To the daughter he’d left many years before. After crossing the desert, at the Colorado River, he comes across a woman and her young grandson, survivors of a brutal stage robbery. He finds himself in a small mining town in Arizona territory, wearing the badge of a Deputy U.S. Marshal, being the arm of the law in the town, tracking down outlaws and uncovering a sinister plot based on deception and corruption. A plan to rob, kill and terrorize, in the interests of cleaning out the Broke Knife Mine once and for all. Taking the wealth, and leaving nothing but dust and dead men behind. Pete Cooper encounters men who are cold blooded killers. He encounters honest men who work hard for a living. He also encounters a refined woman who, in spite of his rough edges, falls in loves with him. ‘The Guns of the Broke Knife Mine’, is a tale of the west. There’s action, intrigue, adventure, and even a little romance. It’s a tale of good men overcoming evil, and in a few cases, men overcoming the evil that lives within themselves. Does he ever make it back to Kansas to see his daughter? You ask. Well, I reckon you’ll have to read it to find out. Saddle up pard.

    Laura Taylor, whose husband Rye is making his way home from the war, stands at her kitchen window. A vision of returning warriors fills her sight. In the distance, a lone soldier in blue. Is that Rye coming home? She has little time to wonder because a family friend, Willie, rides up with news that men are coming to burn the Taylors out. Laura and Rye planned for such an event, and she gets her entire family plus Willie ready to travel. Their journey is filled with hazards, both natural and man-made. Laura eventually finds herself the leader of a small wagon train of travelers heading west for Santa Fe. They hire a drunken former scout who claims to know the route and the Indians along the way. Laura doesn’t trust him.

    The Arizona desert is a vast inferno, infested with murderous bandits from both sides of the border, rustlers, robbers and outlaws of every kind. But when the Apaches escape the reservation and go on a bloody, killing rampage, the army calls on one of their former officers to come back as a scout. They ask Dave Macklin to help them track down the renegades and subdue them. Macklin reluctantly agrees, but he soon finds out it’s a decision he may not live to regret.

    Four years ago, his father had handed him a box containing both guns, completely disassembled, and told him he could have them, when and if he could put them back together. It took him a week, but he did it. He didn’t do it to please his father, whom he hated, nor his mother, whom he loved. He did it to prove to himself that he could, and as a result of hours of practice at the back of the property, he rarely missed with either gun, and he could draw and fire the pistol in a split second.

    It takes him from the Hasinai Caddo villages of eastern Spanish Tejas to the Rocky Mountains and parts in between. Along the way, he encounters colorful and unsavory frontiersmen, hostile and friendly Indians as well as struggles with wild nature. But he also finds loyal friends and unconditional love.

    The bad dreams and fear of thunderstorms are a result of five years as a Blackfoot, Sioux, Comanche, and Comanchero slave. Now the successful rancher and part time Texas Ranger is expanding his holdings to include a ranch in Kansas and pioneering the breeding and raising of Longhorn-Hereford cattle. But not everything goes his way. After the Civil War, crippling taxes become an arm of the Carpet Baggers and Reconstruction in the southern states.In spite of the adversity, Clint and a collection of colorful characters now call the Broken Dog Ranch, home. Ex-slaves, ex-rustlers, and ex-gunmen and outlaws all celebrate new lives, working together to develop and fine tune the recovery of Texas, the Longhorn, the Cowboy, and the Trail Drive.Overcoming high taxes, rustlers, and cheating businessmen, Clint, his family, and crew exemplify the Spirit of the West.

    Unless of course, people are shooting at you because of them. The Civil War has disrupted thousands of lives, including that of Sarah Jackson, whose husband was killed for not joining the Confederate Army in Georgia. Sarah and her daughter flee to Nevada Territory and are eligible for homestead rights. After claiming her one hundred sixty acres in the lush Golden Valley, her world crumbles again.Banker Preston Miller claims he owns the entire Golden Valley and all the water in the Good Hope River. Jackson cries foul in a letter to the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco, and Jacob Chance, U.S. Marshal rides to Preston, Nevada Territory to “settle this little land dispute.”He finds many in the town fear for their lives and livelihood, but it takes just a few shots from big guns to convince them to back the marshal. Lives are lost, buildings are burned, the town itself is in jeopardy, and the U.S. Marshal finds himself up against an army. Anarchy is the rule in the Golden Valley.Fighting the bad guys is hard enough, he also finds himself fascinated by the daughter of one of the ranchers whose property he is trying to save. Will the town survive? Will the ranches survive? Is romance in the air? All the answers are inside these covers.

