In The Big Fifty, another name for the famous Sharps rifle, reality of frontier life becomes brutally clear to twelve-year-old Coady McIlvain. He falls in with a buffalo sharpshooter, and the two must survive the unforgiving terrain and hostile enemies.

Fifteen-year-old Evan Kendrick has traveled from New Mexico Territory to Galveston with his father, Edward, who will be competing in a horse race that's offering a $3,000 prize to the winner. But a terrible accident seriously injures Evan's drunken father, forcing Evan to saddle up instead.This is no ordinary race. Running from Texas to New England, its course is eighteen hundred miles-maybe even longer-and Evan will be riding a barely half-broke...

Alistair Durant was a young Confederate soldier, captured by the Yankees, and released when he took an oath never again to bear arms against the Union. He had a long walk back to his home in Clay County, Missouri. It is on this trek that he meets another youngster, Beans Kimbrough. The two become companions and then friends on the way to Clay County. It is there that Beans will introduce Alistair to a man calling himself Charley Hart. Hart has a fantastic...

"1892 Comanche reservation in present-day southern Oklahoma near Fort Sill (Lawton); North Texas: Dallas, Fort Worth, and Albany"--

Bass Reeves was a man of color and a deputy United States marshal. For thirteen years he was sided by deputy marshal Dave Adams, a white man. Bennie Reeves was Bass' son, who shot down his unarmed wife who had been cheating on him and then disappeared. U.S. Marshal Leo E. Bennett had reservations about handing the warrant to Bass Reeves to be served against Bennie, but for Bass there was no reservation. His son had broken the law and was a fugitive....

"Noah Benton, a teenager with a great memory, a head for arithmetic, and dreams of excitement, is hired along with his older brother to help drive a herd of Texas longhorns to Abilene, Kansas. But Noah's trail boss happens to be John Wesley Hardin, a notorious killer who thinks Texas lawmen won't look for a fugitive in a crew of hard-working cowboys. After Hardin sees a profit in Noah's ability to count and memorize cards in gambling dens, Noah's...

'Til Death Do Us Part Stranded in the Mojave Desert, Micah Bishop is about to cash in his chips for good when he's rescued by an unlikely savior. Whip Watson is hand-delivering two dozen brides to the silver boom town of Calico, where miners are going loco for companionship. Better still, Watson asks Micah if he'd help escort the wagons--and far be it for Micah to pass up both cash and some very pretty faces. But Micah doesn't know that Whip Watson...

Recalling his early life as a young cowboy, sixty-two-year-old Madison Carter remembers his first love: her name was Estrella O'Sullivan, and he met her the summer he turned sixteen back in 1873. The summer of 1873 marked Madison's last drive up what is now called the Chisholm Trail. It was the first time he tasted oysters and the only time he pinned on a badge. It was the summer of longhorns, miserable heat, friendship and betrayal, and murder....

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...

From a Spur Award-winning author comes a thrilling tale of faked deaths, runaway slaves, and revenge amid the Civil War. The only way to escape the purgatory that is the Florence Stockade is to die, so on February 3, 1865, Zebulon Hogan dies. Corporal Favour and Private Gardenhire, the only two soldiers of the 16th Wisconsin healthy enough to tote Zeb's wasted-away ninety pounds, wrap him in a dirty, stinking, and damp blanket, and carry him to...