John D Nesbitt

"Reese Hartley has come to Wyoming to settle on his own land. But his cattleman boss expects his hired men to turn their homestead claims over to him. Hartley resists and is let go. He meets a woman named Muriel. She has come west to look for land, but her cousins want to exploit her. A cowboy is found dead on the range, and an underage female cousin of Muriel is found dead. This girl, Nancy, has a history of flirting, and suspicion falls on Hartley....

In 1890s Wyoming, seventeen-year-old Alden Clare assumes the responsibility of earning enough money to buy back his family's foreclosed land, taking care of his older brother's family, and helping the attractive daughter of a homesteader who is being harrassed by ruffians.

"Tommy Reeves and his pal Red Armstrong make friends with the Mexican people who live near the ranch where they work. Their foreman tells them to stay away from the Mexican girls, but the boys do not heed the warning and are fired. Then they find out that Vinch Cushman, their former employer, is trying to force the Mexican people off their land by damming the creek that supplies their water. When Red goes to sabotage the dam, he is shot dead. Tommy...

A stranger named Dunbar comes to the town of Winsome, on the plains of Wyoming, in the 1890's. Is Dunbar a range detective? Some kind of troublemaker? Or just a drifter? The cowboys get to resenting him, and some are unhappy to find him developing an acquaintance with the wife of the man who plans to change the plains by developing a dam and reservoir near the town.

"Jord Blaine, one of the riders for the Skull outfit, falls out of favor with the foreman and goes to work for a rancher named Carlson, building fence with a young man named Jimmy Baker. Blaine and Jimmy finish the job and go their separate ways. Blaine finds work with an outfitter who is going to take out a group of deer hunters. During the hunting expedition in the mountains, the outfitter is killed by a shot that seems to be intended for Blaine....

Ed Dawes, just a young boy when his beloved Pa-Pa was murdered in cold blood, holds on to the memory of that day and years later, when he comes across the face of the killer again, he begins to plot his revenge.

Dunbar, working on a ranch in the Niobrara country in Wyoming, connects the death of a hardscrabble homesteader with the death of an old horse trader some fifteen years earlier. As Dunbar goes to work on a corral project in town and then on fall roundup, more murders take place--a wandering drunk who has picked up gossip in an alehouse, and then the proprietor of the alehouse. People who know too much are being silenced. An old woman named Verona...

"Shortly after Dunbar goes to work at the Hook ranch, a ranch hand who aspires to marry the cook's niece is found dead. The niece, Vivian, works at the mercantile, and her boss seems to be fond of her. Another cowhand on the ranch also fancies her, but he, too, ends up dead. Dunbar and Edwin "Rye" Ryerson, the cook who tells the story, go to a local brother to learn more. Back in town, Dunbar and Rye learn that Madeline, a street girl, has been killed....

"Con Men and Carved Birds! Lawmen and artists! Aebelskivers and cabbage. Spur-Award winner Richard Prosch has roped together an exciting new collection of stories with themes as vast as the wide open frontier and as close as the human heart. Waking Face - A sleepless man is tortured by the lost face of his wife's killer-a visage he can't remember, but at the same time, will never forget. Hard Times for the Vanilla Cream Kid - a would-be bank robber...