Black Horse Western Series

One year after the end of the Civil War, three southerners are heading northwest on the Bozeman Trail to the gold mining camp at Virginia City. When they find the army has closed the trail because the Sioux are on the warpath, the three friends accept work at Fort Phil Kearny. After an Indian ambush, the men flee the fort, together with a man called Slade. But there is more to Slade than meets the eye, and when he is revealed as a hired gun and murderer the southerners are drawn into the hunt to apprehend him to clear their names.

Who really was involved in the brutal massacre of a small village at the start of the American Civil War and what became of them? In this bitter tale, the truth doesn't finally emerge until 1887 when good men turned bad fight ruthlessly to ensure that their town is elected as the Holmbury County Seat.

Cotton Harding, former Civil War soldier and current gunslinger, has no part in the war that is taking place between a brutal Mexican bandit king and the towns he is terrorizing. Harding hates men like Benitez, who kills to live and lives to kill. Harding has come to Mexico to earn money doing what the war had made him good at - killing - and hasn't intended being away for so long. Harding has found love back in New Mexico, and that love has made him more of a man...a man who would stand against a bandit army to save not only the town but his legacy for his love. In order to stand against that army, he aims to recruit more men like him - good men; at least, good at one thing - killing. Yet in some ways these men are as bad as Benitez. All in all, these men, and Harding himself, are all either dead, dying or damned.

When Ollie Harker's wagon fails to arrive at Logjam Creek, his employer, JD Cookson, hires Tom Parry and Durango Finch to find it. It appears that Harker has been killed by hostile Indians, but when a murder in the town is linked to him, Harker's mission is revealed to be something more than a routine freighting operation. The trail leads Parry and Finch to an illegal whiskey-running operation in which Monson, Logjam Creek's saloon owner, is implicated. But getting proof of this is both difficult and dangerous, and the two hunters find themselves in deep peril when they come up against a ruthless gang of moonshiners.

Montana trapper Luke Driscoll has returned home to Garrison, Texas, when he receives a letter from his estranged brother Nate who has become embroiled in a land dispute with cattle baron Robert McTavish - and it's about to turn deadly. But Luke also meets the lovely Miranda, McTavish's eldest daughter, and cannot help his feelings for her. Now Luke must balance family loyalty and his budding love for Miranda to fight the determined and resourceful rancher, McTavish, and his crew of hired killers.

Henry Mullins, a young cowboy from Southern California, sits back and watches the woman he loves marry someone else. That's when he decides to leave and ride off into the great unknown. Intending to get to Los Angeles, he is forced inland by marauding Mexican bandits and eventually into the Sierra Nevadas, where he starts to trap wild animals to stay alive. Coming across a bi-annual meeting of trappers, he begins to learn the tricks of the trade and takes up trapping seriously. Attacked by wolves, bears and the elements, Henry gradually learns the art of survival. And then he comes across a teepee with a beautiful squaw and her dying grandfather inside. Henry's life begins to change. Winter sets in high in the mountains, Henry's first. And it turns out to be the biggest battle Henry has ever faced.

Will Keen is a western man living his life in two different worlds - one white, one Piaute Indian. He dresses in white man's clothes and adopts many of his habits and mannerisms. Only high cheekbones and dark eyes that miss nothing give a hint of the Indian blood coursing through his veins. Will knows the western wilderness like no other because he was raised in it, and guides wagon trains westwards into Oregon Territory, braving savage lands and equally savage men - of all races - who prey on innocent wagon families. After a decade of guiding long lines of canvas-topped Conestoga wagons west, Will has no idea that his future will take a different turn when one person in a wagon train forces him to decide who he is and how will live from that point forward.

John Smiley is a travelling entertainer. As he and his son and daughter are approaching the small township of Silver Spur in Kansas, they encounter Black Bart, a notorious gunman, who demands money and carbine whips Smiley's son. Smiley, however, is a skilled boxer and humiliates the outlaw, leaving Black Bart hell-bent on revenge, leading to a series of dark and bloody events when the family reach their destination.

