guns, and after his election the gunfire only increases, as Kurt Dodd s gang try to drop him dead. In the fights for his life and for the safety of cattlemen, the only man Bob wants at his back is Dick Markley. Dick chooses a job that offers better money than sheriff s deputy, improving his chances to win the hand of one Miss June Tomlinson, leaving Bob to fight off Dodd s men without his help. Bob is faced with some difficult decisions: between love and friendship, friendship and his job, his life and his personal sense of justice; Bob will make choices that ll forever alter his destiny."

When recent Harvard graduate George Tanner returns home to Tahlequah in the Cherokee nation, he finds the town bustling and accommodations scarce. The council is in session and everyone is in town. Captain Go-Ahead Rider, the district sheriff, offers Tanner immediate employment as a deputy. Rider senses trouble as some key issues come up for vote before the Council. The big issue and the most controversial one is whether the railroad should be allowed to come into town. Mix Hail, the swing vote on the issue, suddenly disappears, and Tanner finds himself smack in the middle of big-money politics and his own nation s concerns. As the two lawmen sort through a pile of blackmail, revenge, and bootlegging, they uncover a nasty plot by some of the town s leading citizens. Tanner learns how to be a lawman, while at the same time experiencing the joy of being home, in his own land, with his own people, speaking his own language."

When Angel Irosabel rides with his family into the fertile valleys of Paradise, Nevada, he knows that their grueling journey from Basque country is over he has found a place for his sheep to graze and for his family to thrive. Little did he know that his arrival would kick off an epic feud between the area cattle ranchers and his own herding clan. When his daughter Margarida falls in love with Joe Gault, the son of a cowman, Angel can t overcome years of hostility, and instead disowns his treacherous daughter. When tragedy strikes, forcing Joe on the run, leaving Margarida broken-hearted, the cycle of hatred and distrust is passed to the next generation. When the Gaults son Joseph falls in love with the daughter of another rancher, only time will tell whether family bonds can overcome the rancor that flows deep in the veins of the herders and cowmen."

Zane Grey (1872-1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West.

Peter D. Buckow hadn't had much luck in his short life. An abused and neglected child, he struggled hard to overcome the disadvantages of his upbringing. He worked hard as Henry Blough's ranch hand; he labored from sunup 'til sundown; he never shirked a task. But when Henry Blough tries to cheat the sixteen-year-old Buck of his pay, he decides to take his wages out in steers... Caught red handed by the deputy Sheriff, poor Peter Buckow is hanged with his own rope and left for dead. Except Buckow didn't die. He survived and was given an extraordinary chance at a second life. And now he had to choose between the easy path of violence and vengeance, or a life of honest hard work with no guarantee of success.

Jennifer Vandermeer hated Kansas. With all her heart, she wished that she'd never left the dull security of Ohio, had never let her husband, Walter, take her from the order and civilization of the East. There was no preacher in Four Corners, Kansas, so Seth Baker, at the behest of his wife, improvised the words. Jennifer, her two young children, and a small group of strangers, listened as they clustered in a spot freshly scythed around the rectangular pit. Walter had not been long among us before he was taken away, but, uh, he was a good, uh, farmer and a good, uh, man... It just didn't make sense. Jennifer had told Walter over and over: "It's ludicrous, neither of us know the first thing about farming." But Walter had been adamant, and they came to Kansas. Now Walter was dead. And Jennifer was marooned in a sea of grass with a farm to take care of and two small children to raise. Where would she go? What would she do? It would be harder than she ever imagined. As she stood over her husband's fresh grave she couldn't know that her life would become a war every day. War against the elements, war against the will of the land, and most of all, a war, every minute of every day, against herself and her fears... For every glorious legend of the Old West there are a thousand workaday stories of the boundless persistence and courage that turned a wilderness into civilization. Jennifer Vandermeer and the story of her hardship, disasters and triumphs, is one of the real stories of how the West was won.

Back in the winter of '77 I was deputying up in Two Scalp, Dakota Territory; waiting for my friend Clete Shannon-who was the Sheriff there at the time-to say the word for us to quit our jobs and head south...Being Clete's deputy give me mighty little to do but think things over, morning or night. Two Scalp's deader'n a sucker in a sandstorm. This lazy peace would not last. Willie Goodwin had seen a lot of life; he knew how the death wind could blow into a man's life on a clear sunny day without a sip of warning. He thought he knew how treacherous life could be...that's why he drank. When Nell Larson complained that someone was spooking her cattle late at night, neither Willie nor Clete recognized the danger....When Nell's cabin was burned and Nell murdered, and when Clete was shot by the same faceless enemy, Willie saddled his horse and went looking for justice and for the answer to the puzzle of why these horrible crimes were committed. Willie's manhunt would become an odyssey of death and vengeance. It would stretch over mountains, rivers and plains; it would take him through towns, ranches and farms. Along the way, Willie Goodwin would have to decide if friendship was stronger than honor or desire. Willie Goodwin was a simple man with some hard choices...

When his father dies and the family scatters, Erastus ('Rat') Hadley hires on as a hand to a local farmer. Rat is abused and tortured in his new home, but a depression is on and it's a tough time for a young man to be on his own. When Rat's loyal childhood friend Mitch Morris intervenes and the sheriff rescues Rat, his luck changes. Landing a job at last, Rat rides shotgun for the Western Stage Company out of Fort Worth. He quickly picks up a reputation as a crack shot, and as business increases, Rat is able to save towards the small ranch he'd always dreamed of. His steady routine is interrupted when the hero of his childhood, Sheriff Cathcart, asks him to become his deputy. Rat's first duty as deputy is to track down the Oxenberg gang, one of the deadliest groups of bandits in all of Texas. When he draws close to his quarry, Rat is faced with one of the toughest lessons of his life: friendship and old loyalties don't always square with justice and the law.

Pinto Lowery never wanted anything more than the chance to raise a family and find a piece of land he could call his own. But after fighting in the Civil War, he couldn't settle, and instead drifted all over the West breaking mustangs, haunted by the ghosts of his fallen comrades. All that changed in a flash. There didn't seem to be a good reason to leave mustanging to go work on the farm of Mister Tully Oakes while Oakes travels north on a cattle drive. The man had a reputation for being stingy, ornery and contrary. But when Pinto met Elsie Oakes and her young children, an old yearning stirs in his heart and Pinto decided to take Tully's offer, Time goes by quickly when the work is hard. Yet, while the corn is being harvested and everyone is around the fire at night, Pinto can almost fool himself into believing he's found a loving family, and the first secure home he's known since boyhood. But the day of Tully's return looms and the Hannigan gang has taken to raiding the local ranches-imperiling Pinto Lowery's simple dreams of the future.

Ray Storey left Kansas for one reason: revenge. Assuming the role of Kit Carson in a Medicine Show that travels to small towns around East Texas, he hunts down Sam Hawkins, the brutal murderer of Storey's innocent younger brother. As Ray finally arrives in the same town as his quarry, he is faced with the harsh reality that he might not have the wit or courage to bring the cruel Hawkins brothers to justice. When a man is killed and a woman kidnapped, Storey must throw away his act and shoot with real bullets, or his own life and honor will be forfeit.