Smoke Jensen is determined to find a way out of a New Mexico jail cell--as well as to escape the hide-hungry lynch mob who's after him for a murder he didn't commit. Then he must win the trust of the beautiful widow of the rancher they say he gunned down, because Smoke is all she's got standing between her and the cunning killers out for land--and blood.
USA Today bestselling author: There's a price on Smoke Jensen's head—but the posse pursuing him are going to be the ones paying . . . The message was written in blood: Bring me the head of Smoke Jensen . . . A hard term in Yuma Prison gave Ralph Tinsdale and his gunhawk sidekicks time to nurse a deep hatred for Smoke Jensen—the man who put them there. A bloody escape gives them the chance to get even. Their posse is already forty strong, the price on Smoke's head is up to twenty grand, and with Jensen's own wife shanghaied into Tinsdale's deadly trap, this time there's more at stake than Smoke's own life . . .
New York Times bestselling series: Smoke Jensen makes his way to San Francisco to sort out a case of gold, gangs, and a madam's mysterious death . . . In the depth of a cruel High Lonesome winter comes a cryptic message for Smoke Jensen. The letter tells of skullduggery by gold barons, railroad magnates, and Chinese tongs in San Francisco. Smoke knows only one person in the city by the bay: the well-rounded, open-natured Francie, mistress of one of the town's most notorious pleasure palaces. Smoke once rescued her from raiding Cheyenne, but now Madame Francie is mysteriously dead . . . and Smoke's arrival in San Francisco is less than welcoming. Then, on the waterfront, he learns of a plot by the wealthy, the mighty, and the deadly to expand their stronghold over the region's gold-rich lands. Beating a trail into the High Sierras, Smoke recruits a band of angry prospectors, ranchers, and farmers for a final showdown that could be the end of Smoke Jensen . . .
From the USA Today–bestselling author of The Last Mountain Man, an Old West gunfighter closes in on the men who killed his family. William W. Johnstone’s vivid, uncompromising novels stand as violent portraits of the rugged American frontiersman and the forces that forged him. In this powerful novel, Johnstone tells the story of a young Missourian forced by fate and violence into lawlessness—where he sees a chance to right the wrong that shattered his family and his soul… Smoke Jensen is a young man raised on loss and bitterness, nurtured by a mountain man named Preacher. Now, Smoke Jensen, with his, a new black horse and an old grudge, slips over the unmarked border into the turbulent Idaho Territory. Ahead is a town called Bury, built on stolen gold, and run by a band of ruthless men who had a hand in the murder of Smoke's brother in the Civil War. Smoke's father died in pursuit of those killers, but urged his son not to waste his life in vengeance… Swift, powerful, and poetic, Return Of The Mountain Man is an action-packed tale by William W. Johnstone, an American master—and a great chronicler of our harsh and often unforgiving last frontier.
Long before there was a mountain man called Preacher, a young adventurer set off with a team of fur traders from St. Louis for the time of his life. On a wild frontier, he sought a fortune. Instead, he found blood, betrayal, and the beginning of a legend. Armed only with a knife, surrounded by a fierce Blackfoot war party, the young man was forced to kill a warrior chief in an act of audacious courage. But when a grizzly bear attack left him half-dead, he could no longer protect himself. By the time the Blackfeet found him again, he had been abandoned and doublecrossed, with only one last trick up his sleeve: the ability to talk himself out of an impossible situation -- and into a battle for his life. So began William Johnstone's masterful saga of the courageous loner who would become known as Preacher. Because when he was alone and desperate, he drew on a preacher's skills -- and a mountain man's cunning -- to give his enemies hell.
The novel that launched a 25-book series, which is still growing, starts off with a Missouri farm boy traveling west with vengeance in his heart and a Navy Colt in his hand. By his side is the old mountain man, Preacher, who'll teach young Smoke Jensen everything thing he needs to know about fighting like the devil.
_____________ 'It is almost impossible not to fall under the spell of Eustace Conway ... his accomplishments, his joy and vigor, seem almost miraculous' - New York Times Review of Books 'Gilbert takes a bright-eyed bead on Eustace, hitting him square with a witty modernist appraisal of folkloric American masculinity' - The Times 'Conversational, enthusiastic, funny and sharp, the energy of The Last American Man never ebbs' - New Statesman _____________ A fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed and skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn't stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thousand-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zealand. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family and promptly upped and left - to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill and slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thousand-acre forest where he teaches survival skills and attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert's trademark wit and spirit, The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.
Out of the gallows, into the gunfire . . . Afast, furious Western from the USA Today bestselling author. They're hanging Billy Ray Cabot in Cloverdale, Nevada on Friday. Or so they think. Thursday brings Smoke Jensen to town. In another life, Billy Ray was almost kin to Smoke, and guilty or not, Smoke will blast Cloverdale sky high if that's what it takes to set his old friend free. By midnight, Smoke and Billy Ray are riding hell-for-leather out of Cloverdale, and into a war between cunning railroad robbers and the organization sworn to stop them. Billy Ray was working for the railroads until he was betrayed. Now, both men are pursued by deadly enemies on either side of the law. For a former mountain man who's tried to make a peaceful life back in Colorado, there's only one way back home: He's going on the attack. And this attack won't stop until the bitterest, bloodiest end . . .
Eleven Years in the Rocky Mountains and Life on the Frontier Also a History of the Sioux War, And a Life of Gen. George A. Custer with Full Account of His Last Battle by Frances Victor Fuller, first published in 1877, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.