Showing results by author "Lauran Paine"

It was spring on the Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains of Texas, the time for the cattle drives to push north to the rail heads in Kansas. The "Lost Cause" of the South was still fresh in the mind of Southerners, including 55-year-old Ben Albright, a pioneer of the Texas cattle drives, who was well familiar with the trail and its dangers. Northerners have taken over the trading post and ferry and refused provisions or passage to Texas cattle drives. When Albright finds a way around this, tensions reach the breaking point.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

This is the story of spectacular gun, customised so it gives the upper hand in any gun duel, and the chaos that ensues when it’s stolen from its maker.

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.

Cattle thieves are always difficult to apprehend, but when they are protected by mountainous terrain, a lawman must resort to deception to gain access. A trio of thrilling stories from one of the masters of the genre.

This Western duo from Lauran Paine includes tales of murder, cattle rustling and lawmen. Two stories with mystery at their hearts.

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.

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.

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.

Though elderly buffalo hunter Sam Sloan doesn't know it when he sets out on his quest for a spirit vision and a final resting place, something is drawing him towards a fateful meeting - a meeting with his destiny.

It was dusk when Todd Duncan sighted the man and his camp at a small oasis on the edge of the desert. Duncan, on his way to New Mexico to find work, knew better than to barge into a stranger's camp. After riding in and dismounting, he decided to make coffee before waking the stranger. When he called to the man, there was no response, so he walked over to find the man dead from a gunshot wound. It is then that he finds himself surrounded by Sheriff Matt Berryhill and his posse, their guns drawn.

Life for John Hawk is looking up when he is offered a half stake in a stageline business. But will his fraudulent past catch up with him?

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

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.

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....

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....