Showing results by author "Ralph Compton" in All Categories

In her disguise as "Danny Duggin," Danielle Strange has spent the past two years hunting down the outlaws who murdered her father. Reunited with her brothers, the twins Tim and Jed, she plans to take her war across the border into Mexico - unaware she's being pursued by a US Federal Marshal.... Saul Delmano comes from a powerful family of cattle-men whose business stretches from the Southwestern territories into Mexico. He's put a $2,000 reward on "Danny Duggin's" head, tempting every outlaw and bounty hunter across the West to try to collect it.

If things are quiet in the little town of Sweetwater, Marshal Fred Hitch sees no reason to make waves. But when Tyree Johnson shows up, Fred's relaxed nature is put to the test. At 15 years old, Tyree is a tough-as-nails bounty hunter with no patience for anyone calling him "boy." He's come to apprehend a killer who escaped from Cheyenne and has been hiding in plain sight in Sweetwater. Fred must ride with Tyree and his prisoner all the way to Cheyenne. The unlikely pair has a rough trail ahead of them, and as tough as Tyree is, he has some lessons to learn about the evil men do - and how to survive it.

In the grand tradition of legendary author Ralph Compton comes this tense, thrill-a-minute Western. Deputy Marshal Logan Kane is in for one tough ride. He’s got six ruthless convicts caged in a prison wagon, and it’s his job alone to transport them safely across treacherous, unforgiving terrain. Holding off rustlers, outlaw gangs, lynch mobs, and the criminals’ free-riding cohorts will keep Kane—and his trusty Colt—plenty busy.

Fresh from a successful trail drive, cattle hand Seth Coe is feeling flush, especially after a lucky streak at the poker table. But his good fortune earns him a dangerous enemy, notorious tinhorn gambler Hannibal Fisher, who is none too happy about being cleaned out. The innocent Coe starts the long ride back to Texas with big plans to buy his own ranch. All he needs now, he figures, is a wife. To his amazement, in tiny Prairie Fire, Kansas he meets the perfect woman, his childhood love Josette Dubois.

An outbreak of hostilities with Comanches has disrupted the usual trail routes. But Mase Durst must get his cows from his Texas ranch to the railway up in Wichita, Kansas, or face losing his land, which the bank is fixing to foreclose on. He's forced to take his herd on a little-used route called the Red Trail - little used for good reasons. It’s a tough trek: dangerous, narrow, and fraught with banditry.

Willis Lander was once the T-Bar ranch's best bronc buster. Then came the day when a stallion as black as pitch and as mean as a rattler shattered his knee. Unable to perform the duties required of a cowboy, Willis took the only job he felt capable of handling - minding the line shack 40 miles from the ranch - and secluded himself from the pity of his peers in the Wyoming wilderness. Now, the T-Bar is being sold, leaving Willis to wonder whether the new owner will want to keep a broken bronc buster on the payroll.

Brian Middleton left his father's ranch long ago to make his own way. But now, he's returned to claim the land his late father left him -- and learns the hard way that if you want to keep something in the wild West, you have to fight for it. With local lowlifes and shady con-men after the Dancing M ranch, Middleton has no choice but to make a stand....

Reporter Lester Booker joins legendary gunfighter Rance March on the trail of a dangerous outlaw to learn how the West was really won.

For a brave band of Texas pioneers, new enemies awaited on the thundering trail. But old enemies were the deadliest of all. The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn and boldness to drive them north to where the money was. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary epic series based on the history-making trail drives.

Dane Kramer looks forward to the day when his sprawling Oklahoma cattle ranch will truly be his - no strings attached. With only one more bank payment to make and a buyer in Omaha ready to pay top dollar for a herd of Herefords, he should finally have the banker, Earl Throckmorton, off his back. But Earl has a plan to keep the ranch for himself, and if he has his way, Dane's herd will never make it across the Omaha Trail - and Dane won't make it home alive.

Outlaw Wes Cavanaugh knows that crime doesn't always pay - at least not much. That's why he and his partner, Mose, are willing to pay Jimmy Stock for information on a job that's guaranteed to pay off big. Jimmy's made a career of selling tips to bandits, but the job he sells Wes - a payroll train about to leave Omaha - requires more than information.

Luke Hadley never imagined he would be left for dead with a chest full of bullets on the day of his wedding. All he wanted to do was tend to his farm with his new wife, Audrey, and begin their lives together. But when the Rhodes Gang crashes his wedding party, they wreak havoc and abduct his bride, leaving the lifeless bodies of his guests. Luke has only a sparse trail of clues to follow, but with help from a phony Pinkerton badge and a mysterious woman with many skills - including breaking him out of jail - he finally rides down those who’ve wronged him....

Nathan Stone was a living legend in the West as a lawman, as an outlaw, as a gambler, as a wanderer through the wildest towns and terrain. He blazed a vengeance trail, giving no quarter and asking for none. Fearlessly, he played his cards and used his Colt .45s as best he could in games of chance, skill, and savagery, for stakes of life or death.

Big Jake Motley had been running the Big M spread in Texas for more than 30 years. In that time, he's driven thousands of head of cattle to market in Kansas. Now, while both the 19th century and the era of trail drives are coming to an end, Big Jake is determined to make one last drive to Kansas. The only thing is, he doesn't have the cowhands to move that much beef. He drafts his old friend, Chance McCandles, into service, and together, the two aging cowboys put together a crew.

The people of Meridian, Colorado, live and die by coal mining, and when the railroad bypasses them, their livelihood is in peril. However, they discover that for a hefty sum of money they can create a spur line and save the town. A hefty sum the town does not have. Their only hope is former gambler Asa Newcombe. The townspeople pool their money so Newcombe can enter the big poker game in Golden Junction, and as much as he wants to leave his past life behind, the whole town is counting on him.

The legacy of legendary Western author Ralph Compton can be heard in the explosive tales penned by Joseph A. West. A ruthless murderer known as the Fat Man is terrorizing Green Meadow, Oklahoma, which sits over a massive store of black gold. The Fat Man will kill anyone who stands in his way. But gambler Chauncey Drake and Pinkerton agent Reuben Withers aren’t the kind to back down easy, and the stars are aligning for a showdown of epic proportions.

David Robbins continues the proud tradition of Ralph Compton's Western novels with enough hardscrabble heroes, blazing gun fights, and twisted villains to fill a corral. Bluff City is a booming silver mining town full of pigeons to pluck. When two of its wealthiest citizens devise plans to rob their neighbors legally and illegally, only Clay Adams stands in their way.

On a cattle drive north, young gun Danielle Strange falls in love with one of the drovers. Now she must choose between letting him, the last of her father's murderers, go free - and sacrificing her own life to send the bushwhacker to Hell.

His wife is gone to tuberculosis, his reputation was lost in the war, most of his life has already passed by, and now, even his horse has been taken by colic. All Carpenter has left are the men from his Army company. During the journey to California to reunite with them, he strikes up a friendship with Rafael Silva, an educated man making for the same town to start up a rifle factory. When they arrive, Carpenter's former brothers-in-arms actually try to run Silva out of town, despite the much-needed factory. There's trouble afoot....

In this thrilling new installment in bestseller Ralph Compton's Trail Drive series, Toby Bishop and the drovers of the Circle K ranch will have to battle the elements, wild animals, rough terrain, and dangerous people to get their longhorn herd to their destination. The drovers of Circle K ranch have to drive the herd of beautiful longhorn cattle 500 miles northwest to Missouri if they hope to make it through the next year. On the trail, drovers must set aside their differences in favor of a common goal.