Cheyenne, 1888. Ezra McPherson is a gunfighter who cannot escape the past, and Luke Tisdale is a young doctor whose brother has been murdered. Marcus Stokesbury and Eloise Endicott are journalists who are intrigued by the mystery surrounding Ezra. Together with Richard Swearingen, a cattle baron who seeks to establish a kingdom in Wyoming, and Andrew Swearingen, a man who has killed but who is now willing to take an extraordinary step to prevent bloodshed, they all become embroiled in a story of love, greed, betrayal and sacrifice.

John Carshalton, late of the British army, returns to the town of Arabella in Kansas to take up a new job as town sheriff. He quickly earns the respect of the townspeople and enjoys a peaceful life until he gets word of outlaw gangs terrorizing towns along the Kansas-Missouri border. US army intelligence suggests that these are no ordinary gangs, but part of a larger more sinister force, and when John is asked by an army officer to pose as a deserter from the British Army in Canada and try to infiltrate whatever kind of force is being raised he agrees, believing this to be a simple fact-finding mission. However, John soon finds him caught up in a web of violence and intrigue that threatens to destroy him and all he holds dear.

The bond between wandering cowboys Buck Medwell and his younger brother Skip has always been fractious. So when Buck is forced to bust his kin out of jail following their pay-off at the end of a cattle drive to Newton, Kansas, the writing is on the wall. Their flight from the law into neighbouring Colorado leads to a split when bad blood finally spills over. But fate has a habit of playing a wily hand, resulting in the pair unexpectedly being thrown together once again. When Skip finds his life on the line, his brother needs to exert all his ingenuity to save the kid from the unscrupulous hands of arch schemer Diamond Jack Deakin.

Sharper Wade rode into a no-name town, stuck in the middle of nowhere. Tired and trail-weary, all he wanted was chow and a bed for the night so that he could move on come morning. He soon discovered that this was not to be. He'd entered hell - and hell wasn't long in sending its riders, the Henry gang. The Henry gang was hired by Ben Robson to find the sheriff who had shot his only son. but Jud Henry had other ideas:he's seen the town, he'd seen Ben Robson's ranch adn hw wated both. Now Sharper Wade was forced to do battle with the unscrupulous Henry gand, and hot lea soon began to fly. Could just one man defeat the murderous bunch so aptly know as Hell Riders?

On her deathbed, Laura Peters shocks her son by belatedly revealing that his uncle did not die alongside Paul's father in the bloody confrontation at Gettysburg in July 1863. She urges Paul to ride west in a quest to find this relative who holds a guilty secret from those dreadful Civil War days. With mixed emotions he takes up the challenge, eventually arriving in the Texas town of Ongar Ridge, only to find himself accused of murdering the man he had been seeking.

Gunfighter Cort Packet rides into the town of Scarlet intending to kill Yucca Frazel, but many try to prevent him: Frazel's employer rancher Addison Blackwell, an Indian agent cheating Apaches out of goods, a gunfighter rumoured to have murdered the marshal's husband, and the marshal herself - Rebecca Rogers, trying to find the truth about her husband's death, forced into being marshal in a fixed election by the powerful rancher who professes warm feelings for her. But are the feelings for her, or are they for the riches on her land? Before Cort can finish his business with Yucca Frazel, he finds himself caught up in killings, treachery, stealing and politics that threaten to leave him lying dead.

Gold discovered out in California excites young Dan Bartlett, but life as a '49er isn't what he expected. Penniless, hungry and still innocent of life, he takes work holding a few horses, and when his new partner Tom Hodges yells at him to get in the saddle and ride, he naturally does as he's told. Then Dan realizes that they are riding stolen stock and, believing the law is behind them, they head into Nevada Territory, where Hodges remembers having seen a little valley, a place where they can start a ranch. But en route for the valley, they come across an abandoned gold mine. It doesn't matter it isn't California gold; any gold draws interest - and when Dan finds himself looking into the barrel of a Colt .45 is when he really begins to grow up.

