Fifteen-year-old Joe Beck wasn’t listening as the minister eulogized his uncle but was already planning on what he would have to do as soon as they returned to the Quimby farm. He wasn’t welcome there even before his uncle had died and knew that his cousin John would soon order him to leave. While he had had a basic idea of where he would go after he left the farm, he didn’t know what he would do with the rest of his life.

Aaron hadn’t been caught by surprise by the early arrival of the Nebraska blizzard in November, so after hunkering down for the night to wait out the snow and gale-like winds, he set out in the predawn to resume his trek across the plains to get to his ranch. While he may not have been surprised by the storm, he was soon stunned by what he discovered on the frozen ground southwest of Scotts Bluff.

Cole Turner left the Rocking T that morning to spend a couple of days with his brother and niece in Garden City. It was supposed to be a time of relaxation after having spent a few days moving those cattle to market. Any thought of quiet time vanished when he opened the door to his brother’s house.

Harry Glenn was asked to investigate the open and shut case of the murder of a prominent judge in Topeka, but he quickly realized that the crime was far from simple and wouldn’t be that simple to close, either.

Sergeant Ellis White had the Yankee colonel in the crosshairs of the Amadon telescopic sight on the J.F. Brown sniper rifle and knew his index finger just had to squeeze the trigger, but he paused. He hadn’t wanted to be the regimental sniper in the first place because he thought it was a cowardly way of fighting. Ellis had been fighting in this war since the beginning and was tired of it. He just wanted to go back to his ranch in Hardeman County just two hundred miles away and return to his life as a rancher where all he had to worry about was the Texas heat, ornery cattle and the Comanches.

This was supposed to be a journey to find his dream of starting his own spread. As he left the Bar L just northwest of Cheyenne and rode south into Colorado, Conn already knew where he wanted to build his ranch and had enough money to buy the land and get it started. It was just a hundred mile ride through open country. What could possibly go wrong?

Toby took the conductor’s hand as he stepped from the train in the dark night unsure of why his mother had sent him away. The conductor had his travel bag in his hand and Toby looked at the shadowy, unlit buildings as he was led down the street. After five minutes, the conductor guided him to a bench on the boardwalk of the sleeping town, then left his bag on the bench with him. “Now, son, I gotta leave you here. You stay there until the sheriff comes and he’ll find your aunt for you. Okay?”

As he wrote Horace Kirby’s will, James Spencer understood how unusual and difficult it would be to ensure that his client’s wishes were met. The wealthy life-long bachelor’s only sister had died eight years earlier. Before her husband had died, he’d left her with a daughter who was now almost seventeen years old. The girl couldn’t inherit until she reached eighteen and the precautions that Horace had included would prevent anyone from taking advantage of her until she came of age.

Union Army sergeant Sam Walker returns home to Iowa after leaving a prisoner of war camp, only to discover that his sweetheart has married his brother. He heads down to Mulberry, Texas, to keep a promise to his fallen Union army brother-in-arms, Joe Farrell, to make sure that his family is safe. But what Sam finds is the Farrell family in shambles: a gang of former Confederate soldiers are harassing them because of Joe’s Union service. In desperation, Joe’s widow, Julia, has married the gang’s sadistic leader—a man who had been haunting Sam's dreams since the war.

After clearing up an almost comedic issue in Dodge City, Cy received an assignment to go to the town of Granite in New Mexico Territory to investigate a claim of massive overcharging by the telegraphers. It wasn’t a particularly challenging issue, but it would mean a long ride and Cy actually looked forward to it. He was still in a good mood as he rode out of Dodge City and eventually Kansas. He didn’t expect to spend much time in Granite and hoped that his next job would be a little more exciting. He’d had a few that reached that level but doubted that this one would be even difficult.

He never looked back as he made his way through the gaslit streets without a penny in his pockets and no place to sleep. He should have been crushed by his desperation, but it was his anger and hate that drove him. He would use the one skill he had learned in those empty years that he now left behind him. He would enter the world of bareknuckle fighting and have to face older, stronger men to make his way in this hard world. He may be nothing, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Rachel looked down at her husband’s dead body, the long knife protruding from his gut. She knew she’d be hanged or shot if she stayed in Missoula, so she’d have to run. But where could she go? The only place that came to mind was the hidden valley northwest of town. It was owned by a loner named Marsh Anderson, whom she had never met. She was going to have to bet her life that he wouldn’t turn her in to the sheriff, the brother of her dead husband.

Virgil Scott and his best friend Roy Sheffield left their horse ranch and were making one of their routine runs to Denver to deliver 32 horses. But the short trail drive proved to be anything but routine when late that first night, they were set upon by men wielding deadly clubs.

Erich had been treated as a freak of nature for as long as he could remember. When he was twelve, he was bigger than any fully grown man in Brainerd. His defense against the constant taunts was to retreat into a shell which marked him as a dimwitted giant. He'd been working as a blacksmith for six years when he found himself without a job and decided to leave Minnesota for the far West. Maybe in Montana Territory he would be more readily accepted as just a man and not a monster.

Sheriff Jed Morgan thinks his life is about to get a lot quieter when he gets voted out of office in a bought-and-paid for election rigged by his family’s long-time nemesis Arnie Williams. But when the new railroad comes to town and Jed’s neighbors, the Crawfords at the Bar C ranch, have their water poisoned and Arnie Williams’ hands try to stampede their cattle, Jed begins to find that his lawman days were far from over.