Showing results by narrator "Maynard Villers" in All Categories

Here is an arm's length sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage. It answers the question most often asked: What finally happened to Lassiter and Jane Withersteen?

Ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed is still intent on taking back his land from Yankee carpetbaggers and clearing his name. But a noose still hangs over Slate Creed's head for a crime he didn't commit. Now there's only one hope to clear his name: saving the neck of the man who framed him. The whole town wants Dick Barth dead, except for Creed, he needs him breathing - and confessing. But freedom for both men makes trouble a sure bet - especially when the wager is paid in blood.

It was Martha Doak's last wish, and it may lead Slate Creed to his last showdown. Creed promised the half-blood squaw that he'd see her son Little Bee safe and sound to his uncle in the Choctaw Nation. Trouble is, the trip will take him through some of the meanest badland settlements the Nations have to offer. Towns where Little Bee's kind isn't wanted...and the rebel Creed is. As murderous bushwhackers stalk their trail, the boy and Creed live by quick wits, cold steel, and an unbreakable pact bound by honor and daring....

The Civil War was hell for Captain Clete Slater, a forgotten hero of the Confederacy, and the Texas Reconstruction's even worse. His Texas home-town is overrun with carpetbaggers and bluecoats. He's hunted by the law for a crime he didn't commit. He rides south to Mexico with a new name, Slate Creed, to hide his real identity. Riding across the Rio Grande, Creed expects to find frontier justice for the real culprits. Instead he finds another country torn apart by its own civil war.

Ruff Ballou and his sister Dixie journeyed west with trouble at their heels. But luck is on their side in Rum River, New Mexico, where they race one of their champion thoroughbreds to victory. A rich man’s greed pits their good fortune against Ruff's life and they must take up a money-making challenge to capture Blue Bullet, the legendary stallion that no man has yet tamed. But their worst enemy is time. A bounty has been placed on Blue Bullet, dead or alive, and savage killers are out to collect that reward.

"The grizzly stepped back, caught Hawk with his left paw, and flung him aside like a piece of carrion. Hawk landed heavily on his back, managing somehow to hang on to the bowie knife. Dazed, bleeding from his wounds, he stared up at the slavering, bleeding jaws of the huge grizzly, no longer confident that he or his bowie could do anything more than irritate the monster. Rearing up onto his hind legs, the bear uttered a fearsome roar, then came down hard and shambled forward to finish off Hawk...."

Which horse is fastest, Wildfire or Sage King? No one in the Colorado River Valley knew, until a raging range fire trapped both horses and riders into a race against death.

Where do you go when you've gone too far? That's the question Neil Van Ness faces as his carefully constructed life unravels before his eyes. The first blow comes with the discovery of his wife's affair, betraying and devastating both a friendship and a marriage. The second comes from a news report on TV when Neil learns he's the target of a nationwide manhunt by the FBI for the murder of his parents 15 years ago - a crime he didn't commit.

Hallettsville, Texas was home to ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed. But after taking an oath for the Union he discovered Yankees had taken over his plantation, named him an outlaw when he resisted, and framed him for murder... Now with a signed confession in his hand naming the real murderer, Creed can finally clear his name. With his nephew and sister-in-law, he's headed for Texas. But his trail is fraught with danger...and it won't do Creed much good to gain his reputation if he loses his life in the process.

Here is a story of Alaska, circa 1920. Mary Standish, a hauntingly beautiful, mysterious young woman and Alan Holt, a native of the Tundra, meet aboard the Nome as it steams for Alaska via the Inside Passage. Mary was running from someone or something, back in Seattle where she came aboard. She reveals a part of her secret to Alan and then commits a stunning act that haunts Alan even as he returns to the Tundra. This act bears tremendous consequences for Alan and the entire territory of Alaska which culminates in a blazing gun battle....

In the wake of disaster, the surviving members of the Ballou family sought a new beginning on the Texas Frontier. A minister and his family become their traveling companions. Tragedy strikes when the minister and his young daughter are attacked by rattlesnakes and severely bitten. Their lives depend on the only medical attention available, that of a Comanche medicine man. And it is up to Ruff to persuade the reluctant Comanches to give them aid.

Reuben and Amy Corbin, brother and sister, are left destitute in 1886 when Quantrill's Raiders burn their Missouri farm, kill their father, and ride off with all the livestock and supplies. Reuben swears that somehow, someday, he will find and kill the individual raider he saw gun-down his father. With no means of support, brother and sister decide to try for Oregon. They find work and earn enough money to join up with a wagon train. The wagon train becomes the platform for a continuous array of adventures, hardships and close, new-found relationships.

From the distant mountains, through the vast deserts to the Gulf of Mexico flows the Rio Grande River, giving life, promising adventure, shaping empires. And across its banks fought the Americans, the Mexican Army, the Shoshone, the Utes and the Arapaho Indians. Matthew Caine, an American agent working against the Mexican Army, also known as "El Gigante", attempts to make allies of the plains Indians. Lieutenant Melgares, of the Mexican Army is sworn to find the American spy and bring him to the Santa Fe gallows.

Chadwick Buford is a young Kentucky boy with the unnatural luck to keep getting complete strangers to take him and raise him for a time. After his foster parents die, Chad is taken in by the Turner family. Young daughter Melissa Turner falls in love with Chadwick. When Chad is separated from the Turners, he's then taken in by Major Buford. Although Chad doesn't know much about his own family past, the Major believes Chad is the descendent of a long lost relative of the man's.

For Jack Hale the Cumberland country on the borders of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meant the way to great riches. As the advance man for British Mining interests, Hale was in the Kentucky hills to buy coal mining rights from the mountain folk. Hale’s chance meeting with a young mountain girl has a dramatic impact upon both their lives, sending each of them onto opposite paths before they converge again much later.

The Union nearly killed him in the Civil War. Then the bluecoats and carpetbaggers stole his Texas plantation and turned what was left of his family against him. His Texas home-town became an armed camp, full of corrupt, greedy Yankees anxious to wipe out any veteran that showed up in tattered Confederate gray. Any other man would have just drifted on, but not Confederate Captain Clete Slater.

The Horseman, is the story of the Ballou family's brave struggle to fulfill a dream. The Ballous were the finest horsemen in the South, a courageous Tennessee family famous for the training and breeding of glorious thoroughbreds. When the Civil War devastated their home and their lives, they headed west into the heart of Indian territory. As horsemen, they triumphed. As a family, they endured. But as pioneers in a new land, they faced unimaginable hardship, danger, and ruthless enemies....

Hallettsville, Texas was overrun by Yankees and Northern corruption after the Civil War, and ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed lost everything when Yankees stole his home, named him an outlaw and condemned him to die as well... On the run since his home-coming after the Civil War, Slate Creed sees a chance to clear his name. To do so, he must find Quade, the man who helped frame him. The hard part will be getting him back to Texas to tell the tale...especially when a trumped-up charge of murder threatens to put both their necks in the noose.

Here is a marvelous story of a Texas doctor on the Confederate side of the Civil War. It's the story of his experience as a prisoner of the Union Army during the last six months of the Civil War, his escape and adventurous return to his home in Texas. During his trek back to Texas he teams up with a female Confederate spy to get him past the Union Army. She learns he knows the location of a cache of gold stolen from the Union Army. He wants to keep it to rebuild his war-torn ranch in Texas, she wants it for the Confederacy.

Haunted by the blood and bitterness of the Civil War, Houston Ballou escaped from Tennessee on the proud stallion High Fire, followed by his brother, Ruff; his sister, Dixie; and the last four mares from the Ballou farm, one of them heavy with foal. Threatened with extreme danger from either army, they head west to start a new life. Adding to their peril are deserters that stalk the roads. These men would kill for a few coins, more so for valuable horseflesh.