At the age of twenty-two Hal Chesterton's world is turned on its head. He could never have guessed a blocked watercourse heralded such a disastrous change to his life. His pa's lucky coin, a gold half eagle, responsible for a stroke of good luck, now bears a bitter fruit. For the first time, Hal has to stand on his own two feet, and the prospects don't look good. Gunfights, loose women and deception play havoc with his search for the culprit. Hot-headed and vengeful, he is not so easily deterred, but falling for a beautiful young woman clouds his judgment.

Gold was becoming harder to find as panners by the hundreds swarmed to any site where even the smallest nugget was found. One mine was still operating north of the Sierra Nevadas. And that was the problem. Transporting the gold down narrow, sandy, and rocky trails, wagons were easy targets for outlaws. The Pinkerton Agency was charged with the security of a large haul of gold. But they had a daring plan. If it worked, 500 gold bars would make it East. If it failed, all was lost. Unknown to them, the Greeley gang had inside knowledge of their plan and were intent of stealing the gold. At any cost.

When Walter Watters - aka 'Wattie' - finds out that the hiding place of gold from a major robbery is known to another, he's instantly on the trail. As the sheriff of a small town, he knows that he has to uphold the law. But the two million dollars in solid gold is a tempting sum. Soon he has to go into an area known as The Wilderness, riding through the monsoon with his companions to where their prize awaits. But can he trust them? Worse than that, he is being tracked by a ruthless ex-convict called Kurzwell, who was one of the original robbers. Now it is a race against time by both groups of men. Only one group can win the prize, but only one has a ruthless killer at their helm. With time and weather against them, Wattie and his companions face death far from home in a desperate struggle against man and nature.

Having escaped from a firing squad at the hands of the Mexican federales, Blue Creek Ben Chisum flees across the border into Texas. He is soon cast afoot when his horse breaks a leg. After wandering alone for a week he stumbles across a hanging and rescues a homesteader from ruthless vigilantes. The grateful man then offers him a half share in his prosperous farming business. But Ben is loath to become involved in a range war. He only accepts the offer after learning that his old partner, Squint Rizzo, has been hired by Web Steiger, the leader of the vigilantes. It was Rizzo who betrayed him to the Mexican authorities. But how can one man defeat a ruthless gang of land grabbers? With the help of an old pal and a ham-fisted brawler, Blue Creek sets out to prove that his reputation for fighting on the side of justice has been well earned.

The Rebel Raiders are heading for New Mexico territory to rob the bank in Tucumcari. Major Deke Hogan, a Civil War guerrilla fighter, heads the contingent. The proceeds of the attack are intended to support the Confederacy in a last ditch effort to regain the initiative. But destiny has played a mean trick when Hogan discovers that the surrender had been signed by General Lee three weeks previously. From being a legitimate fighting force, the Raiders have become nothing more than common outlaws. Their escape does not pass unchallenged. And further trouble erupts between surviving gang members as to how the loot should be distributed. Hogan wants to use it for regenerating of the decimated South; whereas a hot-headed tearaway called Dusty Blue figures they should split the take among themselves. What happens when tempers flare and bullets fly could never have been foreseen by any of the participants.

They came in the night and took away every inhabitant of the isolated mining town that they could capture. Men, women, and the one child had been taken from the town that they rightly called Purgatory. But one man who had fought heroically against the invaders, John King, who they had left for dead, was left to fight back against the biggest injustice of his life. With little left to lose, he was going to track down the men who had taken what was his and get his revenge for his people. This was no common raid on a small town. Helped in his quest by some unexpected allies, King soon discovers that his task is more difficult than even he realized. Who is the mysterious Valsquez and what makes him more than a common bandit? King finds out only too soon when he has gone over the brink and into the madness of a revolution in the making.

Danny Spence plans to stay in Gila Creek for only one night, but then he gets mistaken for a snake named Zeke Tolan, and from then on it is just one damn thing after another. He falls foul of the evil Ma Cole, gets himself on the wrong side of the vicious Hernando Ortiz and his sadistic bodyguard Bracho - and somehow this is all wrapped up with a train full of money that's rolling south of the border, right into the middle of the Mexican revolution.

