Showing results by author "Dusty Richards" in All Categories

Two-time Spur Award winner and member of the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame, Dusty Richards pens gritty Western tales packed with period authenticity. Texas Blood Feud stars Chet Byrnes, a third generation Texan looking to save his family’s ranch with one more big cattle drive. But his plans are dashed after he strings up three horse thieves, sparking a deadly feud with a family bent on revenge.

Mackworth “Mack” Harrigan’s family legacy burned to the ground in the spring of 1849. The Ohio mill that brought them prosperity was now cinder and ash, and his ruthless father perished in the flames along with their fortune. If the Harrigans have a future, it lies out west in open country where they can build whatever lives they choose. Mack knows his wife Ell, and their children Kane, Meghan, and Fitch are more than capable of overcoming the challenges of their journey.

Even the toughest and most cunning lawman in Texas has his limits. With nothing to go on but five bloody bodies, a cracked safe, and an empty jail, Dell works the fringe of his sleepy western town - the forgotten, the invisible, those who often see without being seen. The more he learns, though, the more he wishes he could forget. In search of the truth, Dell finds himself pulled into a dark world of murder, deception, and brutality the likes of which he never imagined.

The Byrnes family came to Texas and carved out a place on the land. Three generations who paid in blood and treasure. Children carried off by Comanche. A brother lost to war. Lives shattered. Chet Byrnes was trying to hold the ranch together through one more winter for one more cattle drive when he hanged three horse thieves this side of the Red River - and a blood feud erupted....

A landmark feat of innovation is about to change the American West forever. With electric cables stretching from the Colorado River to Gallup, New Mexico, a new telegraph system will connect the settlers of the Arizona Territory to the rest of the country — a dream come true for rancher Chet Byrnes and his family. But laying 400 miles of steel wire can be a deadly task. Chet has to face off with hired henchmen who would kill to sabotage the project. Chet’s nephew JD has his hands full with cutthroat rustlers on the Mexican border.

Cattle baron Rupart MacDavis wants to bury the ranchers of Horse Creek, Montana. With the local law in his pocket, MacDavis brutalizes the town - until Herschel Baker begins showing the people how to fight back.

Spur Award winner and recipient of the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award, Dusty Richards pens authentic Western tales that blaze to the top of best seller lists nationwide. Between Hell and Texas continues the Byrnes family saga, picking up with Chet striking out on a dangerous trail from Texas to Arizona in the hopes of reversing his family’s diminishing fortunes.

Herschel Baker's new role as the sheriff of Yellowstone County is a far cry from his previous life as a rancher. As sheriff, Herschel is sworn to uphold the law, and that means butting heads with those who don't want to playby the rules. So when a cowboy named Billy Hanks is hung from a tree with the words "Hoss Steeler" pinned tohis chest, Herschel must find those responsible.

After four years on the bloody battlefields of Europe during World War II, Army Staff Sergeant Mark Shaw returns home to Arizona with nothing but the hope of living a quiet existence and chasing the sunset on horseback forevermore. The homecoming he receives upon his return, though, is nothing like what he'd hoped for—a wife who couldn't wait for him in an America that has become almost unrecognizable in his absence. Shattered by her betrayal, Mark gives up on love, life, and the possibility of ever finding the peace he longs for. Life is not quite done with Mark, however.

From the windswept plains and dusty streets of Dodge City, to the rocky arroyos of Arizona's Verde Valley, to the early summer green of the Little Bighorn Valley, these small gems give the listener a taste of all that made up the West. Saddle up with the inimitable Dusty Richards as he spins his yarns of lawmen, cowboys, Indians, miners, and the women that loved them. Weep for love lost and love found, and laugh until you cry. Most of all, though, sit back and relax as Dusty Richards, the master storyteller, brings to life the West as it really was.

