Showing results by author "Dusty Richards" in All Categories

A drunken plan to make some quick money with two friends landed drifter Whit Ralston in the Yuma Territorial Prison - the worst prison in Arizona. Now he's doing hard time in the inferno the inmates call the Hell Hole, counting the days until his release. He's vowed never to do anything so stupid again, but that becomes a hard promise to keep when his crazy cellmate starts talking about a load of stolen gold stashed up in the mountains.

All he wants is a job as a ranch foreman. He'd tried in Montana, but ended up in a gunfight with a pair of ugly-looking brothers over a horse. Leaving one dead and the other swearing revenge, Norm figures it'd be wise to make himself scarce. He heads south, to Nebraska. Instead of work, though, he finds something he never expected--a partner. Edith is a beautiful young woman with a sordid past of her own.

Gil Slatter's quick on the draw and has a head for running a ranch - but he's also a lonely man with nothing more than a cot in the bunkhouse at the TXY Ranch to call home. When the ranch's foreman drops dead of a heart attack and the owner picks Gil to take his place, his entire world turns upside down. One day life is simple. The next he's running the entire outfit.

Even the toughest and most cunning lawman in Texas has his limits. With nothing to go on but five bloody bodies, a cracked safe, and an empty jail, Dell works the fringe of his sleepy western town - the forgotten, the invisible, those who often see without being seen. The more he learns, though, the more he wishes he could forget. In search of the truth, Dell finds himself pulled into a dark world of murder, deception, and brutality the likes of which he never imagined.

Vince was a mustanger with a solitary camp high in the Rusty Hills where he worked his operation alone. Then on a trip back from selling some mustangs, he came across Molly....

Captain Jack Starr served the Confederate cause with honor for four years. The town of Lost Dog Creek promised an opportunity for the war veteran to rebuild his life-and a woman to share it with. But not everyone is willing to roll out the welcome wagon....

In this third novel in Dusty Richards' Spur Award-winning Herschel Baker series, a rawhide-tough horse thief rides up from Mexico with a lightning-quick draw that leaves a trail of dead criminals in his wake. His son Herschel now wears a badge, but many years have passed since he left his boy to chase down sunsets.

Whip Station, a critical stop on the Butterfield stagecoach line, is dead smack in the middle of no-man's land. The lawless call it an easy target. Joe O'Malley calls it home. If anybody can tame a wild, violent territory, it's the seasoned frontiersman. So can his family, who have with the same pride and honor coursing through their veins. Helping to plant roots is his son Jackson, a former wrangler married to a steadying force of nature. Joe's grandchildren have their own brand of grit. The boy - a firebrand with a knife. The girl - book-smart and wicked-wise.

The Byrnes family has fought fiercely for its ranching empire. And with success comes the fate of empires: The Brynes have taken in far-flung family members, hired hands, and folks looking for another chance at life. The Byrnes clan has taken their fair share of hurt, too, taking on outlaws too deadly and powerful for the law. When a stage is robbed of a fortune in gold, the Byrnes boys set off on a wild race through the wilderness. In a harsh, unforgiving land, the Byrnes men face a mystery of gold and death - that could explode like a bomb in their hands.

Building a ranching empire is one thing, keeping it out of the hands of robbers, kidnappers, murderers, embezzlers, and every no good opportunist crawling through the Arizona desert is a daily grind for Chet Byrnes. He's just as likely to rescue a stolen daughter as he is to recover rustled cattle on any given day. But with a family to keep safe and enough real target practice to keep his aim deadly, nothing's going to stop Chet from bringing his ranch into a bold new era.

A landmark feat of innovation is about to change the American West forever. With electric cables stretching from the Colorado River to Gallup, New Mexico, a new telegraph system will connect the settlers of the Arizona Territory to rest of the country - a dream come true for rancher Chet Byrnes and his family. But laying 400 miles of steel wire can be a deadly task. Chet has to face off with hired henchmen who would kill to sabotage the project. And Chet's nephew JD has his hands full with cutthroat rustlers on the Mexican border.

A landmark feat of innovation is about to change the American West forever. With electric cables stretching from the Colorado River to Gallup, New Mexico, a new telegraph system will connect the settlers of the Arizona Territory to the rest of the country — a dream come true for rancher Chet Byrnes and his family. But laying 400 miles of steel wire can be a deadly task. Chet has to face off with hired henchmen who would kill to sabotage the project. Chet’s nephew JD has his hands full with cutthroat rustlers on the Mexican border.

Building a ranching empire is one thing - keeping it out of the hands of robbers, kidnappers, murderers, embezzlers, and every no good opportunist crawling through the Arizona desert is a daily grind for Chet Byrnes. He’s just as likely to rescue a stolen daughter as he is to recover rustled cattle on any given day. But with a family to keep safe and enough real target practice to keep his aim deadly, nothing’s going to stop Chet from bringing his ranch into a bold new era.

The Byrnes family has fought fiercely for its ranching empire. And with success comes the fate of empires: The Byrnes have taken in far-flung family members, hired hands, and folks looking for another chance at life. The Byrnes clan has taken their fair share of hurt, too, taking on outlaws too deadly and powerful for the law.

Chet Byrnes has built a ranching empire from the ground up. And he’s defended it with his sweat, blood, and a ragtag band of ranch-hand fighters. Now a beautiful young Spanish widow comes into Chet’s life, just as he starts off in search of a lost cattle drive. The search leads into the eye of a sprawling, violent storm. Chet and his men — and his seductive new woman — end up on a wild ride through Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas, where authorities want to confiscate the beeves for trespassing.

For Chet Byrnes, building a ranching empire means adding new land, hiring good men, finding water, and trying new breeds of cattle. But outlaws and Tuscon's idle rich want to take it all away - and Arizona just may be too lawless to stop it. So while the Byrnes family expands its reach, Chet must do his job hunting down outlaws on either side of the border.

From a woman who lays claim to Chet's heart to a land ripe for grazing, the Arizona territory begins to open its arms to the dauntless determination of the Byrnes family. But with every success there comes a rising danger. There’s a sheriff who refuses to do his job. Trigger happy outlaws competing to kill them. And a mysterious rancher who’s hell bent on running a herd across Chet's land - and forcing the Texan into a war...

Now a deputy US Marshal, Chet Byrnes hunts down the baddest hombres the west can throw at him. Chet and his crew must travel to New Mexico to free his cousin J.D. from a corrupt sheriff and his band of deputies. New allies will emerge to help Chet as he squares off with his greatest challenge yet; stopping bandits along the Arizona-Mexico border. Friendship will carry Chet across the Mexican border into a land where the only justice is found at the end of a six-gun.

Chet Byrnes is building a new life in Arizona Territory as he expands his cattle ranching operation - but trouble just keeps coming. A brutal Apache attack on his cattle drive. A friend's young daughter is abducted, and the search leads Chet and his men to the wild town of Tombstone and ultimately south of the border, where everything comes with a price...and life is cheap.