"Tom Candy Ponting was no ordinary trail boss. He didn't smoke, chew, cuss, or even carry a gun. Unlike his competitors, he learned how to herd cows on a farm back in England - and how to handle cowboys in bareknuckle prizefights. But his skills and know-how were really put to the test when he accepted a bet he might live to regret: lead a cattle drive from Texas to New York City. Not one to back down on a dare, Ponting assembles the motliest crew...

"Matthew Garth undertakes a desperate cattle drive from Texas to Dodge City, dealing with threats from storms, rustlers, and even his own family"--

Tormented by Southern partisans, Missouri farm boy Caleb Cole joins the Union's Eighteenth Missouri. About the same time, down on the Texas coast, violin-playing Ryan McCalla, from a well-to-do family, enlists in the Confederacy's Second Texas-mainly in the spirit of adventure-with some friends. The two teenagers are about to grow up quickly. Fate will bring the two together-along with a teenage girl from Corinth, Mississippi, when the Confederate...

The South Carolina backcountry is no place for a young girl to grow up in the 1760s, but sixteen-year-old Emily Stewart wouldn't have it any other way. She loves the settlement of Ninety Six where her father Breck Stewart runs a tavern with his family, including Emily's embittered older brother, Donnan. But there's much to fear, too. Gangs of murderers, thieves, and robbers terrorize the country with impunity. Pleas to the government in Charlestown...

"Setting up shop in rip-roaring Spanish Fort, Texas, in the early 1870s, Big Eddie Hager outfitted many cowboys in boots as they headed up the Chisholm Trail. Hager's fame and his company grew with the years, turning Hager Boots & Company, Incorporated, into a global legend. But when a Dallas newspaper reporter arrives in what's left of Spanish Fort, an old-timer sets the record straight by telling the true story of the man behind the Hager legend-the...

Sam Houston is a living legend in 1861. The hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, he had defeated Santa Anna to win independence for Texas back in 1836. He had twice served as president of the Republic of Texas, helped Texas join the Union, and served as senator and governor of Texas. Before settling in Texas, he had been a hero of the Creek War and governor of Tennessee. He had been friends with Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett, and had been adopted...

Weather and creaking joints permitting, Jim Hawkins could be found every weekend sitting in that rocker right outside the Manix Store in Augusta, whittling and spitting. But Jim Hawkins didn't say much. Few knew what age Jim Hawkins might own up to, but Big Clem Ellis said he'd heard that Jim Hawkins was fifty years old, which might explain why his hair was so gray, or why he needed a scarred hickory cane to push himself out of that rocking chair,...

"After visiting his late mother's people on the Mescalero reservation, Comanche tribal policeman Daniel Killstraight waits to catch a train home when local cowboys bring disturbing news: an Apache has brutally murdered a teenage girl in the railroad town of Deming and locals want to lynch him. Killstraight has no jurisdiction in this territory and he doesn't care much for Apaches. He knows nothing about Deming, the murdered girl, or the accused killer,...

His Arrows Fly Straight into the Hearts of His Enemies was the Comanche name given him by his father. But the Pale Eyes gave him a new name, Daniel Killstraight, and that was the name by which he was known after his return to the reservation of the Kowas, Comanches, and Apaches. He became a native police officer, called a Metal Shirt by the Indians. When Toyarocho, drunk on contraband whiskey, rolls over onto the body of his four-year-old daughter,...