Showing results by narrator "Maynard Villers" in All Categories

The Civil War left Clete Slater with three things: a price on his head for a crime he didn't commit, his new assumed name of Slate Creed, and a savage thirst for vengeance. To follow the trail of his brother's killers, he left his family, the girl he intended to marry, and his ravaged Texas hometown behind. The Union Army wants Creed, dead or alive. But even far from Texas in the wide-open gambling dens of New Orleans, the bluecoats are just a hoofbeat behind. With luck, Creed might escape the bloodthirsty bluecoats.

The Union nearly killed him in the Civil War. Then the bluecoats and carpetbaggers stole his Texas plantation and turned what was left of his family against him. His Texas home-town became an armed camp, full of corrupt, greedy Yankees anxious to wipe out any veteran that showed up in tattered Confederate gray. Any other man would have just drifted on, but not Confederate Captain Clete Slater.

The Civil War was hell for Captain Clete Slater, a forgotten hero of the Confederacy, and the Texas Reconstruction's even worse. His Texas home-town is overrun with carpetbaggers and bluecoats. He's hunted by the law for a crime he didn't commit. He rides south to Mexico with a new name, Slate Creed, to hide his real identity. Riding across the Rio Grande, Creed expects to find frontier justice for the real culprits. Instead he finds another country torn apart by its own civil war.

Creed was willing to risk his life by going home to the girl and the land he loved. Texada and Texas. Both represented his future and as long as he could breathe he would determine his own destiny. But the road home lay through Victoria County, a place that many considered to be lawless and wild even before the War. He knew he was inviting trouble, but he was in a hurry. Riding into the town of Victoria, Creed finds himself caught in a standoff between the angry townsfolk and the company of Union soldiers sent to occupy the town.

The time: the 1840s. The place: California during the gold rush. As the white settlers begin penetrating the remote mountain canyons, they discover an ancient race, the Tenanken, who date back at least 60,000 years. Some members retain the genetic memories of their distant past, while others project mystical visions of comfort and joy. All flee the coming of the white man, and appear to be doomed to extinction. Only the genius Pegre finds a possible solution: integrate and intermarry with their distant white "cousins", the Hinchai, and form a new entity.

In this sequel to Shanji, Yesui is Mei-Lai-Gong, the empress of light, born with the ability to move both light and mass in and out of the place of creation called the gong-shi-jie. Her brother Mengjai, seemingly normal at birth, conceals a power Yesui has not imagined. Working to save a dying planet, they learn that love can be found in strange places; that in an infinite universe, no matter how many powers you have, there is always someone more powerful; and that death is not an ending but a change....

Kati thought she was Tumatsin, but her real father was Moshuguang, a Searcher, one of those working to bring down the feudal empire on Shanji and establish a progressive society. Ruled by Mandughai, the emerald-eyed empress of a neighboring star, the Searchers are looking for the person who has inherited the power to be a super being. They believe Kati is that person, and with training from Mandughai, Kati's powers exceed her trainer's power.

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.

Where do you go when you've gone too far? That's the question Neil Van Ness faces as his carefully constructed life unravels before his eyes. The first blow comes with the discovery of his wife's affair, betraying and devastating both a friendship and a marriage. The second comes from a news report on TV when Neil learns he's the target of a nationwide manhunt by the FBI for the murder of his parents 15 years ago - a crime he didn't commit.

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.

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.

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.

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....

Haunted by the blood and bitterness of the Civil War, Houston Ballou escaped from Tennessee on the proud stallion High Fire, followed by his brother, Ruff; his sister, Dixie; and the last four mares from the Ballou farm, one of them heavy with foal. Threatened with extreme danger from either army, they head west to start a new life. Adding to their peril are deserters that stalk the roads. These men would kill for a few coins, more so for valuable horseflesh.

Chadwick Buford is a young Kentucky boy with the unnatural luck to keep getting complete strangers to take him and raise him for a time. After his foster parents die, Chad is taken in by the Turner family. Young daughter Melissa Turner falls in love with Chadwick. When Chad is separated from the Turners, he's then taken in by Major Buford. Although Chad doesn't know much about his own family past, the Major believes Chad is the descendent of a long lost relative of the man's.

Here is a story of Alaska, circa 1920. Mary Standish, a hauntingly beautiful, mysterious young woman and Alan Holt, a native of the Tundra, meet aboard the Nome as it steams for Alaska via the Inside Passage. Mary was running from someone or something, back in Seattle where she came aboard. She reveals a part of her secret to Alan and then commits a stunning act that haunts Alan even as he returns to the Tundra. This act bears tremendous consequences for Alan and the entire territory of Alaska which culminates in a blazing gun battle....

Golden Hawk is in a race against time to stop a foul fur trader named Bannister, who captured a beautiful Quaker woman worth her weight in gold. Bannister is headed across the Rockies to San Francisco and the white slave market. Hawk and his Nez Perce ally, Tames Horses, must make it through the mountains in time to stop the sale...and the bloodthirsty braves that Bannister armed and egged on… and a death trap hair-triggered to kill…

As Hawk watched the Blackfoot warriors attack their Bannock Indian enemies, he was shocked at what he saw. The Blackfoot were attacking not in the helter-skelter Indian manner, but with an organized military precision that could make them the most powerful fighting force in the West. Then Hawk saw the reason why. Mounted on a horse beside the Blackfoot chief, Spotted Pony, was a white man with a cavalry sabre raised high in the air to order the Blackfoot charge. It was James Cantrell.

A mocking Comanche warrior butchered the sable-haired woman in front of Golden Hawk's eyes; then confirmed that his beautiful, golden haired sister Annabelle was still the captive of a brutal Blackfoot chief. Golden Hawk's one man war flamed with fresh fury. No man fought the Indians as fiercely, for he had a terrible blood-score to settle. Along with a wanderer named Bill Williams and a pack of hard-as-nails mountain men, Golden Hawk was ready for action against the most murderous tribes in the West.

"The grizzly stepped back, caught Hawk with his left paw, and flung him aside like a piece of carrion. Hawk landed heavily on his back, managing somehow to hang on to the bowie knife. Dazed, bleeding from his wounds, he stared up at the slavering, bleeding jaws of the huge grizzly, no longer confident that he or his bowie could do anything more than irritate the monster. Rearing up onto his hind legs, the bear uttered a fearsome roar, then came down hard and shambled forward to finish off Hawk...."