Dramatized Westerns

In the fall of 1873, a wagon train of immigrants sets off from Kansas City, Missouri, bound for the Montana Territory. Leading the group is newly elected wagonmaster Jamie Ian MacCallister, a giant of a man and frontier legend who swears he can get them there by Christmas - come hell or high snow drifts....Plagued by brutally harsh storms and rugged terrain, outlaws and hostile Indians, the journey will be the greatest challenge these pioneers will ever face.

Kansas doesn’t want it. Neither does Texas. The 35-mile wide strip of land destined to become the Oklahoma panhandle is a place unlike any other on the frontier: with no laws, no rules and a powerful attraction for killers, looters and fugitives. Frank Morgan, a gunfighter feared by all and hated by some, has been warned to stay the hell out of "the strip." But warnings never did work well on Morgan. So when an ambush robs him of his heart’s desire and nearly takes his life and his would - be murderers take refuge in the strip, the die is cast....

They came from the sea: a former ship captain named Owen Bird who inherited a Texas ranch from his brother.... A former pirate named “Black Terrance” Malone, who has arrived in the once peaceful Rattlesnake Valley with a crew of sea dogs to do his dirty work. And dirty work it would be, as Black Terrance begins a campaign of thieving and threatening, even targeting Bird’s beautiful young niece. Into this storm rides the Loner — Conrad Morgan, son of the legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan.

Werewolf by Max Brand in Western Story Magazine (12/18/26) involves just such an inward journey for Christopher Royal, who is convinced he is a coward and flees a confrontation with Harry Main, who is a gunfighter. There comes a time in this story - when Christopher encounters the aged Indian, the old wise man - that the terrain shimmers with the multiple affinities of meaning conjured by the unconscious, which Vergil once sought to capture within an image both awesome and sinister: numina magna deum [the great divine power of a god].

In California, Frank Morgan nearly found a home. But now he’s pulled up stakes and hit the road again, aiming to reach the high desert of Arizona. For Frank, the plan changes when he steps into a saloon in a dusty boom town called Los Angeles. That’s where he learns that his nemesis, Val Dooley, has found a new business: the selling of young women into prostitution, with the victims as young as 12 years old and the survivors ending up drugged and beaten.

Conrad Browning is The Loner, a man on a mission, crossing the country — and crossing a lot of bad men — to rescue his kidnapped young twins. The trail has led him all the way to San Francisco’s perilous red light-district, where a crime lord is the proud father of newly adopted twins. The Loner knows his children when he sees them. But they’re hostage to a brutal, violent mob feud. Then, just when he needs it most, The Loner is no longer alone: He is joined by his own father, Frank Morgan — the most notorious gunman in the West.

With his wife's killers dead and buried, Conrad Morgan - known as The Loner - is on his way to Mexico for some peace and quiet. But on the way he's sidetracked by some intriguing travelers who are hunting down a valuable golden artifact. They're not the only ones who want to get a hold of the treasure. A running gun battle with some killers lands The Loner and his cohorts in the Jornada del Muerto - a hellish, waterless wasteland in New Mexico Territory.

Conrad Browning, aka The Loner, knows what it’s like to a have a family and a home. And he knows what it’s like to lose it all. Now, he has met a man living on the edge of sanity: a good man, a flawed man, a solitary man who might just cost The Loner his life.... Jared Tate is an aging US marshal who has saved lives, made enemies, and planted a lot of bad men in hallowed ground. But Tate is in deep trouble, the kind that comes from a troubled mind. Not remembering as much as he wants to, not forgetting as much as he should, Tate has one person to trust.

Irishman Doug Monahan runs a fencing crew outside the south Texas town of Twin Wells, digging post-holes and stringing red painted barbed wire for ranchers as protection against wandering stock, rustlers and land hungry thugs. Monahan's fencing operation is opposed by Captain Andrew Rinehart, a former Confederate officer and an old-school open range baron of the huge R Cross spread. With his brutal foreman, Archer Spann, assigned to the violent work, Rinehart wages a barbed wire war against Doug Monahan. And neither side takes prisoners!

A beautiful young woman has an incredible story to tell: about her outlaw father, how he got busted out of jail, and then met a bloody end. Katherine Lupo believes her dad, a career train robber, was sprung by someone who wanted to set up Lupo for another crime — and then killed him when the job was done. A Texas Ranger believes her. And he turns to The Loner, a man with the guile and courage to go undercover and find out who was behind Lupo’s escape and murder.

