C.J. Petit

Ted Shepard had seen many deaths over his ten years as a bounty hunter and then as a United States Deputy Marshal, but none had come close to affecting him as much as this one. He didn't know if he could go on any longer and sunk into an almost suicidal depression.

Will thought the job to Robinson, New Mexico was going to be a simple determination of whether it was worthwhile for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to build a spur to the town.

Zack's eighteenth birthday was tomorrow, but he wasn’t expecting a party. He needed to get away from the family cattle ranch as fast as he could. There was nothing for him at his home, and he'd prefer facing the unknown to staying.

Lee Ryan knew horses. He had his herd and his ranch. He even had his eye on a redheaded lass that would make everything perfect. The only thing that stood in the way of having everything he ever wanted was, of all things, hay.

Tabby rode out of the Slant 6 after having spent more than four years working on the big spread. He wasn’t mad or even disappointed. It was just the way of life for a cowhand.

Eleven-year-old Axel Nielsen and his ten-year-old girlfriend Elsa Johannsen were happily chatting as they walked away from Winfield, Kansas’ one-room school. But their cheery conversation quickly ended when they saw Elsa’s father striding towards them with a somber look on his face.

They came out of the sun and through the dust cloud created by the herd, firing their Winchesters and killing the men who were moving the cattle to Abilene. Each man fell just minutes after the attack began, and the stampeding cattle finished the job that the rustlers’ .44s had started.

Gabe Owens had been assigned to investigate a case of timber poaching near Missoula in Montana Territory that could have been handled by a less experienced agent of the railroad, but the case had changed dramatically after the apparent murder of the station manager.

When aging cowboy Gus Matthews gets fired from Rocking-C ranch for laying out the mean-spirited, know-nothing foreman, he heads north for Oklahoma, where he finds work with the Aronsons, an elderly couple whose ranch has seen better days.

Rhody Jones, the first mate of the schooner, Vivienne, walked from the docks into the streets of New Orleans. He’d been dismissed by the captain after the ship had barely survived the incredible battering from a powerful hurricane.

Sixteen-year-old Henry was ejected from the enormous St. Martin ranch and told never to return, or he would be shot on sight. He vowed to return and seek revenge against the entire family....

No one had seen the innocuous rock on the long climb to the pass on the Oregon Trail, and when the last covered wagon in the long line rolled onto the lump of granite, it shouldn’t have made much of a difference, but it caused almost instant tragedy.

Kyle raced away from the work camp with the posse’s bullets whizzing past his head. He had no idea why he was being pursued, but he wasn’t about to ask.

When Drew Campbell turned sixteen and had to leave St. Thomas Home for Boys, he knew he wasn’t fully prepared to face the world on his own. But he thought his years as a blacksmith’s apprentice would give him a start.

Ed's life changed that first day of September when that deadly twister had roared across his Texas ranch and destroyed his house. But what was much worse was that it had ripped his Bessie and their boys from him and destroyed much more than the wooden structure; it had destroyed his life.

Joey couldn’t imagine a better 13th birthday. He’d been given his first pistol and now was going to join his six older brothers on tomorrow’s job. They were going to trust him with covering their escape after robbing the bank and he was determined to do it right....

Mark Jordan was in no hurry to finish the long ride across Texas to reach his first assignment in Dallas. He was ashamed of himself for not standing up to his father and choosing his own career....

Mattie Foster had made a terrible mistake. She had left Missouri and come to Green River, Wyoming to find her father; a father who was not the man that she even knew.

Laramie had just been hit by the Clayton gang, leaving Sheriff Joe Tate without any deputies to serve the entire county.

Captain Stan Murray was finally being mustered out of the army after all of the administrative snafus that had left him in Montana Territory long after the conclusion of the War Between the States. As he began his long journey, he wasn’t going home to Michigan.