Showing results by narrator "Rusty Nelson" in All Categories

It takes a special breed of man to survive in the wilds of the American frontier. A man like Nate King has the courage, the strength and the skills he needs to endure the hardships of the magnificent Rockies. But the four cutthroats who heard about Nate paying for provisions with gold don’t plan to make it on their own. They figure they can get Nate’s gold for themselves. When they kidnap Nate’s younger daughter they think they’ve struck it rich. They don’t know Nate very well. They don’t know that he’ll do anything to protect his family.

In the untamed wilderness of the Rockies, Shakespeare McNair has seen many dangers over the years, but even he has a hard time imagining the bizarre creature that's terrorizing him and his wife, Blue Water Woman. It walks like a man, but has the strength of an animal. When the beast finally strikes, carrying off Blue Water Woman, Shakespeare vows to turn the tables.

For frontiersman Nate King, the Rockies are the last untamed wilderness, a place of magnificent beauty and unparalleled danger, a place to respect and call home. He and his family begin a trek through this harsh terrain with no wish but to see their cabin at journey's end. But a chance encounter with a deranged settler leads Nate to the startling discovery that the man has big plans for this wild land.

What do you do when you inherit $330 million after taxes? If you're New Mexico rancher Miles Waddell, you build a dream. A flat-topped mesa and a third of a billion dollars equals Nightzone Zone, an astronomy-based theme park, complete with giant radio telescope, a bank of smaller scopes linked to a theater, five-star dining in a restaurant with retracting dome ceiling, a hotel/resort, tram car access, and a narrow gauge steam locomotive to carry tourists to the mesa top. Glorious. And too ambitious for many residents of Posadas County.

Between Conniston, of His Majesty's Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and Keith, the outlaw, there was a striking physical and facial resemblance. Both had observed it, of course. It gave them a sort of confidence in each other. Between them it hovered in a subtle and unanalyzed presence that was constantly suggesting to Conniston a line of action that would have made him a traitor to his oath of duty. For nearly a month he had crushed down the whispered temptings of this thing between them.

The canyon of death. To survive the untamed wilderness a man needs all the friends he can get. No one can battle the continual dangers for long on his own. Even a fearless frontiersman like Nate King needs help now and then and he’s always ready to give it when it's needed. So when an elderly Shoshone warrior comes to Nate asking for help, Nate agrees to lend a hand - no matter how strange the request may be. The old warrior knows he doesn't have long to live and he wants to die in the remote canyon where his true love was killed many years before, slain by a giant bear straight out of Shoshone myth.

At age 42, Captain Ethan Brandish had finally given up his command of Fort Lowell, deep in the Apache territory of Arizona. He knew there had to be more to life than constantly battling rattlesnakes and renegades, and now he would find out what it was. But the vicious Apache leader Yellow Shirt had another fate in store for Brandish. He and a group of renegade warriors had attacked an isolated stage station and ridden off just before Brandish arrived on the scene.

The West had been good to Josh McKendree. He had built a new life for himself with a loving wife and a fine young son. Then half-breed trapper Jacques Ribalt took it all away from him when he slaughtered McKendree’s family over a simple land dispute. From that day on, McKendree had only one thing left - a need to make Ribalt pay for what he did. And the West became just a place where his family’s killer was hiding. But no matter where the murderer rode, no matter what he did, the West wasn’t big enough for him to escape McKendree’s vengeance.

Life in the majestic Rockies is hard. Only the hardiest and bravest of pioneers can survive the never-ending dangers of the frontier. Still, young Zach King can’t wait to return there with his bride-to-be. For the frontier is his home, the only place he feels free from the constraints and prejudices of so-called civilization. But it looks like he’ll have to postpone the homecoming just a little longer.

Growing up in the wild frontier of the Rockies, Zach King survived countless dangers, from nature and from human predators. Like his father, the legendary Nate King, Zach has learned to anticipate threats before they appear. But even Zach can’t predict the danger he’ll face when he travels with his fiancée to meet her family in St. Louis.

Hawk Haynes was proud of Porterville, Texas, a town he had founded. He had left it to go on a long honeymoon with Elizabeth Trudy, his new bride. When he returned a black cloud had ascended upon the town. The peace and harmony was gone, and so was his best friend. Hawk was sure Lank Lankford didn’t leave of his own accord. Luke Tanner, an old army buddy had left with Lank, and that told Hawk things weren’t right. Lank would never partner up with the likes of Luke Tanner, a born killer.

Frontiersmen living in the untamed Rockies are surrounded every day by endless dangers, including attack by hostile Indians. But to Nate King and his family, the local tribes are simply people like them, people trying to live free in the glorious mountains, and many of them have become their friends. It is only when Nate’s son, Zach, sets out with his fiancée to visit her relatives in St. Louis that Zach meets savages of a very different kind - vicious white cutthroats who kidnap his beloved.

Clint Ferguson, Chief Security Officer at the Centex Contagious Disease Center, returns from a short scuba diving vacation. As he drives toward the Center, he notices a huge cloud above it that appears to be spreading rapidly. He realizes there must have been a major accident at the Center and that an experimental deadly virus may have been released into the atmosphere.

Our American West, Volume 4 completes the collection of historical stories written by Gary McCarthy. These include tales of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which proved once and for all that the storied and hoped for river across America didn't exist. That long before the Gold Rush of 1849, a diminutive but courageous priest, Fr. Junipero Serra, sacrificed everything to bring Christianity to the coastal Native Americans, while faithfully establishing a string of beautiful California missions.

Our American West, Volume 3 is filled with western frontier stories you’ll find entertaining. "The Roadrunner – Our Sagebrush Clowns" reflects on the speedy and often comical bird of our southwestern deserts. Wild and wicked Calamity Jane lived up to her reputation as the West’s most infamous outlaw woman. “The Donner Party – Frozen Horror” describes the horror that led to cannibalism. The 49er Gold Rush ruined the lives of two ambitious and well-intentioned men, John Augustus Sutter and John Marshal...

He did his killing behind a badge. He lived for the sudden bloodshed, the booze, and the women who made him feel whole again. And whenever the law-abiding hypocrites closed in around him, he always managed to slip away. But Joe Potter couldn’t outrun the demons that were chasing him – not even on the wide-open Dakota range.

Our American West, Volume 2 begins with America’s first colonizers, the prairie dogs, and how out on the ranges they were so hated by ranchers that they were almost made extinct. Conestoga Wagons were once called “prairie schooners” crossing America long before the famed Pony Express. The indomitable courage of Sarah Winnemucca, the “Prairie Princess” rivals that of a tall Swede named Showshoe Thompson who skied the snowy river passes of the Sierra Nevadas.

Gold Dust Fever! Penniless old trapper Ben Frazier is just about ready to pack it all in when an Arapaho warrior takes pity on him and shows him where to find the elusive gold that white men value so greatly. His problems seem to be over, but then another band of trappers finds out about the gold and force Ben to lead them to it. It’s up to Zach King to save the old man, but can he survive a fight against a gang of gold-crazed mountain men?

In Our American West, Volume 1, discover humor, tragedy, and courage in every one of these delightful stories. Gary McCarthy has been writing about the American West for 30 years and these are some of his favorite topics written - not for the expert or scholar - but for all the armchair admirers of thing historically written.

Yahzie: Apache Warrior is the 8th installment of the Tye Watkins series. It follows Tye as he tracks down Yahzie, an accomplished Apache warrior, who had killed several people, including four of the six white men who had entered his camp and killed his wife, son, mother, and father.