Book picks similar to
Blood Mountain by Peter Brandvold


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Dead Man's Crossing (Jake Moran Book 1)


Robert Broomall - 1987
    Who better to guide a wagon train from San Antonio to California than Jake Moran, the Hero of Chapultapec in the Mexican War? Trouble is, Jake's not really a hero, though he's the only one who knows it. Fifteen hundred miles of forbidding desert make Jake want to turn down the position, but the emigrants of the California Company are depending on him, and he can't let them down. The company faces thirst, cholera, and Comanche raids. In addition, Jake confronts the enmity of Tyler Hampton, wealthy promoter of the California Company, the man whose leadership position has been taken away and given to Jake. Jake may not be a hero when the company pulls out, but he better become one if they're going to survive.

Wagons West


Russell J. Atwater - 2020
    Their first day out reveals how wrong he is and the perilous dangers of the Santa Fe Trail.It would have been a massacre but for Trent and Pat MacLeod.Trent favors a Sharps .50 caliber buffalo rifle, while his younger brother Pat packs two Texas Navy Colts. They both prove deadly and a force to be reckoned with.The Cowans and the McLeod brothers’ forge a bond those first few days, sustained in part by Trent’s attraction to the eighteen-year-old Becky Cowan. His overtures are not returned.The brothers join the Cowans on their hazardous journey west as they face harsh conditions, bandits and Indian attacks. Will their oxen survive the trip? Will the man Bruce Cowan is fleeing catch up with them? Should they take the Cimarron Cutoff through the desert or stick with the Santa Fe Trail through the mountains?Even with the help of Trent and Pat, the Cowans are forced to learn quickly to survive the rigorous demands of the Wild West.

A Matter of Honor


Brian Gore - 2010
    The task is ever harder, when you must do your building, carrying the ghosts of a long dead war. The burden gets unbearably heavy when you find yourself the last target of the most powerful megalomaniac in the territory. When you've been beaten, burned out, had your herd rustled, shot, and pursued across the high country, you end up in a pretty poor mood, and go hunting for revenge. The only thing that can save your soul, and keep you from sinking into the abyss, are the friends who find you along the way, and the unexpected, lusty, passion of the woman who heals your heart.

North of Laramie


William W. Johnstone - 2020
    A New Legend in the Making. The bestselling Johnstones kick off their blazing new western series with a real bang—a fatal, fateful shootout that sends a man named Buck Trammel on the ride of his life . . .   WHEN WYATT EARP TELLS YOU TO RUN, YOU RUN.   Once upon a time in the Old West, Buck Trammel was a Pinkerton agent with a promising future. But after a tragic incident in a case gone wrong, he struck out for the wide-open spaces of Wichita, Kansas. Working as a bouncer at The Gilded Lily Saloon, he hopes to stay out of trouble. But soon enough, his gun skills are put to the test. The Bowman gang shows up, turning a friendly card game with a Wyoming cattleman into a killer-takes-all shooting match. Buck saves the cattleman’s life, but at the cost of Bowman’s two sons. That’s when Deputy Wyatt Earp arrives. He warns Buck that he’d better get out of town, pronto, and take the cattle baron with him. The rest is history—if he lives long enough to tell it . . .   This is the story of Buck Trammel. Hunted by outlaws. Fighting for justice. Marked for death. This is how legends are born . . .   Live Free. Read Hard.

The Scout


Harry Combs - 1995
    a towering tale of dreams unfettered, of mustangs running free, and of young men riding hell-bent-for-leather into Indian country for no other reason than they were young, brave and wild.By 1900 the Old West was vanishing, but the man many called its fastest gun was still alive.  By then Car Brules had shut himself and his secrets away in a cabin on Colorado's Lone Cone Peak.  Only one person knew his real story, a boy of eleven who became his friend and heard his extraordinary tales in 1909.  The Scout is that unforgettable story, just as young Steven Cartwright heard it, just as Brules told it: hard and gritty, wry with a cowboy's humor, and true to the spirits of all those who loved the west--and died for it--from Custer to Crazy Horse.Many hard, hurting things had driven Cat Brules to become the man he was.  The death of his beloved Shoshone bride, Wild Rose, was one of them.  Months after Brules lost her--brutally and far too soon--Wild Rose still came to him in his dreams.  With a void in his heart and a reckless spirit, Brules signed on as a Scout for General George Crook, whose cavalry was headed into the Badlands. Then, the U.S. Army still didn't know that there were fifteen thousand Sioux and Cheyenne in those Wyoming foothills, and under chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, every one of them was willing to fight to the death to live free.Brules's account of the violence that ensued, told with eyewitness immediacy and chilling authenticity, is one of courage and shame as he rides the trail toward the Little Big Horn and the battles that followed.  Seeing for himself the dying of a way of life, Brules tells a searing truth about America's history: the betrayal of Custer to the Sioux, the hunting of Geronimo, and the U.S. Army's cruel pursuit of Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce.  And here too are the women who loved Brules: White Antelope, the gentle Indian maiden who wanted what Brules felt he could never give again--and Melisande, the saucy Mormon girl who might be too much for even Cat Brules to handle.Debunking the myths of the Old West and the romanticism of movies, renowned Western writer Harry Combs creates a vision at once more complex, magnificent and genuine--from the make of the rifle to the caliber of the bullet that cut Custer down.  A novel unmatched in excitement and adventure, The Scout lets you smell the cordite, feel a man's hard need for a woman, and discover that the real flesh and blood inhabitants of those legendary days were tougher, bolder and more fascinating than we ever dared to imagine.

