Showing results by author "Ralph Compton" in All Categories

Infamous shootist Buck Fletcher befriends a female victim of a range war and finds himself threatened by one side, courted by the other.

At 50, cattle driver Sam Sawyer thinks he can finally dust off and retire, maybe open an eating house. But after a pack of Apache ambushes him and leaves him to die in Gila River country, he barely makes it to a remote ranch. The owner, Hanna Stewart, has worked the desert spread with her young daughter ever since her husband went for a ride and never returned.

The grit and glory that became a trademark of Ralph Compton’s best-selling Westerns is on full display in this thrilling tale. Here Deputy U.S. Marshal Augustus Crane rides to Rawhide Flat to collect accused robber Judah Walsh for a trial in Virginia City. But Crane gets more trouble than he bargained for when the townsfolk decide Walsh can’t leave unless he reveals where he hid the loot.

Jerome Frederick Kincannon is a medicine man—an apothecary by trade and a healer at heart. But when his wife and young son are murdered by the notorious Benjamin Gang, his world crumbles around him. Kincannon can’t forgive the four Benjamin brothers for their transgressions, and he’ll never forget. His ambitions from that day forward are simple: kill them all.

Popular author Marcus Galloway continues the tradition of the legendary Ralph Compton with Outlaw’s Reckoning - a classic Western tale with an intriguing twist. Outlaws Gus McCord and Doyle Hill aren’t exactly model citizens, so when they happen upon the kidnapping of a shipping mogul’s daughter, every instinct in their thievin’ bones says to walk away. But this time is different, and the ruthless duo vow to do whatever it takes to save the girl.

Clint and Hamp are saddle partners to the end. So when Clint winds up behind bars for sending a double-dealing card cheat to his reward, Hamp will do anything to raise money to bribe the guards to set him free - even marry the daughter of the man who'll help him get the cash. Hamp comes to the aid of his hot-tempered friend, Clint, after he is jailed for killing a cheating gambler, bribing the guards to let him go, but no sooner is Clint free than he kills a local rancher with vengeful friends who will do anything to see Clint hanged.

With 800 head of cattle to drive north, Ben McCullough is relying on the help of his ex-sergeant, Hap. But nature's worst elements are nothing compared to the threat that awaits them: a gang of outlaws determined to rustle the herd.

Four men - Jess Donner, a Rebel and Southern gentleman; Steve Ellsworth, a ladies' man with a foul temper; Stu Wilkens, a Yankee; and Heck Myers, a teller of tall tales - find their friendship sorely tested by a dance-hall girl and a gang of outlaws.

If things are quiet in the little town of Sweetwater, Marshal Fred Hitch sees no reason to make waves. But when Tyree Johnson shows up, Fred's relaxed nature is put to the test. At 15 years old, Tyree is a tough-as-nails bounty hunter with no patience for anyone calling him "boy." He's come to apprehend a killer who escaped from Cheyenne and has been hiding in plain sight in Sweetwater. Fred must ride with Tyree and his prisoner all the way to Cheyenne. The unlikely pair has a rough trail ahead of them, and as tough as Tyree is, he has some lessons to learn about the evil men do - and how to survive it.

After years as a professional gambler - and a deadly shootout on a riverboat casino - Tom Calvert and his young protégé, Asher Smith, have survived an arduous journey across the frontier to Friendly Field, Idaho. The bucolic Quaker community welcomes them with open arms, and soon Tom is courting a widow and learning, to his surprise, to enjoy the quiet life. Then an elder of Friendly Field is found murdered, and the townsfolk start whispering about the work of the devil. Tom doesn’t believe in the devil, just the evil that men do, and he resolves to solve the gruesome crime.

Outlaw Wes Cavanaugh knows that crime doesn't always pay - at least not much. That's why he and his partner, Mose, are willing to pay Jimmy Stock for information on a job that's guaranteed to pay off big. Jimmy's made a career of selling tips to bandits, but the job he sells Wes - a payroll train about to leave Omaha - requires more than information.

A gunman without a gun wakes up in Death Valley. He has no recollection of how he got there, or even his own name. He's a dead man walking until his luck turns. He stumbles upon the homestead of a widow and her young son who nurse him back to health. But in the desert good deeds come at a cost. The amnesiac is being trailed by hard men who want answers he doesn't have. First a group of gunslingers, then a troop of soldiers threaten the innocent family.

In this thrilling new installment in bestseller Ralph Compton's Trail Drive series, Toby Bishop and the drovers of the Circle K ranch will have to battle the elements, wild animals, rough terrain, and dangerous people to get their longhorn herd to their destination. The drovers of Circle K ranch have to drive the herd of beautiful longhorn cattle 500 miles northwest to Missouri if they hope to make it through the next year. On the trail, drovers must set aside their differences in favor of a common goal.

Willis Lander was once the T-Bar ranch's best bronc buster. Then came the day when a stallion as black as pitch and as mean as a rattler shattered his knee. Unable to perform the duties required of a cowboy, Willis took the only job he felt capable of handling - minding the line shack 40 miles from the ranch - and secluded himself from the pity of his peers in the Wyoming wilderness. Now, the T-Bar is being sold, leaving Willis to wonder whether the new owner will want to keep a broken bronc buster on the payroll.

Thad Taylor is no one's idea of a fine man. Usually drunk and shiftless, he's disapproved of by most - especially his father. But when his father doesn't return from a trip across the Kansas plains, Thad is the only one who can search for him. And he's far from ready for the ordeal. Because his father is already dead. He has fallen victim to the bloody Benders - a demented family who lures travelers into their cabin way station only to rob and brutally murder them.

When 25-year-old Lewis Taylor is released from the Texas State Prison, he receives little attention as he walks into the midday sunlight, free after serving five years for a crime he didn't commit. His only interest is in getting back to his hometown of Gila Bend, Texas, a quiet farming community about which he has only warm, idyllic memories. During his long years in prison, he survived by thinking fondly of the home he'd known since boyhood and of one special girl, Darla Winslow.

Fresh from a successful trail drive, cattle hand Seth Coe is feeling flush, especially after a lucky streak at the poker table. But his good fortune earns him a dangerous enemy, notorious tinhorn gambler Hannibal Fisher, who is none too happy about being cleaned out. The innocent Coe starts the long ride back to Texas with big plans to buy his own ranch. All he needs now, he figures, is a wife. To his amazement, in tiny Prairie Fire, Kansas he meets the perfect woman, his childhood love Josette Dubois.

Frontier life is hard enough without having kids to worry about - especially for a widower like Paul Meakes. Still, he's settled where he is and resolved to stay in the small Colorado town his son and daughter call home. So when his daughter is hit by a seemingly poisoned arrow during an Indian raid, Paul is determined to track down the Comanche villains who hurt his little girl - and bring them to justice with the help of Indian hunter Hank Adley, a hired gun who's got business of his own with the tribe.

The USA Today best-selling Ralph Compton series drives forward with this tale of a man looking to abandon his past and carve himself an honest future. John McBride purchases a restaurant in the eerily named town of Suicide. But marauding Apaches, rampaging outlaws, and even the townsfolk are driving tensions sky high - and McBride isn't exactly a welcome newcomer.

England Dan Rutledge and his partner John Cooley have worked their claim for a year and are barely eking out a living. When Cooley shows up with a map of the abandoned Irish Lord Mine he drunkenly bought off a shady cowboy, England Dan is sure it’s a complete fraud. After all, no one knows what happened to the most valuable gold mine in the Superstition Mountains after a banshee frightened off the last owner.