When Luke Starbuck takes on a wealthy banker as a client, the only thing more compelling than the paycheck is his prey. The James-Younger gang has confounded countless detectives, including the men of the Pinkerton Agency. Now it's Starbuck's chance to bring down the most notorious group of outlaws the West has ever seen—led by none other than cold-blooded killer Jesse James. From Kansas City straight through the Indian Territory, Starbuck's mission is about to becomes a down-and-dirty vendetta that will leave one man standing...and the other six feet under. Five thousand dollars. That was what a slick Denver lawyer offers to pay the legendary manhunter Luke Starbuck. The job: to find a way into Wyoming's infamous Hole-in-the-Wall outlaw stronghold—and shoot a bad man dead. And no sooner does Starbuck enter the foothills of the Big Horns does he realize that he is the one who's being hunted. Now, Starbuck must make his way among lawmen, gunmen, and free spirits riding on both sides of the law to figure out who wants him dead...all the way to the Badlands town called Deadwood, where secrets are sealed in blood.

Settlers in the frontier West were often easy prey for criminals. Policing efforts were scattered at best and often amounted to vigilante retaliation. To create a semblance of order, freelance enforcers of the law known as man-hunters undertook the search for fugitives. These pursuers have often been portrayed as ruthless bounty hunters, no better than the felons they pursued. Robert K. DeArment’s detailed account of their careers redeems their reputations and reveals the truth behind their fascinating legends. As DeArment shows, man-hunters were far more likely to capture felons alive than their popular image suggests. Although “Wanted: Dead or Alive” reward notices were posted during this period, they were reserved for the most murderous desperadoes. Man-hunters also came from a variety of backgrounds in the East and the West: of the eight men whose stories DeArment tells, one began as an officer for an express company, and another was the head of an organization of local lawmen. Others included a railroad detective, a Texas Ranger, a Pinkerton operative, and a shotgun messenger for a stagecoach line. All were tough survivors, living through gunshot wounds, snakebites, disease, buffalo stampedes, and every other hazard of life in the Wild West. They also crossed paths with famous criminals and sheriffs, from John Wesley Hardin and Sam Bass to Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid. Telling the true stories of famous men who risked their lives to bring western outlaws to justice, Man-Hunters of the Old West dispels long-held myths of their cold-blooded vigilantism and brings fresh nuance to the lives and legends that made the West wild.

The Osage Indians lost their ancestral freedom on a windswept reservation in Oklahoma. Now, in the Roaring Twenties, the land is spewing black gold; oil has been found, and every Osage owns a share of the rights. Soon Osage tribal members are being killed for their oil royalties while a corrupt sheriff turns his back on the murders, Special Agent Frank Gordon organizes and undercover operation while working openly with frontier legend U.S. Marshall Will Proctor. Their investigation unearths a string of thirty-three murders, and as they race against death, Osages are still being killed. Gordon is determined to bring down the mastermind behind the ring of cold-blooded butchers. But when one of his own men is murdered and the killers turn on him, Gordon realizes there is a law beyond the law--the law of survival...

The Brannocks Matt Braun Earl Brannock was a gambling man who fled the fires of the Civil War and found a boomtown called Denver—in a land being built on dreams, luck, and gold. Virgil Brannock joined him next, fresh from Lee's surrender at Appomattox, determined to rise to the top of the frontier's rough and treacherous business world. Finally, Clint came riding a trail of revenge: a fiery young Brannock who dared to wear a badge...The three brothers were reunited once again. And on a frontier brimming with opportunity and exploding with danger, vicious enemies would test their courage—and three beautiful women would claim their love...

"MATT BRAUN IS A MASTER STORYTELLER OF FRONTIER HISTORY." —Elmer Kelton THREE MEN CONQUERED THE FRONTIER Three Brannock brothers once came West. Now, one of them survives, and Clint Brannock feels the weight of responsibility as he does his job as a U.S. deputy marshal. Hunting down an outlaw in the Indian territories, Clint meets up with two of his nephews—one destined to live or die by the gun, the other to live or die in his shadow. And in southern New Mexico, a beautiful sister-in-law, Elizabeth, presides over 100,000 rich acres—and dabbles in a dangerous game... ONE MAN IS LEFT TO DEFEND IT... A vigilante named Miguel Ortega is using terror to drive out Anglo settlers. A woman of her own proud heritage, Elizabeth has a grown son and daughter, each of whom stands to inherit an empire. But she has forged a forbidden bond with Ortega. With violence spiraling out of control, the government sends Clint to lay down the law. Soon, all the Brannocks must take a stand and risk their lives—for justice, each other, and the land that is now in their blood... "BRAUN IS ONE OF THE BEST!" —Don Coldsmith, author of the Spanish Bit series

HE CAME WEST HAUNTED BY DEATH AND GRIEF... In 1884, a Harvard-educated legislator from New York set off for Dakota Territory. Staggered by the deaths of his mother and wife on the same tragic night, Teddy Roosevelt was returning to a place he had visited the year before, a place that had struck him with its fierce beauty and its bounty of big game and big opportunity. By the Little Missouri River, Teddy Roosevelt established a ranching empire, and soon stood at the center of a storm... AND IN A VIOLENT LAND, HE WAS REBORN... Less than a decade after an Indian rebellion and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Dakota was being settled by the brave, the ambitious, and the restless. While some men were grabbing power, some were getting away with murder. For Roosevelt, using local cowboys and transplanted Easterners as his ranch hands, this was a place to make his mark, to make a stand and to look a killer in the eye. And this was a time to bring wild Dakota into the heart of America...

At the foot of the Wind River Mountains and just east of the continental divide was Tenbow Valley, eighty miles of rich, watered graze on the way to Oregon territory. From Cheyenne, Jack Stillman has come to Tenbow to solve a string of murders. Each victim was a landowner in the valley, and each killing was carried out with a deadly, long range rifle. Taking on the guise of a gambler, Stillman is quick to line up his suspects and start prying open their secrets. But while greed is the likeliest reason for the murders, the killer keeps striking—even when Stillman has his eye on the suspects. Suddenly, in a land of wild honeysuckle, snowy mountain peaks, and the spirits of native warriors, the veteran lawman realizes he's made a fatal mistake and missed a motive as old as time itself...Now it may be too late because an expert at murder has Stillman in the crosshairs of his gun...