    He's looking forward to an easy job, and then settling down for a bit. At least that’s the way he had it figured. What he hadn’t considered was how plans could change in a heartbeat, bringing him closer to deaths door than he ever wanted to be. Excerpt from Book 5: The Storm It was late afternoon of the first day and they were still several miles inside the Kansas border, when Clay found a place to camp for the night, near a small lake that would provide enough water for the herd. They would have to camp out in the open, but the weather was decent enough so that it shouldn’t be a problem. By tomorrow noontime, they should reach the Panhandle of Oklahoma where water was scarce. Clay didn’t want to push the herd too hard. He wanted them in good shape because it would be at least two more days before they could reach the Cimarron River and cattle don’t travel well without water. He figured they would lose a little weight during the three-hundred-and-fifty-mile drive, but once they got to his land, it wouldn’t take them long to put the weight back on. The White River ran through his property with several small tributaries, and there was plenty of tall grass. The cattle weren’t used to walking all day and were more than ready to settle down for the night when the time came. No one knew how Mrs. McIntyre did it, but that evening for supper, they feasted on corned beef and cabbage with soda bread and large slabs of butter, and blackberry pie. She’d seen some blackberries growing wild and since the herd was moving slow, she’d stopped and picked enough for six pies. “Ya know, boss,” Riley, a tall young man from Texas, said, “if this is the way we’re gonna eat, I don’t reckon you’ll ever be wantin’ fer hands. Women or not, this is the best trail drive I’ve ever been on, and if my work suits ya, I’ll be stayin’ on when we get to yer ranch.” Riley was young, just seventeen, but he’d been around cattle drives most of his young life and he knew his business. Clay was lucky to have him. Young he might be, but Clay was guessing the young man would ride for the brand, should trouble arise. Clay looked out across the herd and watched as his men worked the cattle. There was a mixture of ages, which was good as far as he was concerned. The men new to this kind of work would learn from the more experienced riders. Colleen blushed and waved the end of her apron at him. “Ah, go on with ya now. You and yer silver tongue. Ah man works hard, he needs ah good meal, that’s all.” Bert took his slice of blackberry pie and backed away, saying, “Yes ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.” After the evening meal, Cindy brought out her guitar and sat on the tailgate of the wagon and to everyone’s surprise, began to strum a slow, song of home. Then she began to sing and as if by magic, the cattle settled down. Singing was what cowboys did while riding night herd to help keep the cattle calm, but none of them had a voice as soothing as Cindy McIntyre. Clay had just poured himself a cup of coffee and was enjoying Cindy’s singing, when a young man came riding up to the camp and got down. He took a double take when he saw the two women, then spied Clay and walked up to him. “Mister Brentwood?” Clay smiled. He was just a boy, no more than fourteen and dressed in town clothes. “Sorry son, but I got all the wranglers I need. The boy grinned. “I’m not a cowboy, sir. I’m Ben Masterson and I work for the railroad. I’m training to be a telegraph operator.”

    It ran straight south from Caldwell, Kansas to Fort Reno, I.T., then down through the Cheyenne and Comanche and Kiowa lands, crossing the Red River into Bowie, Texas. It was a line on the map, a demarcation. West of it no law existed, only outlaws. On trails out there, outlaws put notes on trees and posts to let lawmen know they'd be killed if they continued their pursuits west of the Dead Line.In the storied times of the American West, in what was called Indian Territory, no place came close to matching the dangers and mortality U.S.marshals faced doing their jobs. Those who survived became titans in the legends of the West, particularly one man called Bass Reeves. These stories are fiction; the encounters this lawman faced, and The Dead Line, were not.

