Saddle up and ride the same wild lonesome trails as US Marshal Shorty Thompson did in the 1870s through the 1890s. Feel the dry heat of hot desert floors and the bitter cold of snow-covered mountain passes, as Shorty gets shot and survives as he goes after lawless men. Though the novels are written about things that happened over 140 years ago, many of the old towns can be visited today. Many are in ruins, destroyed, but others still survive as haunting ghost towns.

Saddle up and ride the same wild lonesome trails that US Marshal Shorty Thompson rode from the 1870s through the 1890s. Short of stature but with a heart as big as the Southwestern sky, Marshal Thompson traveled throughout the territories of 19th century New Mexico and Arizona during the height of American expansion westward.

The 1870s: As opposed to the myths of popular culture, not everybody was swaggering around with six-irons strapped down and leading lives of mayhem. But there were the exceptions - every bit as evil, bloody, and deadly as legends portray. And so too was the law that handled these outlaws. In the mold of men like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, MD Shorty Thompson is just that kind of lawman: Short on stature but tall on guts. Hand-picked by President Rutherford B. Hayes, he is one of best.

A young mother suffers and dies three years after giving birth to her third child. She left behind a nine-year-old son, Jimmy, her six-year-old daughter, Sara, and three-year-old, Tommy. Sam, husband and father, blamed the death of his beautiful wife on birthing the last child. Sam turned to drinking and gambling, leaving his three small children alone on their river bottomland.

A young mother's heart is most ripped from her body, as she holds her dying baby boy in her arms. Not three feet away lay her dead husband. She saw as two men saddled and stole Morris horses and a third gunned down two of the people she loved most. When the posse came looking for the men, US Marshal Shorty Thompson would not let her take up the trail after them. No, these men will know what real fear is as a mother's wrath slowly, and very painfully, destroys them.

Jesse Owens was only nine years old when his family pulled up deep roots in their Tennessee valley coalmining town, and headed west. Riding a borrowed horse, he got to ride drag with the outriders. In Oklahoma Territory, he shot an outlaw in the back while saving one of his fellow outriders. Outlaws kidnapped Jesse's sister and two of the Stillwell girls in the Texas Panhandle, while the men from the wagon train were off somewhere wiping out an Comanchero camp.

Janice McCord is 14 years old, when the five Kraymon brothers ride in and shoot down her parents and twin brother Jack. She takes up Jack's name and her father's .45 to blaze a trail of revenge across the Territory of New Mexico. After out gunning one of the brothers in a saloon in Silver City, New Mexico Territory, outlaw friends of his are hot on her trail. When they catch up to her on the side of a mountain, she leaves a few more dead. Her fast shooting and sharp wit, turns a couple of them from lawlessness to helping her track down the killers of her family.

Whiskers McPherson headed west to the Rocky Mountains. Set upon by road agents twice before getting to the Mississippi River, he realized he was a greenhorn and needed a rifle and pistol to survive. Heading west across Kansas, for the first time in his life, he found what real fear was. Indians kept him hunkered down in a buffalo wallow for days before cowboys rode up and saved his life. Instead of letting him ride on to certain death, the ranch these cowboys worked for would not let him go on west until he learned everything they knew about surviving.

Most folks, as they get older, reminisce about the past of unfulfilled hopes, plans, and dreams. Have you ever said yourself, or heard a few of your friends say, "Before I die"? In this story, several different people say those famous words. A few get to see their dreams come true; others do not.

Eighteen-year-old cowboy Cody Strickland lost his parents to an illness that he didn’t understand. Saddened, confused, and alone, he saddled up and rode north, stopping and working awhile, but bounced around from one location to another. His new boss on the Double Bar X Ranch put his trust in Cody after only a couple of months. He was to go along on a cattle drive from northeast of Cheyenne, Wyoming all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah.