Showing results by author "Gary McCarthy" in All Categories

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.

In a land where justice was found in the barrel of a gun and the line between outlaw and citizen was thinly drawn, two women struggled, fought, and won. Rebecca, the elder, beautiful and defiant, found herself in the majestic mountains of Utah, forced to marry a brutal polygamist. All she wanted was to become a physician - and a free woman. Katie, younger, innocent, passionate, risked her life so her sister might have a chance for freedom. She risked all to establish a sprawling sheep ranch and prove that a woman could do it all - on her own.

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.

Even while the brewing Civil War threatened to tear the country in half North from South, the race was on to bind the country together East to West by railroad. This was a race by daring men and bold women, partnered in a dream and divided by their unchecked obsessions. They would fight the elements, the Indians, and each other on the way to riches and glory.

America's richest legends come from the frontier - from the land where the events of a single moment might erase the lines between law and lawlessness, between safety and mortal danger, between heroes and villains. The carefully selected stories in this collection are vibrant proof that the great American West is a fertile ground to storytellers. Here's the most varied collection of short stories, by 17 highly acclaimed Western writers.

Two Colorado cowboys searching for strayed cattle during a harsh snow storm discover the remains of an ancient city built into the side of a huge cliff. It is the ruined city of the Anasazi Indians, a civilization lost for over a thousand years. This is the story of how Mesa Verde, the cliff city, came to be. It is A.D. 400 at the Animus river Valley in what is now Northwestern New Mexico, and Echata, the leader of the Raven Clan, was concerned for his people.

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.

For many bold pioneers headed west, the sweetest sight of all was the Humboldt River, a crooked ribbon of silver snaking through Nevada into California. But to Libby Pike and her family, the Humboldt brought sudden disaster. Stranded with her young daughter, Libby found herself surrounded by hostile renegades and an unforgiving wilderness. Then she stumbled upon a father and his two sons in search of a dream valley where they could settle and prosper.

Along the harsh North California coast the otters swam, enough to fill the Russians' trading ships with valuable pelts. So there they raised an outpost. But inland lay another land, a river wilderness, where game and grizzly thrived. Into this wild land, stripped of his rank for marrying an Indian girl, Lieutenant Anton Rostov is cast. He is an man without a country, but still he is a man. He can hunt, trap, and conquer. And he discovers a power greater than his allegiance to a faraway Czar - the lure of a new world.

When the rest of the West was already won...the mountains remained unspoiled and deadly. The men and women who tamed this savage land were tough, lawless and, when necessary, as mean as the traps they carried. They lived by a private code of proud honor and swift justice. Burly, Isaac Beard was the living embodiment of that mountain code. To survive, he fought his way to a safe haven near Spirit Lake in the Colorado upcountry, forged an alliance with the untamed Ute Indians and made a place where generations of Beards resided in safety.

Here is the bold adventure story of William Dunn, an educated man yet an accomplished mountain man. His life becomes forever entwined with the wild, unforgettable, Grand Canyon. He hires on as a guide for the John Wesley Powell historic expedition into the Grand Canyon, but then leaves the expedition to guide two men back to civilization.

John Augustus Sutter came to the wide and wild California country to build an empire. At his side was Morgan Beck, out to stake his own claim at the confluence of two powerful rivers, the Sacramento and the American.

Sodbusters are about equal to farm animals on the social scale of the ranching community of Wyoming in the 1870s. Zach and Carrie Bennett, teenaged children of that wretched class, are determined to escape the scorn. They resolve to trek to Texas on foot. They are babes on the prairie, ignorant of the geography and hostility.

They were on their way to the richest silver strike in human history. Six people who met in a Sierra blizzard enroute to the infamous Comstock Lode. Prim wallflower Holly York, and beautiful Julia Matson with a secret no one could forgive. Clayton James, hopelessly caught between the world of whites and Indians, and brilliant thwarted inventor Glenn Donovan. Fay Taylor, with a singing voice from heaven, and her brother Dade, evil enough to send them all straight to hell.

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.

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.