Long Road to Cheyenne


Charles G. West - 2013
    But his quest for riches is interrupted when he happens upon a stagecoach holdup and ends up rescuing Mary Bishop and her two young daughters. Before striking out on his own, Cam decides to help Mary search for her husband, who disappeared while mining. Turns out Mr. Bishop was murdered—but not before finding enough gold to make Mary a very wealthy woman. Unwilling to leave them unprotected, Cam offers to help escort the ladies on the long journey back to Cheyenne. But with the threat of bandits constantly looming, and a greedy, cold-blooded killer on their trail, the road is even more treacherous than Cam anticipated....

Crow Bait


Robert J. Randisi - 2010
    But that crow bait will not only help Lancaster make it to town, he’ll also help him track down the men who left him to die.

Shower of Gold


Zane Grey - 2007
    When young Richard Gale arrives in the Arizona border town of Casita, he finds himself surrounded by Mexican and American troops, bandits and renegades—and makes an enemy of Rojas, a vicious Mexican bandit leader.

Waco's Badge


J.T. Edson - 1982
    A different breed of peace officer is needed, and rancher Bentram Mosehan has accepted the responsibility of organizing a new Arizona State Police force. He's looking for men who are brave, honest, and lightning fast with a six-gun -- talents that a drifter named Waco and his amigo, Doc Leroy, possess in abundance. But the two young Texans remember all too well their run-ins with the Lone Star law, and thelast thing Waco and Doc want is to wear a badge.But Mosehan knows these are men you need at your side when all Hell breaks loose. And Waco'll be facing one tough choice once the bullets start flying in earnest: serve ... or die.

Summers' Horses (Ralph Cotton Western Series)


Ralph Cotton - 2011
    When the coldblooded Bendigo Brothers make off with his horses, they don't know what they're in for. Summers has a history of tracking down animals, and when he finds them he'll be sure to give them his own special brand, and let them live long enough to feel the burn...

The Overmountain Men


Cameron Judd - 1991
    On the land that has become his home, a mountain paradise the Cherokee call Tanisi, Joshua must face his destiny of being a leader in the bitter fight for land and power between the Cherokee, settlers and British royalty, or he will lose the only place he can call his own. In an age of revolution in the deep wilderness of the rugged frontier Joshua must test his loyality, strength and will to survive. THE OVERMOUNTAIN MEN is just the first chapter in an epic saga of love, hate and war form one of the leading authors of frontier fiction, Cameron Judd. They are the men and women who forged a nation, conquered nature and found freedom...THE OVERMOUNTAIN MEN.

Hickory Jack


Lou Bradshaw - 2013
    Some of those lives were changed forever, some were ruined beyond redemption, and yet others were merely snuffed out. Hickory Jack is a tale of two young lives which were changed beyond any hope of ever being the same. Andy Moore age fourteen and Ben Blue age twelve came face to face with violence and evil as boys, and they responded as men. As they grew in size and years, they also grew in the knowledge of what it took to be a man and to walk in a man’s boots. They gained the knowledge that life was hard, and fairness had never been a promise. They also learned that some men do things for no other reason than they can, and they respected no law higher than what rested in their holsters.

The Changing Wind


Don Coldsmith - 1990
    He was called White Buffalo, and he would be the greatest medicine man the People had ever known.  The spirit of the ancient gods beat in him like a savage drum--a mystical power as old as the land, as primeval as primitive man himself.  But even as he fought to lead his people out of the darkness of the Stone Age, his world trembled on the brink of a great and terrible transformation.  It would be a century swept by the inevitable winds of change; a time when ignorant, evil men like the warrior Gray Wolf of the Head-Splitters would seek bloody vengeance, and when once man would fight against all odds to save his tribe and his heritage from brutal destruction.

The Long Trail


Brad Dennison - 2013
    The story of a family building a ranch in the rugged wilderness of post Civil War Montana, and of a young man seeking his family and his destiny. If you liked the movie OPEN RANGE or the TV shows BIG VALLEY and LANCER, or the novels of Louis L'Amour and Ralph Compton, then this might be for you.

A Texas Ranger


William MacLeod Raine - 1911
    According to Wikipedia: "William MacLeod Raine (1871—1954), was a British-born American novelist who wrote fictional adventure stories about the American Old West.."