    When a freak early-winter storm finds Linc wounded and sheltered in the cabin of a recently widowed homesteader and her young son, all should be fine…if he wasn’t on the run from the law. Now, Bama, a black mule skinner; Twodogs, a Crow tracker; and Dolan, find themselves an unlikely gang. Damned by decent folk, hunted by the law, and pursued by Montana’s most deadly man-hunters, they all three are wronged and seek bloody revenge.

    Until Hayden Tilden caught up with him.Smilin’ Jack Paine is one face from the past that Hayden would rather forget, but the man’s sinister grin is permanently etched in his memory, along with the chilling thoughts of Paine’s unspeakable crimes. There seems to be no other way to put that demon to rest than to tell the whole story—from the day Hayden first heard the man’s name to the day he finally wiped the grin off Paine’s face for good.Praise for Lawdog: The Life and Times of Haydon Tilden“Lawdog should assume its rightful place beside other Western classics.” —Peter Brandvold, author of Once Hell Freezes Over“Lawdog has it all. I couldn’t put it down.” —Jack Ballas, author of West of the RiverAbout the Author:J. Lee Butts is the author of 22 published books and numerous magazine articles and short works. His book Brotherhood of Blood was runner-up for the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2005. He’s worn many hats over the years (teacher, administrator, pool manager, IBM supervisor, and western author), and he and his late wife lived everywhere from Los Angeles to Dallas. Currently he’s hanging those hats back in White Hall, Arkansas.

    When marshal Vic Falcone takes a bullet, he calls on the town preacher Tom McCabe to strap on a gun and wear the badge. The man who shot the marshal is in the town jail and awaiting trial, and the man's outlaw brother is out there somewhere, intending to free him. A lot for McCabe to handle, but even though he's a preacher, he's also the nephew of the gunfighter Johnny McCabe.

    A Mississippi riverboat gambler, Benjamin Tate, is thrust into a different life as he is forced to adopt two little boys, who have been horribly abused in an orphanage in St. Louis. He takes the boys out West, buys some land and builds a ranch where he raises horses. He meets the boys' school teacher and falls in love with her. He learns that she's a widow who has suffered terrible physical abuse from her late husband. One of the boys is kidnapped and Tate goes after the kidnappers and recovers his adopted son, who tells him, "I knew you were coming, Pa. I never had a single doubt. And I told that kidnapper you'd beat the 'dickens' out of him." The gambler finds out that love makes a difference in both children and horses. The orphans adopt a young horse named Sunny, which is a pet for the boys, but he's no race horse ... until one of the orphans gives him a little talking to, hugs him and gets in the saddle. Suddenly Sunny is transformed by the love of the orphans into a winning race horse. The family finally learns that Benjamin Tate was the best poker player ever on the Mississippi riverboats. Does he regret giving up that life and being a father to the orphans. Not for a single minute. It's another classic tale from R. O. Lane, author of classic westerns.

    From 1873 until his death in 1896, Judge Isaac Charles Parker policed seventy-four thousand square miles, with two hundred or so lawmen. The area was called by several names; Last of the Western Frontier, Hell’s Fringe, The Nations and Indian Territory just to name a few. Several more names were used, but should not appear in print at this time.

    Thomas, WL Cox, and Duane Boehm filled with action, adventure and plot twists such as C. K. Crigger, Robert Vaughan, and C.M. Curtis! This is a book that is filled with the bodies of those who stand again law, order and patriotism! Matt Hutchins, the lone survivor of a wagon train massacre takes on the world to do what is right, and must use guts, guns and glory to bring peace to his people. Found and raised by the Sioux, Matt not only learns the ways of the Sioux, but his survival skills are keenly honed with his tracking abilities used by both the Army and later by the sheriff of a town named Buffalo Flats Matt lives alone on the open plains with his trusted friend and horse ‘Ole Friend, a gift given to him by the Chief Buffalo Robes, the one who taught him how to survive. If you love great Western writing—and you love classic Western movies—you will LOVE “High Plains Ambush.”