On the outskirts of a Montana frontier town, a fugitive risks his life to protect a mother and her sonThe miners, innocents all, didn't recognize the beast that stalked in their midst until an early blizzard stripped them of shelter and food. They huddled in one tent, listening to the winter winds sing of their deaths. Hunger stalked these men, felling them one by one.Miles Standish is on the run, an innocent man accused of unspeakable crimes. The ...

Winner of the 1990 Spur Award for Best Western Novel: An unlikely hero arrives in a hard town—can the wandering preacher bring justice to Sanctuary?A hungry Indian boy waits by the train tracks, hopping back and forth to keep warm, praying that someone passing through the forgotten town of Sanctuary will throw him a scrap of food. A preacher gets off the train, thin and tan, and tells the boy to follow him. The preacher gives the child money and a meal, then sends ...

Searching for a home on the range, a rancher finds death under the cottonwoodsSamuel Wilders tried to love farming. But after years of roping cattle, this cowboy found it impossible to settle down on the Nebraska plains. With his young wife and children in tow, Wilders sets out for Montana—where the sky stretches farther than the eye can believe, and a man needs only a little water to ranch. One day, he leaves his family behind under the shelter of a cottonwood and...

After sending for a mail-order bride, a rancher struggles to win her loveMax Bass fidgets as he scans the horizon for the stagecoach. His mail-order bride from back east is on that stage, but he feels no joy at the prospect of meeting her. A wannabe rancher, Max exaggerated his financial standing when he advertised for a wife; he fears that she will be disappointed or even angry, but he has no idea what he is actually in for.Catherine O'Dowd has long dreame...

In a small Montana town, a poor boy gets a chance at being a lawmanMac McPherson shivers beside the open grave, taking notes for a newspaper story for which he has been promised twenty-five cents. When he files his piece, the editor gives him only two dimes, but Mac is not too proud to take it. Only fourteen years old, he has his mother to think of and his own hungry belly to feed. One night, town sheriff Frank Drinkwalter gives Mac a better offer: an apprenticeship...

In frigid Montana, a boy tracks a killer wolf and learns to be a manIt is the worst winter anyone in Montana can remember. If the cold doesn't let up soon, the Brue family farm may be done for good—and the Brues along with it. Young Nashua Brue is shivering over his breakfast one morning when his father announces that Nash will be taking the week off school. A great wolf has been savaging the local cattle, and the cattlemen's association has offered a $500 reward fo...