Dramatized Adaptation Western

Shady Rest, Texas, has the dubious reputation for being the deadliest town in America. Getting yourself killed is as easy as blinking and twice as quick. Sure enough, Matt Jensen hasn't swallowed his whisky before the town's marshal is gunned down before his eyes. Matt defends himself by putting two bullets in the shooter's chest, unaware that he's in line for a $5,000 bounty - as long as he stays in Shady Rest to collect it. And staying gets even more tempting when a red haired beauty decides to be the next town marshal....

Long ago, the legendary trapper known as Preacher took shelter with the Absaroka, and fell in love with a girl called Bird in the Tree. Twenty years later, he rescues a woman and her son from an ambush by the hated Blackfoot. The woman is Birdie, and the valiant young warrior is Hawk That Soars — Preacher’s son. Now the greatest fighter on the frontier is about to go to war, to protect a family he never knew he had.

The trouble with being the fastest gun alive was having to prove it to all the trigger-happy gunmen who scoured the West itching for a challenge. Some traveled even further — Count Frederick von Hausen sailed across the Atlantic from Germany to hunt the most dangerous game of all — Smoke Jensen. Gathering together a hunting party of the toughest, most ruthless hard cases in the West, von Hausen shadowed Smoke into Wyoming's high Rockies — the odds were worse than 50 to 1.

Conrad Browning had money, a manservant and a mission: to find his missing children and meet them for the first time. He's come as far as Denver, dodged a bullet from a beautiful assassin, and landed in a big buy-in poker tournament against a ruthless heavy-betting cattle baron with a plan of his own - to take this city slicker into the wilderness, and hunt him like an animal. But Rance McKinney doesn't know who he is facing. The son of legendary gunman Frank Morgan, Conrad goes by the moniker of the Loner.

Orphaned at the age of seven and adopted by Indians, Jami Ian MacCallister grew into a man more at ease in the wilderness than among men. But when the westward strike drove him across the Arkansas Territory into Texas, he finally found himself a home — in the middle of a bloody war. Texans like Jim Bowie and Sam Houston were waging a fierce struggle against Santa Ana’s Mexican army and Jami MacCallister made the perfect scout for the fledgling volunteer force. What lay ahead of them was a place called the Alamo, 13 days of blood, dust, and courage.

A killer is on the loose in the Arizona Territory. One by one, Tonto Basin ranchers are being murdered for their livestock -and the Cattle Raisers Association has hired two range detectives to catch the culprit. From the looks of them, Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman are just another pair of high plains drifters. But with their razor-sharp detective skills and rare talent for trouble, they’re the last remaining hope for one young cowboy who’s been arrested for the murders.

Smoke Jensen couldn't have cared less about a range war that had erupted in far-off Montana. But when his cousin Fae is stuck right in the middle of the hundred-gun showdown that's exploding in bullets and blood, he rides to intercede in the name of family. He's joined on his mission by the Moab Kid and legendary gunfighters Charlie Starr and Pistol Le Roux.

He was raised by the mountain man called Preacher, and he was said to be the fastest gun alive. Until he hung up his gunbelts to raise a family. Smoke Jensen was the last mountain man and a force of nature. But Lee Slater and his gang of low life desperadoes didn’t know that. Stirring up a motherlode of trouble for the retired gunslinger was Slater’s first mistake. Shooting Smoke Jensen’s wife Sally was his second.

Original story published in Lariat story magazine - July 1947.

Caleb Doorn is better known by his Blackfoot name, Many Coups. Doorn is scouting for the US Army in the Mexican campaign when a small wagon train passes on its way to California. Their trek will take them into Indian country, and to protect the train from attack, the wagon master has foolishly taken a young Blackfoot woman hostage.

A wagon train of pioneers is struggling Westward toward Oregon through the howling winter and a band of Arikara warriors are hot on their trail. Little do the Arikaras suspect that they're about to come face-to-face and gun-to-gun with a ferocious fight they never expected, courtesy of the wily mountain man called Preacher. As Preacher struggles to bring the settlers to safety, he learns the real reason they were attacked and begins to suspect that the secrets they've been keeping equal a worse kind of danger.

There are two kinds of traps in the Old West. One is the kind that Preacher and his buddy, Charlie, use to catch a mountain-load of fur pelts. The other is the kind that Charlie steps into — a trap set by a low-life gambler and his seductive partner in crime to swindle Charlie out of his fur money. Preacher hates to see a good friend get robbed. So he sets off after the grifters — on a riverboat bound for New Orleans.

Half Native American and Half White, Yakima Henry considers himself lucky to have any job - even if it means just sweeping up the local brothel. But when four hombres attempt to carve up one of the house girls, Yakima gives them a taste of their own medicine with his Arkansas Toothpick. Now, he's become the girl's protector, and is on the run from a vicious bounty hunter.

Smoke Jensen was buying cattle a hundred miles away from his Colorado ranch when he got the news. He saddled up, rode off, and didn’t stop until he reached his wife’s side. She had been shot three times and lay close to death. Smoke knew the outlaws had come to kill him and he wasn’t going to give them a second chance. He was going after them.

In the dark shadow of the Prophecy Mountains lies the ramshackle town of Rattlesnake Wells, where dreamers come to make their fortunes, and desperados come to die. The streets of this little settlement are slick with mud and stained with blood, and it will fall to Bob Hatfield to sweep them clean. The town marshal, Hatfield has a young man’s face, but his eyes are those of a killer. He is a good man, but he has a secret that weighs on his soul.

Here in America, life is full of surprises. Duff never expected to hear from his old friend Charles McGregor, his battalion commander from the Black Watch Regiment of Her Majesty’s army. Turns out McGregor lives in New Mexico now. And he needs Duff’s help. He’s started a new life as the mayor of Antelope Wells - a mining town that’s being targeted by a power-hungry madman Ebenezer Schofield, who wants to declare the whole area an independent principality - and himself as king.

Matt Hurst seeks justice when a sheriff's posse kills his father and brothers.

A gunshot wound has robbed Audubon, Texas, of its top lawman at the worst possible time. Clete Lanagan and his band of outlaws have hatched a scheme to plunder the town bank of a small fortune in railroad money. When the acting sheriff, Dalton Conyers - half-brother of Smoke’s niece Rebecca - is unable to raise a posse to hunt down Lanagan’s gang, he calls on Smoke for help. But with so much cash at stake, Lanagan won’t go down without a fight.

Joey Wells has a score to settle in Pueblo: Find Jacob Murdock and the band of vaqueros who attacked his wife and drown them in their own stinking blood. Smoke Jensen, the trigger-ready legend of the "High Lonesome," is more than willing to strap on a brace of 45's to help out Wells - especially if it involves nailing some dirty renegades to the wall. But things are tougher than Jensen imagined. Murdock and his men aren't just hiding out in Pueblo - they've taken it over.

Wayne D. Overholser, winner of three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, weaves a magic spell in this story with his consistent skill in presenting vibrant characters and his uncommon sensitivity to the depths of human personality.