Sailors Diggings an isolated mining settlement is left reeling when outlaws slaughter seventeen of the stunned population and clean out the assay office stealing $75,000 worth of freshly mined gold. A group of vigilantes led by Don Plunkett give chase determined to dispense some Old West justice. Eddie Carter is mistaken for a gang member and to escape a lynching he must go on the run handcuffed to outlaw leader Dave Mooney, the man responsible for the death of his partner. In the confrontation that follows, the stolen gold disappears with an outcome that nobody could have anticipated.

A year after being saved from kidnapping, Dulcie Provost is waiting for the return of her rescuer, bounty hunter Certainty Sumner. But first Sumner has to carry out one more mission - tracking down the sadistic outlaw known as the Lakota Kid. But unbeknown to Sumner, he himself is also the quarry of an equally ruthless bounty hunter, Luther Bastian. The father of a gang member Sumner killed while rescuing Dulcie wants vengeance and has duped Bastian into believing that Sumner has turned outlaw. Can Sumner possibly survive being hunted down by a bounty hunter as skilled and determined as himself?

Credence, Texas, is a one-horse town. Dying on its feet since the closure of the Shawnee Trail, the place is divided by bitterness, resentment and feuds that have smouldered on for years. This is what Johnny Hartford finds when he returns home for his brother's wedding. Ten years before, he left the town in a blaze of glory to travel to Chicago to become a Pinkerton Agent. But that was before the war. Now everything has changed: his dying father will barely speak to him, his brother is running wild and longhorn rustling is rife. Determined to make amends with his family and catch the cattle thieves, Hartford turns to old Sheriff Milton for help. But the day after he arrives, a prominent local rancher is shot in the back and Hartford discovers that almost everyone in the town has a reason for wanting him dead.

During the hot summer of 1888, three men are travelling to Cheyenne aboard a passenger car of the Union Pacific - Luke Tisdale, Marcus Stokesbury and Ezra McPherson. Luke, a medical doctor, seeks to claim the body of his brother, who has been murdered. He also intends to find out who killed him. Marcus, a newspaper reporter from Atlanta, is in pursuit of a story. And the story is Ezra, a man of mystery who once called the West home. Ezra, haunted by a violent past, becomes caught up in the conflict between cattle barons and the homesteaders who have come to Wyoming in search of the promised land. He faces a choice - either run from the imminent range war or enter the field of battle. He knows that fighting comes with a price, and the price is dust and heat.

Wes Stretton has ridden a long way to gain vengeance on Yoakum, who he holds responsible for killing his friend. The trail takes him to the town of Buckstrap where he meets the enigmatic Lana Flushing and walks straight into a range war between rival ranches: the Bar Seven and the Sawtooth. But someone knows of his arrival and is out to bushwhack him. Then the foreman of the Sawtooth is shot. But was Stretton the intended target? And was Yoakum responsible?

A puff of gun smoke erupted from the broken window and Moran fired at it without seeming to aim. A bullet whined past his head and he fired two more shots through the window while moving for cover at the right-hand side of the shack. A man emerged at a run from the ramshackle building, triggering a stream of lead at Moran, who dropped to one knee, his gun replying with deadly accuracy. The man fell face-down in the dust and did not move again. Moran got up and ran to the front window. He saw movement there and tossed a slug into it. A man pitched to the floor inside the shack. Moran reached the window, gasping, breath searing his throat, shoulders heaving. Sweat was running down his face. 'Hold your fire, Soldier-boy,' Shorten yelled from inside. 'My two men are down and done for. They started shooting against my orders. I ain't fool enough to tangle with the Army while I'm working for them.' 'Come out of the shack with your hands up,' Moran rasped.

Banham cocked his gun. The remaining two men came up off the floor side by side, guns smoking. Banham fired. The nearest man toppled over as the slug thudded into his chest and broke two ribs before piercing his heart. The last man was already levelling his gun. Banham shaded him, fired first, and a torrent of blood erupted from his adversary's mouth when the half-inch chunk of lead tore out his throat….

When bandit Charlie Weston robs a bank in Baxter Springs he is on dangerous ground. Marshal Pete Baker is the lawman in town and he will not let Weston get away easily. He sets out to bring the bank robber to justice, starting a manhunt that will stretch all the way west along the emigrant trail. And end in a bloody showdown.