Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

"As sleepy as Buffalo Peak's been, legendary marshal, Elwood "Firestick" McQueen, and his deputies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks never expected a couple of drifters to wake it up -- by kidnapping two lovely ladies in town. Hardly the sharpest quills on a cactus, these dim drifters call it courtin'. Firestick doesn't see it that way. Now the woman snatchers are heading for West Texas with their reluctant brides-to-be -- and unwittingly...

"When greed overtakes men's souls, it falls to the righteous mountaineer known as Preacher to rain fire and brimstone upon them from the barrels of his guns . . . Preacher has agreed to escort Barnaby Cooper through Dakota Territory's hills to establish a trading post. Accompanied by his friends Lorenzo and Tall Dog, the mountain man hopes they'll be able to protect Cooper from Sioux warriors who don't want any white man trespassing on their sacred...

"Deception defined Wyatt Earp and the two women who were married to him longest. Their stories remained elusive, buried by the legend that emerged around Wyatt. Mattie Blaylock lived with him during the years when prostitution and corruption ran their lives, clinging to the lies she told herself and fighting to remain her own woman. Josephine Marcus deceived others her entire life, hiding her less-than-desirable past and opening doors to the role...

"It's 1917, and the Mexican Revolution has the Big Bend of Texas aflame. But the firestorm is no greater than the one inside newspaper reporter Jack Landon. Disillusioned, he flees down the road to nowhere and finds himself in Esperanza. Populated by people of Mexican heritage, the small village on the Texas bank of the Rio Grande is a target of Texas Rangers Company B, which unjustly considers it a bandit den. Jack befriends a teenaged boy and his...

In the midst of Reconstruction, pioneering homesteader, livestock breeder, and would-be innkeeper Hamish "Cashdown" Musgrave brings his sprawling family into the Palouse Prairie. Before they succeed, they face claim-jumpers and bandits; floods, fires, and blizzards; and diseases, locusts, and crop losses. But soon Hamish's brother Callum goes missing and remains mysteriously elusive. The railroad refuses to build a line past the Musgrave stagecoach...

"Chase tanner is a peaceful man - until enemies target his woman and friends. They soon learn how tough a peace-loving man can be. Branded a coward and Indian lover for trying to stop some of the slaughter of peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos at Sand Creek, Chase Tanner must live with his "shame." But he refuses to run, though several members of the Colorado militia keep dogging him with lies, even years after the event. When he falls in love with a...

"From the moment the wounded boy in the wagon interrupts his swearing-in, Deputy Mark Simms, in line to be the third Sheriff Simms of Summit County, devotes his life to pursuing cattle rustlers turned butchers who become murderous meatpackers in the early twentieth century. Eighteen today, the deputy grows as a determined lawman. Tom Hixson, the hired hand who shot the boy, grows as the meatpackers muscle. The close of World War I ends the monopoly,...

"How hard can it be to drive three thousand longhorns one thousand miles across the Sonoran Desert and up to California? Its the end of the Civil War, and the demand for beef is high. In Mesilla, James Colton convinces his three brothers theres money to be made. And lots of it. However, the Colton clan is definitely new at this. The brothers climb into their saddles only to encounter problems they had never considered previously. Whid MacGilvry, determined...

"By the autumn of 1883, the wild country west of Holt County was getting organized. Brown County was carved out of Holt and Long Pine precinct early in the year, and the railroad reached Stuart and Bassett and rolled on to Valentine. Telegraph lines ran between the cities, and newspapers-Lord, the newspapers!-were everywhere with their blaring headlines. Progress, every place you looked. But when Augustus "Gus" John is caught between the vigilantes...