"The Road to Casas Piedras": In the midst of a lively country dance, gunshots ring out at the stagecoach station and Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie finds the station's master sprawled in a pool of his own blood. "More Brains Than Bullets":Banker Tom Lindsay made a bad decision when he decided to do business with Ross Yerby. Yerby convinced Tom to print a few extra greenbacks to help him trade some cattle in exchange for half the profit. "West of Dodge": Where the real frontier begins... A young cowpuncher stakes a claim that can only be sealed with fists and a .44 Colt....

The damsel is in distress, or so it seems to Conrad Browning. On his way across the wide, tall Utah territory to California, the Loner meets a beautiful Mormon girl on the run from a forced wedding - and the gun-toting faithful trying to hunt her down. But there are two sides to every story - and the ones you don't hear are the ones that can get you killed. The runaway bride has a little history of her own. Soon, the Loner touches off a storm of unholy gunfire, drawing blood from an outlaw and a death sentence from a patriarch.

For a posse chasing a murderous band of outlaws, a quiet kid with a lightning fast gun is good company. And when the outlaws turn around and attack the posse, The Loner doesn’t have a choice: he’s now caught up in a running gun battle across West Texas. The Loner knows the men he’s fighting are bad to the bone - led by a merciless killer named Warren Latch. But what about the guys on his side?

Jeston Nash bears a striking resemblance to his cousin Jesse Woodson James of Clay County Missouri. After killing a Yankee soldier in self-defense, Jeston meets his cousins, Jesse and Frank, and joins them to fight in Quantrill's guerilla forces. Later, after the war, he rides with the James-Younger gang as they invent their special brand of bank and train robbery. All the while, Jeston seeks vengeance against Daniel Zanone of the Free Kansas Militia - the man responsible for the death of his child.

Business lately has been deadly for Ike Kelly. Recent unexpected gunplay has left his agency to a single operative. John Henry Cole is that operative. Kelly has received a letter from former lover Lydia Winslow, who operates an escort service in the new mining camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. "Three young women have been murdered since they arrived in camp." It is obviously a dangerous assignment, and Cole is advised that he must take every precaution - as if he needed such advice.

Jane Candia Coleman is a natural storyteller whose characters come from the lands between the southwestern valleys of Arizona and the Gila Mountains of New Mexico. The night Billy the Kid died is hauntingly depicted in "Corrido for Billy". "Lady Flo" is a memoir, based on historical fact, of the black wife of an Irish nobleman. "Moving On" depicts a young girl abandoned by her family who finds her way with an itinerant Jewish peddler. And "Are You Coming Back, Phin Montana?" is the winner of the 1995 Spur Award for Best Western Short Fiction.

It is the fall of 1867. Twenty-two years have passed since Tim Colter and his family were ambushed on the Oregon Trail, forcing the young boy to grow up, forge ahead, and find an unlikely ally in one-eyed mountain man Jed Reno. Now a widowed deputy, US marshal, and Civil War veteran, Colter is finally ready to remarry and settle down - until a dangerous new assignment becomes a life-or-death struggle for the soul of a town and the heart of its people....

In the town of Thirty-Four Corners, Colorado, Matt Jensen rides into a savage blood feud. Thirty years ago two friends came West and built a thriving cattle business. Now, their families have become kill-crazy enemies and the town is awash in a frenzy of killing. Add in hired gunmen on both sides of the fight, and two lovers crossing the dividing line, and the terror will never end. Eager to put as many miles between himself and Thirty Four Corners, Matt Jensen just can't bring himself to leave without trying to stop the bloodshed.

Led by a charismatic fool, a group of pioneers are crossing Apache territory, blind to the danger around them. The Loner would ignore the passing pilgrims if it weren’t for a beautiful woman. Then, when he turns his back, the Apaches strike. The night is lit with an unholy fire. Mutilated bodies are left behind. And four women are taken prisoner across the Rio Grande....

Once every year, Perley Gates and his brothers lead the Triple-G crew on its annual cattle drive. It’s a treacherous journey along the Great Western Trail, with a herd of 2,000 cows on one side and many opportunities for trouble on the other. This year, trouble shows up in the form of a beautiful young woman, her little baby, and her bizarre traveling companion — a colorful old cuss who goes by the name of Possom Smith. They’re heading to a settlement called Butcher Bottom, and risking their necks to get there.