Jim Strike and his partner Arlie Silvershell aim to carve a ranch out of the lush Tenkiller country of southern New Mexico, but the odds were against them--and so was Silvershell's haughty, ruthless wife.

Johnny Fristo and Speck Quitman, young, hard-working cowboys from Fort Concho, Texas, have worked six months at $20 a month on the Devil's River. Their boss, a hawk-faced cow trader named Larramore, reneges on the money he owes the boys and sneaks out of the cow camp, and heads for San Angelo. Fristo is tall and thin, his mind a hundred miles away; Quitman is short, bandy-legged, and “bedazzled by the flash of cards and the slosh of whiskey.”...

Down on his luck, Smoke Jensen contracts to deliver 3000 head of cattle. Then a renegade Cheyenne warrior uses an early winter blizzard to attack Smoke and his crew. Too bad it's only the first step in journey built to test Smoke's mettle, because some people are hunting a payday of their own--for killing Smoke Jensen. Soon the streets of Laramie will run with blood.

When young Richard Gale arrives in the Arizona border town of Casita, he finds himself surrounded by Mexican and American troops, bandits and renegades--and makes an enemy of Rojas, a vicious Mexican bandit leader.

Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack is on the trail of a gang of Yuma jailbreakers being led by the bloodthirsty Suela Soto. The pursuit will bring Sam up against one of the most infamous criminal gangs ever to pull a heist in the West--the Hole in the Wall Gang.

Former Texas Ranger Andy "Badger Boy" Pickard leaves his fiancee's north central Texas farm to pursue Luther Cordell, the outlaw ringleader he believes responsible for the death of his friend, Sheriff Tom Blessing.

The legend of Robert Fernald is narrated here in three related short novels. Fernald had been raised from childhood by his uncle with endless tales about the great days of the Wild West and the escapades of his father and Wild Bill - with a certain vagueness about which side of the law Fernald's father was on. Now Robert is back in the West with no ambition but to pursue exploits like those he grew up hearing about.