Showing results by author "Gary McCarthy" in All Categories

In a land where justice was found in the barrel of a gun and the line between outlaw and citizen was thinly drawn, two women struggled, fought, and won. Rebecca, the elder, beautiful and defiant, found herself in the majestic mountains of Utah, forced to marry a brutal polygamist. All she wanted was to become a physician - and a free woman. Katie, younger, innocent, passionate, risked her life so her sister might have a chance for freedom. She risked all to establish a sprawling sheep ranch and prove that a woman could do it all - on her own.

When the rest of the West was already won... the mountains remained unspoiled and deadly. The men and women who tamed this savage land were tough, lawless, and when necessary, as mean as the traps they carried. They lived by a private code of proud honor and swift justice. Burly, broad-shouldered Isaac Beard is the living embodiment of that mountain code. To survive, he will have to fight his way to a safe haven near Spirit Lake in the Colorado upcountry....

Two Colorado cowboys searching for strayed cattle during a harsh snow storm discover the remains of an ancient city built into the side of a huge cliff. It is the ruined city of the Anasazi Indians, a civilization lost for over a thousand years. This is the story of how Mesa Verde, the cliff city, came to be. It is A.D. 400 at the Animus river Valley in what is now Northwestern New Mexico, and Echata, the leader of the Raven Clan, was concerned for his people.

Along the harsh North California coast the otters swam, enough to fill the Russians' trading ships with valuable pelts. So there they raised an outpost. But inland lay another land, a river wilderness, where game and grizzly thrived. Into this wild land, stripped of his rank for marrying an Indian girl, Lieutenant Anton Rostov is cast. He is an man without a country, but still he is a man. He can hunt, trap, and conquer. And he discovers a power greater than his allegiance to a faraway Czar - the lure of a new world.

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.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here is the most varied collection of short stories by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here's the most varied collection of short stories, by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.

For young Quinn Wallace, reaching the land called Yellowstone was a quest he would rather die for than abandon. For the courageous woman who fell in love with him, it was a reason to surrender everything she once held dear. Pursued by her vengeful husband, the lovers fought their way into the mythical land, and then fought to stay.

Here is the bold adventure story of William Dunn, an educated man yet an accomplished mountain man. His life becomes forever entwined with the wild, unforgettable, Grand Canyon. He hires on as a guide for the John Wesley Powell historic expedition into the Grand Canyon, but then leaves the expedition to guide two men back to civilization.

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...

Our American West, Volume 2 begins with America’s first colonizers, the prairie dogs, and how out on the ranges they were so hated by ranchers that they were almost made extinct. Conestoga Wagons were once called “prairie schooners” crossing America long before the famed Pony Express. The indomitable courage of Sarah Winnemucca, the “Prairie Princess” rivals that of a tall Swede named Showshoe Thompson who skied the snowy river passes of the Sierra Nevadas.

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 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.

The Gila River flows gently through the parched Sonoran Desert. Along its banks, fierce Apaches, Pima farmers, Spaniards, and brash Americans all vie for control in a harsh and unforgiving land. There is Miguel Santana, a young Spaniard abandoned by his comrades; his Pima son Vitorio; Jacova, a woman whose indomitable spirit tamed a mighty Apache warrior; and the "man of three bloods".

The river belongs to all, and to none. On the banks of the Gila, their lives all come together, in love and in war.

For many bold pioneers headed west, the sweetest sight of all was the Humboldt River, a crooked ribbon of silver snaking through Nevada into California. But to Libby Pike and her family, the Humboldt brought sudden disaster. Stranded with her young daughter, Libby found herself surrounded by hostile renegades and an unforgiving wilderness. Then she stumbled upon a father and his two sons in search of a dream valley where they could settle and prosper.

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.

On their way to Colorado, Ruff and Dixie Ballou drive their horses through New Mexico. Their intention to quietly drive the horses on through goes well until they find themselves inadvertently involved in a shootout with four outlaws who robbed the banks of a small town in New Mexico. An edgy sheriff and angry townspeople get the Ballou’s involved in a situation they would be more happy to do without. Even more so when they are arrested by the sheriff as robbery suspects.

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.

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.