Showing results by author "J.A. Johnstone" in All Categories

Leaving their Pennsylvania home to forge a new life in the untamed Oregon Territory of 1845, the Colter family is ambushed by a kill-crazy gang of cutthroats on the Oregon Trail. Fifteen-year-old Tim Colter manages to escape and hide - only to return and find his parents butchered, his sisters Nancy and Margaret missing, and one last killer waiting for his return. Forced to fight for his life, the young Colter embarks on a perilous journey across a lawless frontier, hoping to save his sisters and salvage the dream they lived for.

No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That’s the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to — dazed and confused — until he slowly pieces together what happened. The last thing he remembers: He agreed to help out a friend of Duff MacCallister’s. A pretty lady and her husband at a horse ranch. He also recalls their cross-country trip through hell to deliver the horses safely to market. That’s when the outlaws showed up. That’s when the shooting began.

For Smoke and his daughter Denny, life on the Sugarloaf Ranch is more valuable than all the gold in the world. Which works out fine, since all the gold mines in Big Rock were squeezed dry years ago. Even so, that won’t stop a pair of businessmen from the East from trying to squeeze out a little more. One of them has developed a newfangled method for extracting gold—something called “hydraulics”—and they’ve bought up all the old mines to do it. Smoke isn’t sure what to think of. Especially when they hire a small army of gunfighters to protect their mines from sabotage.

Smoke Jensen has journeyed up to the Colorado Rockies to a sell a prized bull to a local rancher. Instead, the rancher and his wife have been mercilessly slaughtered by outlaws only moments before Smoke’s arrival. In a hail of bullets, Smoke pulverizes two of the murderers and drags two others to the town of Brown Spur for justice. Come hanging day, the two killers are on the way to the gallows when a thundering gang of raiders crashes into town and rescues them from the jaws of death.

While most folks are busy preparing for Christmas, the tight-knit Jensen clan can only hope they'll make it home. Luke Jensen is in San Antonio tracking down a dangerous outlaw. But when he finds the man leading a wholesome life - as a charity-working Hill Country pastor - Luke agrees to wait until after Christmas to bring him to justice. Meanwhile, Smoke and Sally Jensen head out from Fort Worth by stagecoach, only to be stranded by unrelenting rains - and stalked by a crazed Commanche killer.

In January of 1848, the discovery of gold at Sutters Mill in California sparked a nationwide frenzy, fueling the dreams of Americans from coast to coast. By 1849, hundreds of thousands of fortune hunters from across the globe headed west to stake their claim. Armed with pan or pickaxe, driven by greed or glory, every last one of them was determined to strike it rich—or die trying …

In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper. But fate has other plans. It starts with a family slaughtered by Apaches, a dog smarter than most humans Dooley knows, and a girl with a wounded soul.

U.S. Marshal Will Tanner is a man of the law, not a gun for hire. Except when a friend’s in danger and needs the Tanner brand of help that comes out the barrel of a gun.

Preacher has agreed to escort Barnaby Cooper through Dakota Territory’s hills to establish a trading post. Accompanied by his friends Lorenzo and Tall Dog, the mountain man hopes they’ll be able to protect Cooper from Sioux warriors who don’t want any white man trespassing on their sacred grounds. But the Sioux aren’t the only hostiles staking their claim in the region.

Hank Fallon used to be one of the best deputy marshals in the country. Then, he got framed for a crime he didn't commit. Got sentenced to 10 years in a federal penitentiary. And got out early for saving the life of the captain of the guards during a riot. When Fallon is released, a private detective is waiting for him. He wants to put Hank behind bars again - but this time, as an undercover agent.... The last thing Fallon wants is to return to jail. Especially a rat-infested hellhole like Yuma Territorial Prison. But if he wants to clear his name, he's got to take the job.

One of the deadliest, crime-infested towns in Colorado Territory, Devil's Gulch needed more than a sheriff. They needed a gunslinger. So they pinned a badge on hardcase lawman John Holt. And the rest is history. As the town's new sheriff, John Holt achieved the impossible: He drove the devil out of Devil's Gulch. Corrupt, cutthroat rancher Joe Mullen—who ruled the land with an iron fist—is finally behind bars, thanks to Sheriff Holt. But the tables are turned when Mullen manages to overturn his prison wagon and make his escape—with an army of prisoners, outlaws, and lowlifes to do his bidding.

Purgatory, Arizona, is the last place you'll ever cross the law. Because in this town, the law is the personal fiefdom of an evil man - as Matt Jensen discovered on his first day in town, when an unavoidable gunfight and a dead deputy landed him in jail, sentenced to hang at Yuma Prison. But when the train from Purgatory to Yuma is violently derailed, Matt is set free amidst the carnage - with a choice to make. He can run for his life and live like an outlaw or take a chance with the determined U.S. Marshall who must hunt him down.

Unaware of the forces marshaled against him, Captain Phinneus Shae and the crew of the Talion are headed into uncharted waters. With a doggedly determined killer from his past on his trail and cold-blooded pirates all around him, Shae’s contract to recover the treasure from a sunken ship seems destined to fail. But other, more nefarious individuals are after that same treasure, and whatever it is, it is destined to change the future of the Iron Kingdoms. Whether for good or ill all depends on who finds it first and who is buried at the bottom of the sea in the end....

A legend among bounty hunters, Luke Jensen is called to track down a deranged Yankee-turned-outlaw with a burning passion to torch the prairies, torment the townsfolks, and turn all he sees into a smoldering cinder....

Drawn to a killing ground... Ten thousand dollars. That's the bounty on the head of the most hated man in Texas - the man Flintlock has been hired to guard. The crime was the brutal murder of a young schoolteacher. The verdict was not guilty for lack of evidence. And the suspected killer's first guard was murdered by a shotgun blast.

Sheriff McCabe knew he’d make a lot of enemies when he agreed to be a special agent for the Texas governor. But now that he’s managed to keep the peace in the hopeless town of New Hope, he’s hoping he can go home to Two Forks and get back to business as usual. No such luck. The corrupt marshal of East City, Micah Moran, and his murdering band of kill-crazy cutthroats are running wild, leaving the folks in East City in a deadly grip of terror. Now, Two Forks will have to wait because Micah Moran and his evil gang need to be taught some manners—with McCabe’s own brand of retribution.

There are a million ways to die in the great state of Texas. And on the lawless streets of New Hope, the odds are even worse. Once the home of Comanche, the region has been up for grabs since the settlers drove off the natives. Now it’s a magnet for settlers looking for cheap land, merchants looking to exploit its resources—and outlaws looking for a place to hide in between robbing and killing.

Red Ryan should've known this job would be trouble. The first stop is a ghost town and the cargo is a coffin. But things start to look a little brighter when Red and his stage guard Buttons Muldoon deliver the corpse to a ranch run by the beautiful Luna Talbot. Luna asks the boys to help them find the Lucky Cuss Gold Mine, using a map tucked inside the dead man's pocket. Red has a feeling they're playing with fire. Especially when the map leads them straight into crossfire of a ferocious range war.

Life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker. But these reprobates are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it. They’ve managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer—Chief U.S. Marshal Luther T. “Bleed-’m-So” Bledsoe—recruits them for a job only fools would take.

Luke Ransom was just 18 years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed 100 enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River - the longest in North America - all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job - and one of the few to survive....