In a lonely army outpost, a group of misfits waits for rescue—or deathA few minutes before midnight in the barren New Mexico desert, Big John leads a prisoner to his doom. Although only nineteen years old, the boy is a killer, and will be hanged as soon as they reach the next town. But between these men and civilization lies an expanse of hell.Not far from the outpost, they find a family slaughtered by the Comanche. The outpost should mean safety, but the army has gone to hunt the Indians, leaving behind no one but a tubercular corporal, a green lieutenant, and a group of wandering ladies. The party hunkers down to pray for reinforcements, but there will be more arrivals at the outpost before the Comanche strike. As Big John waits for deliverance, he wonders where the real danger lies—in the moonlit desert sands, or inside the walls of the fort.

An out-of-work lawman rides into the hills in search of a runaway killerBefore he draws his gun, Tom Dyce waits for John Bass to shoot first. He plugs the killer in the stomach but doesn't fire again. A marshal's deputy, Tom has never killed a man in cold blood . . . at least, not yet.The confrontation with Bass sours Tom on working for the marshal. Needing a change, he decides to return home to Thibido and the woman he loved long ago, Aurora Tyne. Before he leaves Rincon, the marshal offers him one last assignment: tracking a fugitive bank robber who has fled into the hills outside of Tom's hometown. Though he wants nothing to do with bounty hunting, the reward isn't the only thing that draws him to the chase. Aurora's life is in danger, and saving her may require murder.

A spooky and sinister army confronts Dr. Spectros in the swamplands of Mississippi The ship full of enslaved Africans arrived in Natchez just before the end of the Civil War. Freed by the Union army, the Telingas found themselves in a strange land whose language they did not speak and whose people they feared. The tribe fled into the bayou to make a new life with their old black magic—one so powerful it has brought the evil conjurer Blackschuster all the way from the West to the Deep South. On orders from his employer, Dr. Spectros, the gunslinger Ray Featherskill rides into Natchez. Seeking to avenge the kidnapping of his beloved Kirstina, Spectros has vowed to bring Blackschuster's reign of terror to an end. Ray has just settled into his hotel room when bullets fly through the window, missing him by inches—the sinister magician is sending his enemies a message. When Spectros arrives, he and Ray venture deep into Telingas territory, where...

Lost in the Mexican desert, a cowboy stumbles upon a mysterious settlementThe cattle drive was Jake's last chance. After promising a fortune to any man willing to make the long trek across the Mexican border, the ranch boss skipped out at journey's end, leaving Jake Staggs friendless, broke, and far from home. Trudging across the desert, holes in his boots and his horse near death from thirst, Jake smells the unmistakable scent of fresh water. In a lonely gulch he finds lush grass, plenty to drink, and a cabin occupied only by an old man and a madwoman. It is a little piece of paradise—but he will be lucky to get out alive.The gulch is a hideout for a band of horse thieves, and now that Jake has been there, they won't let him leave. He narrowly escapes, but not for long. Before he can go home, Jake must make one last trip into smuggler's gulch.

The men of a posse on the trail of an outlaw begin to turn on one anotherWhat made Jake Worthy rob his hometown bank? Was it stupidity? Daring? Or did he simply not think the men of Quirt, Arizona, had the skill to catch him? Three days out of Quirt, the group sent after Worthy is coming apart at the seams. The richest man in town is complaining about the hardships of the trail. Alongside him are a couple of greenhorns, a few refugees from the saloon, and a redheaded man whose steely confidence the sheriff simply does not trust. By law, the chase must end at the county line—but Sheriff Fawcett fears the posse is beyond his control.To capture Worthy and retrieve the stolen gold, the men of Quirt will push themselves to the limit, even if it means turning outlaw themselves.

In the Arizona wasteland, a wanderer meets a man he cannot trustCameron Black gallops across the alkali flats on a stolen horse, a Henry rifle at his side. Horse theft is a hanging offense in Arizona, but that means nothing to Cam. If the law catches up to him, they can only hang him once, and he has already been sentenced to die. Just twelve days earlier Cam was a law-abiding man, making his way to Tombstone in hopes of finding work. He was nearly there when he met Stony, a hardened old salt who offered to share the trail with him. This man would save Cam's life a half-dozen times in the next few days—but he is also the reason Cam would face the hangman's rope.Fleeing the law, Cam takes refuge in the desert, a desperate gamble that nearly amounts to a death sentence of its own. Tombstone is the most dangerous town in the West—but the wasteland around it is far deadlier.

As winter bears down, a gang of settlers races for their livesCasey Storm doesn't know who the Shadow Riders are. He only knows that they want to kill him. A dozen men in black slickers set upon Casey as soon as he reaches Montana, chasing him across the freezing plains for reasons he can only guess at. They chase him until his horse dies and keep chasing him even after he tumbles to the ground. He escapes only by chance, tripping and falling into a hidden coulee. The Shadow Riders pass on—and a winter storm descends.Thick snow falls as Casey staggers up to the covered wagon, begging for shelter. The inhabitants are also on the run from the Shadow Riders, who seem to have mistaken Casey for Stan Deveraux, the gunman who promised to lead the settlers to safety. They have six days to reach the fabled land known as Sundown—six days before their property is stolen, and they are left to die at the hands of the Shadow Riders.

