This is a story of the early days when... An intense, red-haired young man named Rusty Shannon rides into Fort Belknap on the Brazos River and joins the Texas Rangers. Years before, Mike Shannon rescued Rusty from a Comanche war party and became his adoptive father. Not long ago, Mike Shannon, was bushwhacked and killed, and his death still haunts Rusty. Rusty thinks he knows the identity of Mike's killers. But with Texas now in the throes of seceding...

Six-Gun Justice. . . Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and the quickest draw in the West. But he was tired of fighting every punk who wanted to make a reputation for himself, so he hung up his .45s. It Didn't Last Long. . . Like Jensen, the two Mexican gunfighters known as Carbone and Martine had put away their six-guns, married and turned to ranching down in Durango. Then they came up against an army of outlaws under a warlord who called...

In the Texas backlands in 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the boy is forced to live with his stepmother and Blair Meacham, a hanger-on at the farm. After the death of a black farmhand and friend, and another "accident”, that almost takes Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin-Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird. Beau, along with an outlaw, a San Antonio prostitute,...

For Gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt. A year ago, he felled sixty-two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican herd before it. In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak is awe of a last great heard to the south-but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory. None but Gage Jameson...

AN AMERICAN FAMILY. A JOHNSTONE TRADITION. The legendary members of the Jensen family gather together at the Sugarloaf Ranch for one Christmas homecoming they'll never forget-if they live through it . . . Smoke Jensen looks forward to spending a quiet holiday with the family. But an unexpected arrival from south of the border has him reaching for his guns, defending his land-and risking everything he loves . . . Sally Jensen strikes up a friendship...

In his novels, best-selling author Cormac McCarthy creates a western landscape filled with characters that are both myhic and authentic. Cities of the Plain, the stunning conclusion of his award-winning Border trilogy, brings together John Grady Cole and Billy Parham-the two lifelong friends who began their adventures in All the Pretty Horses. It is 1952. As Grady and Billy work a remote New Mexico ranch, Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute....

He wasn't born to the gun. But a gunman's blood ran in his veins - and it was only a matter of time before there would be hell to pay.... Six days of killing. No day of rest.... Once he was a young, happily married businessman. Then he lost his wife to human madness and that young man was gone, replaced by the Loner, the wandering son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, and now the current occupant of a cell in the brutal and unforgiving Hell Gate...

With his legend dogging him everywhere he goes, Frank Morgan longs for a place to settle down. His choice is a remote corner of untamed Northern California, a land of towering trees and rugged hills. But for Frank, the haven is a hell. A man who is his exact look-alike has been terrorizing the local population and when the townspeople get their hands on Frank, a hangman's rope is sure to follow. If he's going to be taken for an outlaw, Frank Morgan...

Louis L'Amour said that the West was no place for the frightened or the mean. It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." This volume presents nine of L'Amour's ever-popular short stories-history that lives forever. In "Riding for the Brand," Jed Asbury comes across a derelict covered wagon-the people and their horses killed-and decides to finish what the former owners had set out to do. In "Four Card Draw," Allen Ring wins a small...

The Smiling Country, filled with pathos and humor, is set in the last days of the Old West. Hewey Calloway may be pushing 45, but he can still rope and outride most things on four legs. Refusing promotions, he prefers to remain a simple ranch hand. But as he rides the west Texas plains, automobiles are beginning to dot the landscape. When Hewey is critically injured by a wild horse, he must admit that his world-and an age-are passing away.