In this gripping Ralph Compton western, a man rides for vengeance and into danger.... 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 family of demented killers who lure travelers into their cabin way station only to rob and brutally murder them. Now, for his father’s memory, Thad must hunt the Benders down and deliver them either to the law—or to the grave.
Former Texas Rangers Benton McCaleb, Will Elliot, and Brazos Gifford ride with Charles Goodnight as he rounds up thousands of ornery, unbranded cattle for the long drive to Colorado. From the Trinity River brakes to Denver, they'll battle endless miles of flooded rivers, parched desert, and whiskey-crazed Comanches. And come face-to-face with Judge Roy Bean and legendary gunslingers like Clay Allison. For McCaleb and his hard-riding crew, the drive is a fierce struggle against the perils of an untamed land. A fight to the finish where the brave reach glory—or die hard.
They had beaten the harsh odds of the frontier. But for the two powerful ranchers, the most formidable trail lay ahead. There had never been a trail drive like this before... The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn, and boldness to drive them to market along treacherous trails. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary series based on the history-blazing trail drives. For veteran ranchers Nelson Story of Montana, and Benton McCaleb of Wyoming, it was an opportunity a man didn't pass up. In gold camps of the Black Hills, miners were hungry for beef, at boomtown prices. But within the two outfits were Indians, gunmen, Texans, lovesick cowboys, and high-spirited women. Worse, the drive would pass through Crow and Sioux territory, when Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn was just hours away. The drives were tangled by violent grudges, stampeding herds, and dangerous deception. The two brawling outfits had one thing in common: a deadly surprise awaiting them at the end of the trail...
An epic new western in the grand tradition of True Grit and Lonesome DoveOut of nowhere Comanches attack-and sixteen year-old Jane narrowly survives the slaughter of her family and the kidnapping of her baby sister. Driven by grief and fury, she rides headlong into Indian territory, seeking vengeance. But the odds are stacked against a young girl on the trail, and Jane soon realizes she must disguise herself as a boy to join forces with a tough company of cowhands on a cattle drive to Dodge City. The harrowing trek pits her against tough drovers, raging rivers, ruthless soldiers, and ends in a bloody reckoning that forces Jane to discover her surprising capacity for love, survival-and revenge."The Comanche Kid is playwright/actor James Robert Daniels' first novel, but you'd never know that by reading this magnificent, bigger-than-life tale. Making use of traditional Western elements-the vengeance quest, the coming-of-age story, the trail drive yarn, the epic clash of cavalry and Indians-Daniels' evocative prose lifts the odyssey of sixteen-year-old Jane into something special as she searches for her younger sister, who is kidnapped in the same Comanche raid that wipes out the rest of Jane's family. With echoes of True Grit, The Cowboy & The Cossack, and Lonesome Dove, this is a big, thrilling, tragic, and ultimately uplifting portrait of the American West." James Reasoner, author of more than 350 westerns, many under a variety of pseudonyms, including 41 Longarm novels and 20 books in the Trailsman series.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad... THE WESTERN TRAIL Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives—to win the right to call the land their own.
The Barfield brothers are separated by a Comanche raid. Years later, they are destined to be reunited and discover how their separate lives have changed them.
When the bodies of three teenagers were found on the shores of Lake Waco, Texas in July, 1982, even seasoned lawmen were taken aback by the savage mutilation and degradation they had been subjected to. Yet only 52 days after the gruesome triple-murder was discovered, frustrated authorities suspended the case indefinitely. Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons, who had been called to the scene that night, saw the carnage first-hand -- and vowed to find the ferocious killer or killers. He soon became a man with a mission, risking his career and his family's safety in search of evidence. Plunging himself into a netherworld of violence and evil, Simons finally got close enough to a murderous ringleader to hear his careless whispers--and ultimately, put him and his three accomplices behind bars for the brutal slayings. Now, in his Edgar Award-winning account of the Lake Waco killings, acclaimed true crime writer Carlton Stowers lays bare the facts behind the tragic crimes, the twisted predators, and the heroic man who broke the investigation--with important updated information based on new developments in the case.
The Strange siblings are on the hunt for justice in this Ralph Compton western. In her guise as “Danny Duggin,” Danielle Strange has spent the past two years hunting down the outlaws who murdered her father. Reunited with her brothers, the twins Tim and Jed, she plans to take her war across the border into Mexico—unaware she's being pursued by a U.S. federal marshall.... Saul Delmano comes from a powerful family of cattlemen whose business stretches from the Southwestern territories into Mexico. He's put a $2,000 reward on Danny Duggin's head, tempting every outlaw and bounty hunter across the West to try to collect it. But the cry of vengeance has been shouted out—and only justice can silence it. More Than Six Million Ralph Compton Books In Print!
In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart – a dashing, reform-minded Democrat – seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before. Through the magnificently reported story of the Senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, shows the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy: rather, it marked a crucial turning point in the ethos of political media, and the new norms of life in the public eye. The Front Runner (originally published as All the Truth is Out) is a tour de force portrait of the American way of politics at the highest level, one that changes our understanding of how we elect our presidents and how the bedrock of American values has shifted under our feet.
