Bud Tilden had intended to be a farmer outside Comanche, Texas. But when he unexpectedly walked into an ambush of the town deputy and killed one of the attackers, the whole town called him a hero. Before he knew it, Bud had raised his gun again and again, and soon he was living by the gun. Outlaws came looking for him, two women loved him, and he had a badge that proved his right to shoot first and ask questions later. But somewhere deep inside, Bud knew the killing had to stop. And somewhere in Comanche, another killer waited for him to let down his guard.
Adam Hunter has more than his share of battles to fight, and demons to dodge. He's searching the Colorado high country for a killer he's never seen but knows only too well. When Hunter saves the life of ranch foreman Edge Pardee, and the ranch owner asks him to stay on and help, he agrees. But the last thing a man needs when he's stalking a killer is to be stuck in the middle of a range war with responsibilities and a woman he can't resist . . .
Warhorse-named because of the retired warhorse who still gallops to the sound of the guns. When Marshal Tom Sturdivant unpinned his badge, he meant to lay down the gun that had made him famous and retire to his Wyoming ranch. Then a violent incident in Lodestone (Note: an imaginary chunk of the Eastern slope of Colorado) gave him a score to settle and one more job to do-a job that would bring him face to face with A. J. Adler, the notorious gunman who'd stolen his woman so long ago. For thirty years, they'd circled each other warily, waiting for a last showdown. Now they were two hired gunfighters on opposite sides of a feud, and the time had finally come to see which wore the faster gun.
It was the end of an era, and the beginning of an ever-evolving world of fast money, fast women, fast talkers...and fast death. Texas was just as noisy, reckless, and wide open in 1914 as it was in the days of the Wild West - with one important exception: success no longer paid off in livable wages, it paid off in millions. Lee Temple, fresh out of a Fort Worth jail and broke, knew that to survive he'd have to give in to change. No sooner had he ditched his saddle than he got caught in a fracas involving the newly rich oil trash Hargroves. There was Harry, the bright, sensitive, but quick-tempered would-be writer he'd befriended; Harry's ruthless, violent father, Cotton; and Elizabeth, Cotton's free-thinking daughter, as beautiful as she was daring...and dangerous. Before long, Lee was riding shotgun for a major Hargrove concern - dodging lies as well as a murderous sniper's bullets in a new kind of business that was as dirty as the grimy black earth from which it was born. Bringing to light the last and most compelling chapter of the American frontier, Wayne Barton and partner Stan Williams are the most exciting and distinctive storytellers writing about the American West.
Riding into Willow Springs, Texas, Jefferson Davis King trails a horse behind him intended as a gift for his friend C. D. Hollis. But Sheriff Hollis isn't around to collect--he'd been killed with a shotgun blast weeks earlier by an unknown gunman.
Texas Ranger, J. D. King feels like he's been rode hard and put away wet. After a shotgun blast took his half-brother, C. D. Hollis, King had nearly lost an arm seeing to the killer. Now, he's heading home for Christmas in Waxahachie, and a hard reunion with Hollis' family. Edwin Spivey has plans for Christmas, and for King too. Some time back, Sheriff Hollis and Tom Trueblood put him in prison. Now, he's broken out to make them all pay, including their kin. They say Spivey is insane, but he knows better. That's why he's written everything down in his journals, clear and straight for all to see. As King tries to hold together a shattered family he knows someone is stalking his every move. Not even the Ranger's trusty Colt can stop an invisible killer.