The Natural puts you in the boots of famed rodeo announcer Brad Turner, racing his horse Golden Boy into the arena and welcoming the crowd to a pro rodeo performance in Jackson, Mississippi. You'll hit the road with Brad as he crisscrosses the country, struggling with life, love, and business on the pro rodeo circuit. You'll meet Zola Johns, the rebellious, barrel-racing beauty with her eye on the prize of winning a national championship, and Shoat Krammer, the young rough-and-tumble rookie that's the real natural coming up the hard way.

When Zekial Broome stops a sadistic slave chaser, Grissum McCord, from whipping his captive, he and the girl have no choice but to flee west into the untamed lands of the wild frontier. If they can make it to the Green River country, no one will ever find them. What they don't count on is McCord. With a 500-dollar bounty at stake and revenge in his heart, he'll follow them to hell and back, for as long as it takes. He's murdered before, but the revenge he plans for the buckskin-clad Broome would make a strong man quail.

Charlie Brackeen owns the big ranch that takes up the entire north end of drought-stricken Callie County. When he pushes his B-Bar-M cattle south of their own range, it’s no mistake - it’s a hostile takeover, enforced by Sheriff Alex Woodbridge, the tough, one-eyed former Texas Ranger who’s in Brackeen’s pocket. They want the small ranchers leaderless and isolated so they can be picked off one by one and forced to sell their land. They just didn’t count on Jed Mahan.

Born out of the grit, sweat, and drive of a cattle ranching empire, US Marshal Chet Byrnes is turning the savage and lawless Arizona desert into a homeland. To some, he's the hero that the West needs. To others, he's a moving target. Chet is spearheading a stage line from Gallup to the Colorado River. It'll be a boon to Navajo trading posts and lay out the territory for new settlements. Unfortunately, it's not Gerald Hall's idea of progress - killing Chet is.

Twin brothers Andrew and Jackson Franks have lived and worked under the iron fist of their father, Prior, for as long as they can remember. But when a petty household argument turns violent, and Prior shoots and kills their mother before turning the gun upon himself, the boys are left with nothing but each other and the family's hardscrabble South Texas ranch.

In the brutal, unforgiving wastes of the Arizona desert, Chet Byrnes built a cattle ranching empire with his bare hands, steel will, and a fast draw. As the US marshal, he risks his life to bring law to a lawless land. When a new railroad route is planned to pass through Navajo territory, Chet fights to get the Indians a contract to supply the locomotives with coal. But the corrupt politicians in Tucson and D.C. have other ideas. The coal contract means millions, and the ruthless Tucson Ring will do anything to get it - even if it means killing a US marshal.

Long John O'Malley is only 19 years old, but he's no greenhorn. The oldest and boldest of the O'Malley brothers, Long John cut his teeth tangling with Comanche at the tender age of 16. He risked his life to rescue a group of captive women settlers - and forged his own destiny as a hero in the making.

Unemployed ranch hand Jim Dailey only wants some matches when he rides up to a store in Willow Grove, Kansas, on a dusty, fateful summer day. What he gets when he steps inside, though, is anything but. Faced with two bloodthirsty outlaws and no other choice, Dailey pulls his six-shooter... and sets himself on a long and twisted path of triumph and tragedy.

A drunken plan to make some quick money with two friends landed drifter Whit Ralston in the Yuma Territorial Prison - the worst prison in Arizona. Now he's doing hard time in the inferno the inmates call the Hell Hole, counting the days until his release. He's vowed never to do anything so stupid again, but that becomes a hard promise to keep when his crazy cellmate starts talking about a load of stolen gold stashed up in the mountains.

All he wants is a job as a ranch foreman. He'd tried in Montana, but ended up in a gunfight with a pair of ugly-looking brothers over a horse. Leaving one dead and the other swearing revenge, Norm figures it'd be wise to make himself scarce. He heads south, to Nebraska. Instead of work, though, he finds something he never expected--a partner. Edith is a beautiful young woman with a sordid past of her own.