Showing results by author "Gary McCarthy" in All Categories

A man could mine fabulous wealth on the Comstock, but Darby Buckingham strikes only a mother lode of trouble. With his sledgehammer fists and sharply honed wits, Darby sets out to expose a spellbinding stock manipulator. Rigging a boxing match that becomes a nightmare of punishment, sabotaging a mine shaft into a pit of death - Darby's rattle-snake of an opponent baits him ruthlessly.

He is the most cruelly dangerous opponent the Derby Man has ever challenged: Wesley Bryant, now the crime lord of San Francisco. Darby smashes through the sword-wielding Chinese Tong warriors who protect Bryant's vicious web of vice, but Bryant escapes to launch his most ruthless scheme - stealing the vast wealth of Alaska for his own empire of evil.

In Our American West, Volume 1, discover humor, tragedy, and courage in every one of these delightful stories. Gary McCarthy has been writing about the American West for 30 years and these are some of his favorite topics written - not for the expert or scholar - but for all the armchair admirers of thing historically written.

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 portly New York writer, had an appetite for local color to add punch to his newest dime novel. But when Hench Hightower rode into town with his half-dead herd of mustangs, Darby had no stomach for what he saw. It was time to end a vicious cattle baron's control of the Nevada range...time to end the murder of the mustangs. Darby looked like a dude, but he'd fight like a demon. Caught up in a stampeding adventure, Buckingham swore he'd live to tell the tale.

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.

Henry Wallace is the son of a prominent physician in late 1800's Boston; it's the last quarter of college before graduation. But Henry never graduates. Forced into a fight for his life, he kills a man who turns out to be the son of Boston's most notorious gangster. Arrested by the police, who are paid off by the gangster, Henry is sentenced to prison for life. He makes a daring escape and becomes a fugitive - not only from the law, but he is constantly pursued by the gangster's hit men.

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.

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.

Wild mustangs, ghosts on the ranch, gun-toting outlaws and trailblazing cowboys roam the pages of this collection of 8 classic stories about the American frontier. Travel down "The Road to Hell" with a mysterious ranch builder, face down the "Yellow Devil" mountain lion, travel "Where the Wind Blows Free," and join in on a herd of other adventures that will keep you reading until long after high noon.

This is the third audiobook in the "Medicine Wagon Series". Henry and Samantha struggle against a town to save a family from typhoid fever. The townspeople refuse to help and openly threaten Henry. Ice is the major commodity needed to keep the fevers down, and little is available in town. Samantha volunteers to go to the nearby mountains and bring ice down in her wagon with the help of a local mountain man.

The Horseman, is the story of the Ballou family's brave struggle to fulfill a dream. The Ballous were the finest horsemen in the South, a courageous Tennessee family famous for the training and breeding of glorious thoroughbreds. When the Civil War devastated their home and their lives, they headed west into the heart of Indian territory. As horsemen, they triumphed. As a family, they endured. But as pioneers in a new land, they faced unimaginable hardship, danger, and ruthless enemies....

In the wake of disaster, the surviving members of the Ballou family sought a new beginning on the Texas Frontier. A minister and his family become their traveling companions. Tragedy strikes when the minister and his young daughter are attacked by rattlesnakes and severely bitten. Their lives depend on the only medical attention available, that of a Comanche medicine man. And it is up to Ruff to persuade the reluctant Comanches to give them aid.

On the vast and indescribably beautiful South Rim of the Grand Canyon a young Hualapai boy faces a bleak future in 1902. River Thunder's mother has just passed into the Spirit World and River Thunder will carry his flute, courage and trusting innocence to the Hackberry Day School still standing today on old Route 66 while never once imagining how his fate will one day soar like an eagle over the magnificent Grand Canyon.

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.

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.

Bruin Henry's not proud of the life he's led. Robbing stagecoaches cost him the love and devotion of his daughter. Along the way, he's been blamed for worse crimes - namely, cold-blooded murder. Ironically, the man who rode with him the day of the botched robbery and who is truly responsible is none other than his very own son-in-law, Link Cochran.

Our American West, Volume 4 completes the collection of historical stories written by Gary McCarthy. These include tales of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which proved once and for all that the storied and hoped for river across America didn't exist. That long before the Gold Rush of 1849, a diminutive but courageous priest, Fr. Junipero Serra, sacrificed everything to bring Christianity to the coastal Native Americans, while faithfully establishing a string of beautiful California missions.

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...