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

As the father of a young Crow tribesman, Preacher would like nothing more than to see the long-time natives and newly arrived settlers live together in peace. Then, the killing starts.... As a family man and frontiersman, Jamie Ian MacCallister is more than happy to help the officers at Fort Kearny negotiate a peace treaty with the Crow nation. Until it all goes to hell.... This is not the American dream they were looking for. This is a nightmare. A brutal, blood-drenched frontier war that two heroic men must fight and win - or one struggling nation will never come together.

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life....

The first story in a fiery new series about the west's most dangerous boomtown, and the reformed outlaw who risks his life to keep it safe....In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield, has a young man's face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

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.

Wyoming Territory, 1873. Tim Colter and his trusted guide, mountain man Jed Reno, are on the trail of a vicious gang of train robbers when they happen upon a bloody and shocking scene. Lying on the ground, barely breathing, a Secret Service agent has been left for dead in the wake of a brutal ambush. His final words: "President Grant . . . assassination . . . Dugan . . . trust nobody."

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.

With Apaches on the prod, ex-cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan, bounty hunter Jed Breen, and ex-Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch take shelter in a West Texas way station - along with a hot-as-a-pistol female bound for the gallows, a spiteful newspaper editor, and a coward with $50,000 who promises them five grand if they'll deliver his blood-soaked stash to his wife. Turns out, Indians might be the least of the problems for the trio, soon to be known as the Jackals. The loot's stolen property of the vengeful Hawkin gang, and these prairie rats are merciless, stone-cold killers.

In this bold new series, a legendary gunslinger tries to outrun his past and start a new life. But after so many years, so many bullets—and so much bloodshed—he finds old habits die hard. And new enemies die harder . . .

William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone present Book 52 in the Mountain Man series.

A killer is on the loose in the Arizona Territory. One by one, Tonto Basin ranchers are being murdered for their livestock - and the Cattle Raisers' Association has hired two range detectives to catch the culprit. From the looks of them, Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman are just another pair of high-plains drifters. But with their razor-sharp detective skills and rare talent for trouble, they're the last remaining hope for one young cowboy who's been arrested for the murders. Stovepipe and Wilbur believe the boy is innocent.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But old cowboys? That’s a different story—especially when those cowboys are trail-hardened cattlemen like Casey Tubbs and Levi Doolin. When these longtime buddies learn that their bosses are getting out of the beef business, they figure it’s probably time to retire anyway. Nothing left to do now but deliver the last two-thousand cows to Albilene and collect their pay. There’s just one problem. Their bosses’ lawyer is skipping town with all the workers’ cash—which means Tubbs and Doolin have one last job to do...

Meet Hunter Buchanon, a towering mountain of a man who learned how to track prey in Georgia, kill in the Civil War, and prospect in the Black Hills of Dakota. Now he's trying to live a peaceful gun-free life - but fate has other plans for him. When Hunter Buchanon rescued a wounded coyote pup - and named him Bobby Lee - he had no idea the cute little varmint would grow up to be such a loyal companion.

Breck Wallace was turning into a true mountain man on the American frontier. As a teenager in Tennessee, he killed in self-defense, then left behind a woman he loved. With a gun and trap lines, he is learning how to survive in the Rockies, braving the punishing elements, ruthless outlaws, and forging an uneasy peace with the Indians. But as dangerous as life is, nothing is worse than a powerful man with a murderous grudge. Breckenridge has left two such men in his past - and they both send cold-blooded killers for hire after him.

They just wanted to get home for Christmas...but fate had other plans. It's December 1890. A Texas rancher named Big Jim Conyers has a deal with Scottish-born, Wyoming cattleman named Duff MacCallister. Along with Smoke and Matt Jensen, the party bears down on Dodge, Kansas, to make a cattle drive back to Forth Worth. But before they can get out of Dodge, guns go off and a rich man's son is killed.

When Hunter Buchanon rescued a wounded coyote pup — and named him Bobby Lee — he had no idea the cute little varmint would grow up to be such a loyal companion. Coyotes aren’t known to be man’s best friend. Most of them are as fierce and wild as the Black Hills they roam. But Bobby Lee is different. When Hunter is ambushed on the road, Bobby Lee leaps to his defense. And when the attacker tries to shoot Bobby Lee, Hunter returns the favor by hitting the man with a rock.

They were innocent men, slaughtered in the Rockies. A party of land surveyors who met their grisly fate at the hands of the Crow Indians—or so it seems. Some folks think the story is a lie. And now it's up to US Army Lieutenant Ron Stanton to figure out what really happened up there in those desolate, blood-soaked mountains. As his guides, Preacher and Jamie McCallister agree to retrace the footsteps of the doomed party—come hell or high water—but first they'll have to pass through a particularly nasty piece of purgatory known as Fort Buzzard.

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....

They slaughtered his family. Killed his young bride. And ever since that tragic day, Nathan Stark has devoted his life to fighting the hostile tribes who massacred those he loved. As a civilian scout for the army, he's served with such famous commanders as Custer and Crook. He's battled against such notorious war chiefs as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Among the fiercest natives of the untamed West, Nathan Stark is a living legend - one that must be destroyed.

After spending most of his young life driving cattle from Texas to Nevada, Will Tanner is ready to wash the trail dust from his throat. Maybe it was fate that brought him to the Morning Glory Saloon on the border of Indian Territory - or just plain bad luck - because right after his sits down three rough-looking characters walk into the bar with vengeance in their eyes, guns at their sides...and fingers on their triggers. The trio's target is the famous US Deputy Marshal Dove who arrested one of their kin - and who's sitting in the bar near Will Tanner.

Preacher and his son Hawk are riding the High Lonesome when the clear mountain air is split by a girl's savage screams. A gang of ruthless trappers has kidnapped a Crow woman, but before they escape with her, Preacher and Hawk burst out of the tree line, guns spitting fire. They drive the trappers off, only to find that she's not Crow, but white. Caroline has been raised by the Crow since childhood, the only people she's ever known. To get her home, Preacher and Hawk will have to blast their way off this mountain, gunning down kill-crazy trappers and merciless Blackfeet warriors.