Showing results by author "Gary McCarthy" in All Categories

The thundering engines of the Central Pacific are stalled in the quest to conquer the mighty Sierras. Only a mountain of a man, Darby Buckingham, could pound the railroad through the granite walls of trouble. Atop sheer rock cliffs just a death plunge away from the surging river a thousand feet below, braving punishing cold, Darby must lay down track, foot by hard-blasted foot, with a construction crew that is threatening to tear itself apart with vicious fighting.

When Darby Buckham's fianceé Dolly Beavers fails to show for their announced wedding, he realizes something is wrong. He strikes out for Reno convinced she must be a victim of foul play. Darby is accompanied by an overzealous, aspiring young writer. Looking after this tenderfoot while tracking down Dolly's captors on a danger-ridden trail that winds through Nevada, Wyoming and Colorado, Darby wonders if he'll live to see his wedding day.

Darby Buckingham becomes the unwilling owner of a herd of 12 dirty and disagreeable camels. Deciding to go into the freight business, Darby is faced with unfriendly Paiutes, scorching desert and steep, impassable trails. Add to that the horrors contrived by the murderous band of a competitor, an ugly giant known as Big Bert Jasper, and you have all the makings of an exciting story. The Derby Man will be hard pressed to come out ahead on this caper.

Darby Buckingham, the West's hardest hitting, toughest fighting, fastest thinking hero, now charges into what threatens to be his most unbeatable challenge: helping the Union Pacific win the great railroad race across the continent. With time running out, the Derby Man must overcome ferocious Sioux and Cheyenne, brutal weather and terrain, the treacherous Missouri River and the toughest collection of men ever assembled to lay track.

A man could mine fabulous wealth on the Comstock, but Darby Buckingham strikes only a mother lode of trouble. With his sledgehammer fists and sharply honed wits, Darby sets out to expose a spellbinding stock manipulator. Rigging a boxing match that becomes a nightmare of punishment, sabotaging a mine shaft into a pit of death - Darby's rattle-snake of an opponent baits him ruthlessly.

He is the most cruelly dangerous opponent the Derby Man has ever challenged: Wesley Bryant, now the crime lord of San Francisco. Darby smashes through the sword-wielding Chinese Tong warriors who protect Bryant's vicious web of vice, but Bryant escapes to launch his most ruthless scheme - stealing the vast wealth of Alaska for his own empire of evil.

In Our American West, Volume 1, discover humor, tragedy, and courage in every one of these delightful stories. Gary McCarthy has been writing about the American West for 30 years and these are some of his favorite topics written - not for the expert or scholar - but for all the armchair admirers of thing historically written.

Look sharp, hit hard - that's the Derby Man's style. He's a fast-moving mountain of muscle who throws himself into the thick of the West's greatest adventures - like the Pony Express, a grueling 2,000 mile race through hell. The pace and terrain are deadly enough but vengeful Paiute warriors and murdering saboteurs led by a sadistic giant threaten to turn the route into a trail of blood. Then one man with the guts to save the Pony Express stepped forward - the Derby Man.

When Rebel Morgan was the law, Bodie, California, had been a town of hope and promise. To quote the newspaper, Bodie was now "the wildest town in the west", and ex-sheriff Rebel was the whiskey-soaked town joke. A broken and bitter man since his wife's brutal murder, Rebel had been unwilling to stem the rising bloody tide of violence and corruption that now threatened to destroy Bodie. But Darby Buckingham is fiercely determined to whip Rebel back up to his former strength.

Sodbusters are about equal to farm animals on the social scale of the ranching community of Wyoming in the 1870s. Zach and Carrie Bennett, teenaged children of that wretched class, are determined to escape the scorn. They resolve to trek to Texas on foot. They are babes on the prairie, ignorant of the geography and hostility.

In the wake of disaster, the surviving members of the Ballou family sought a new beginning on the Texas Frontier. A minister and his family become their traveling companions. Tragedy strikes when the minister and his young daughter are attacked by rattlesnakes and severely bitten. Their lives depend on the only medical attention available, that of a Comanche medicine man. And it is up to Ruff to persuade the reluctant Comanches to give them aid.

Ruff Ballou and his sister Dixie journeyed west with trouble at their heels. But luck is on their side in Rum River, New Mexico, where they race one of their champion thoroughbreds to victory. A rich man’s greed pits their good fortune against Ruff's life and they must take up a money-making challenge to capture Blue Bullet, the legendary stallion that no man has yet tamed. But their worst enemy is time. A bounty has been placed on Blue Bullet, dead or alive, and savage killers are out to collect that reward.

Mando Killion's world was shattered by Santa Anna's brutal invasion of Texas. Scion of a wealthy ranching dynasty, he saw his father die at the Alamo, his mother and brothers murdered, and his beautiful sister taken hostage by a debauched Mexican General. Mando came of age during the most violent days of Texas history, as a hearty band of patriots led by Sam Houston fought a bloody revolution for freedom from tyranny.

Our American West, Volume 3 is filled with western frontier stories you’ll find entertaining. "The Roadrunner – Our Sagebrush Clowns" reflects on the speedy and often comical bird of our southwestern deserts. Wild and wicked Calamity Jane lived up to her reputation as the West’s most infamous outlaw woman. “The Donner Party – Frozen Horror” describes the horror that led to cannibalism. The 49er Gold Rush ruined the lives of two ambitious and well-intentioned men, John Augustus Sutter and John Marshal...

Bruin Henry's not proud of the life he's led. Robbing stagecoaches cost him the love and devotion of his daughter. Along the way, he's been blamed for worse crimes - namely, cold-blooded murder. Ironically, the man who rode with him the day of the botched robbery and who is truly responsible is none other than his very own son-in-law, Link Cochran.

The Horseman, is the story of the Ballou family's brave struggle to fulfill a dream. The Ballous were the finest horsemen in the South, a courageous Tennessee family famous for the training and breeding of glorious thoroughbreds. When the Civil War devastated their home and their lives, they headed west into the heart of Indian territory. As horsemen, they triumphed. As a family, they endured. But as pioneers in a new land, they faced unimaginable hardship, danger, and ruthless enemies....

On the vast and indescribably beautiful South Rim of the Grand Canyon a young Hualapai boy faces a bleak future in 1902. River Thunder's mother has just passed into the Spirit World and River Thunder will carry his flute, courage and trusting innocence to the Hackberry Day School still standing today on old Route 66 while never once imagining how his fate will one day soar like an eagle over the magnificent Grand Canyon.

This is audiobook #2 in the Medicine Wagon series. Henry Wallace, now a fugitive and narrowly escaping death in Denver, is on his way to Cheyenne with Samantha in her medicine wagon. The pair discovers a farm house with a man dying under suspicious circumstances, and the wife refuses Henry's help as a doctor.

Our American West, Volume 4 completes the collection of historical stories written by Gary McCarthy. These include tales of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which proved once and for all that the storied and hoped for river across America didn't exist. That long before the Gold Rush of 1849, a diminutive but courageous priest, Fr. Junipero Serra, sacrificed everything to bring Christianity to the coastal Native Americans, while faithfully establishing a string of beautiful California missions.

Irish immigrant Michael Callahan gets the gold fever and stakes a claim in California. Just when persistence and ingenuity finally payoff, he is jumped by thieves intent upon taking his gold and his life. Michael is saved by Joaquin Murieta with whom he strikes up a friendship. The friendship is quite unusual and the Irishman becomes known as the Gringo Amigo.