Showing results by author "Lauran Paine"

The small town of Ballester owes its prosperity to the confluence of three big ranches - Snowshoe, Mexican Hat, and Rainbow. Its single lawman, Deputy Sheriff Percy Whittaker, known as Perc, didn't have to deal with much lawbreaking other than the occasional drunk on a Saturday night. Until a drifter named Sam Logan rode into town looking for work. 

The open range men are free-grazing cattlemen, those who don't own land but drive their stock through the country to graze. Boss Spearman knows that times are changing. Local ranchers are staking claims to grazing areas and building up extensive cattle empires. Boss has no quarrel with that, but he won't be intimidated or scared off. So when Denton Baxter makes it clear, by killing one man and seriously wounding another, that he intends to drive Boss and his crew out, Boss must make a stand.

Sheriff Doyle Bannion tries to keep the peace in Perdition Wells, Texas, when a shooting claims the life of an innocent bystander. When a shooting takes place at the Union Eagle Saloon, Dale McAfee, foreman of John Rockland's mighty Texas Star Ranch, kills a range rider working for Clell Durham, a free-graze cowman. It's a fair fight, but it's marked by a tragic accident: The bullet that killed Durham's rider went through his body and killed an aged swamper.

In the title story of this Western duo, Sheriff Jess Wright must protect Singing Springs from the Wilton gang after their youngest member is killed trying to set fire to the town.

Jeff Mordant was a cowman, his desk and office the saddle, but with the coming of the settlers he sought to protect his interests. A bitter struggle ensued, leaving him despised by all sides, riding alone against his enemies.

Kit Butler and Lige Turner are weathered trackers—trappers who once lived among the Dakota people as brothers, learning their language, their land, and their way of life. Now, with the fur trade dwindling, they find themselves guides for a wagon train—a group of emigrants leaving behind the comforts of the world they know for the Wild West. The problem is, they have to pass through hostile Dakota Indian territory to reach their destination.

Five days ago, the blowing up of the express office safe in Burnt Timbers, Montana, had gone off without a hitch for the four members of the Buck Streeter gang, netting them $28,000. Since then they have taken refuge in an abandoned shack on a plateau above the town of Brigham in northern Wyoming. With its bank and express office across the street from each other and lacking any telegraph for communication, Brigham seems like the perfect place to stage their next robbery before laying low for a while.

Ryan Shanley prefers to be called Shan. It's not much, but it helps put some distance between his life during and after serving in the Union army. And he'll put even more distance between the two once he arrives in the Wyoming Territory, where he has a land grant for two square miles. On the stage to Tico, the town nearest his ranch, he meets Sarahlee Gordon. She was only planning to visit Wyoming long enough to sell the cabin she inherited from her uncle. But the attraction between the two becomes obvious on the stage and grows after they arrive.

The Wyoming territory is vast, rich with grasslands, and largely lawless. So when a conflict arises over whose herd gets to graze in those grasslands, then it's more likely to be settled with a shootout than a lawyer. The cattlemen believed their cows ought to have free grazing. It had been a long winter and the herd was hungry. But that means the sheep ranchers would have to move on, at gunpoint if necessary. But the way the sheep ranchers see things, they were there first, and the cowboys ought to be the ones looking for greener pastures.

The trouble began for Sheriff Claude Rainey when the Hightower Ranch cowboys discovered a mummified man and his horse in a desert canyon near Springville, Arizona - both shot in the head. Ordinarily that should have been the end of it. Few men riding the outlaw trail up out of Mexico make it through that godforsaken country. What troubled Rainey and the townsmen, however, was what Hightower foreman Al Trail had brought into town and given to the sheriff.

George Carpenter has fallen in love with Irene Cobalt, his young Indian housekeeper. But local attorney Clarence Black wants Sheriff Frank Girard to put an end to this immoral association. 

The massacre at Fort Mims is what spurred young Davy Crockett to leave his family and become a volunteer scout in the military campaign between American militias and the Creek Indians. It was while serving in this capacity that Crockett earned his reputation as a first-rate scout, which added to his already established reputation as a crack shot. Like many volunteers serving in militias, Crockett also had to concern himself with protecting his wife, his children, and his land.

A Western duo of horse thieves, mysterious buffalo and a gang of murderers out of control in a lawless town.

Two tales of action, adventure, and the Wild West from a founding master of the genre, Lauran Paine.

This Western duo includes stories about undercover rangers trying to expose a gang of livestock rustlers and an experienced gunfighter looking for vengeance in his hometown but instead encountering trouble....

When innocent Frank Travis gets killed because he’s thought to be a suspect for a robbery, his brother looks to seek revenge in the title story of this Western trio.

In Renegades Beat the War Drum, the frontiersman Caleb Dorn, known among the Indians as Silent Outcast, tries to negotiate with Red Sleeves and his band of Apaches who have surrounded the town of Denton and cut off all access. In Texas Herds Bring Death, Caleb has moved north into cattle country where a Texas herd is not permitted by the Crow nation to have access to the trail through their land. Feud on the Mesa concerns two saddle mates, Rufe Miller and Jud Hudson, who committed an ill-advised stagecoach robbery.

Amos Swift's two sons find their father dead. Jason tells Amos to prepare the body for burial - while he, knowing the murderer's identity, sets out to even the score himself....

When Cuff Lockwood decides to leave the cold rangelands of Montana for warmer New Mexico, little does he know how hard he will find it to leave.

Having served his time for cattle stealing, Ray Kelly returns to Welton to act upon his bitter dream of vengeance in the title story of this trio.