Run off his land, a rancher is forced to take the most dangerous job in town: marshalJulius Lang is chatting with the marshal when the killers ride down Main Street, and he doesn't have time to reach for his gun before a storm of bullets cuts the lawman down. This is the fourth marshal Montero has lost this year, and the townspeople want Lang to be the fifth. He'd rather return to the safety of his failing ranch, but when a brassy young San Francisco woman comes and claims his land as her own, he's left with no choice but to take the badge—and be measured for a coffin along with it.The killers who run this town expect Lang to be just another pushover, but he's ready to surprise them. This rancher has lost everything, and he will kill to get it back.

Flat broke and crippled, a cowhand takes a job from a doomed manAt the end of a backbreaking cattle drive, a steer turns on Joe Sample, pinning him against a fence and snapping his leg. He will never ride right again. Recovering from the wound empties his wallet, and he is staring poverty in the face when Pierce Malloy staggers into the saloon, blood leaking out of his boots. Malloy has shot the marshal in a desperate attempt to save his brother from hanging, and now the deputies are after him. He has just minutes to live—and he wants to give Joe a job.In exchange for a small fortune—$220—Joe agrees to deliver a package of stolen goods to the hanged man's widow. Moments after Malloy hands over the money, he is shot dead. Joe honors his agreement—and in the process, he learns that there are far tighter spots than between a steer and a fence post.

On a broken ankle, a vengeful man carves a path into hellJohn Dancer hauls himself out of bed and stuffs his swollen ankle into his boot, gritting his teeth through the pain. That boot won't come off again unless he cuts through the leather, but for now it will do just fine. His ankle was blown apart by a Winchester rifle, and he will never walk right on it again. John Dancer can't run, but he can ride—and he is fine with dealing justice on horseback.His trouble started three months earlier, when his drifter lifestyle led him to an abandoned ranch, where a woman lay weeping over the body of her lynched husband. His instincts told him to ride on, but he couldn't leave the woman alone, and he stayed behind to help her bury her man. When the raiders who killed him returned, Dancer was caught in the middle, his ankle destroyed and his thoughts turned forever towards revenge.

Rescued by settlers, an injured lawman fights to regain his memoryHis horse shot out from under him, the sheriff scrambles across ragged wasteland, desperate to outrun the four riders behind him. Bullets sing through the air as the chase comes to an abrupt halt at the lip of the Snake River Gorge. Far below him, the rapids roar through the canyon, and the lawman has no choice but to jump. He falls, slamming his head on a rock, and sinks into unconsciousness.He washes up on the riverbank near a small farm, where young Teresa Bright drags him to safety. His rescuer finds no clue to his identity but a piece of a badge nestled in his front pocket. She and her father wash and dress the stranger's wounds, but they can do nothing to bring back his shattered memory. Whoever this man is, there were killers on his tail, and they will not rest until he's found.

In a deserted cabin on the Great Plains, a settler tries to make a homeRincon and his two companions ride out of the frigid night, and demand shelter in the sagging old cabin. They have gold in their saddlebags and the army on their tail, and they need a place to lay low. Letting them inside is the worst mistake the Whittaker brothers will ever make. The riders gun one brother down, and are holding the other hostage when the army surrounds the house. The soldiers unload on the cabin, peppering it with a hundred rounds of ammunition, and killing everyone inside except Rincon. They have their prisoner—but they don't find the gold.When Ben Flowers settles in the territory, he's told the cabin is haunted by the men killed that night. He tries to make a home for himself in the abandoned structure, but as long as that gold is on his property he will never have peace.

The origins of a timeless blood feud are revealed in the second installment of the uncanny and enthralling Spectros series When a ship sinks off the coast of India, a lone survivor washes ashore—a mysterious young man from the American West. Taking refuge among the local nobility, the man falls in love with the daughter of the Yahif. But on the eve of her wedding, Kirstina is kidnapped by the sinister and supernatural Blackschuster. To save his beloved, the American immerses himself in the dark arts and is reborn as a mighty wizard: Dr. Spectros. In the last car of a train bound for the Old West, two railroad employees discover Kirstina inside a glass coffin, alive but trapped in eternal sleep. Blackschuster kills the porters and escapes with his prisoner as Spectros follows in close pursuit. With the help of a handsome gunslinger, a mute giant, and a knife expert, the doctor will rescue his bride from the clutches of evil or die trying. Luckily,...

In a deserted western town, two drifters fight to stay aliveThe place is called Hangtown, and it's as dead as a man with a noose cinched 'round his neck. Josh Banks and Wage Carson rode here in search of work, but they found the settlement dried up and blown away—the silver mine empty and the population gone with it. Josh wants to take what supplies they can and move on out into the desert, but Wage has a grander idea. The town has been abandoned, and that makes it theirs to own. He elects Josh mayor, appoints himself sheriff, and the town is alive again. Welcome to Hangtown—population: 2.When a troop of painted ladies rides into their empty town, Wage's plan starts to look pretty clever. But soldiers and gunmen follow close behind, and this two-man hamlet becomes the flashpoint for bloody conflict. Hangtown will be dead again soon, and if Wage and Josh don't move quickly, it will take them with it.

A soldier returns home to find his family at war with itselfWhen Russell Bates gets his father's message that the family ranch is in trouble, he does not hesitate to ask his commander for leave. When his request is denied, the cavalryman takes matters into his own hands and goes AWOL during a patrol. There is nothing more important to Russell than his father, but he does not arrive in time to save him. Old man Bates is dead, and his ranch is ready to perish along with him. The foreman has been lynched, the cowhands are in revolt, and Russell's sisters have ceded control of the ranch to the sinister Vincent Battles. With the help of Trinity, an honest drifter whom Russell met on the road, the Bates family must fight to keep hold of their land. But when Russell's oldest brother returns from Texas, their civil war threatens to spread from the ranch to the family itself.