The Big Fifty

by Johnny D Boggs

Published 2 April 2003


Whiskey Kills

by Johnny D Boggs

Published 16 June 2010
His Arrows Fly Straight into the Hearts of His Enemies was the Comanche name given him by his father. But the Pale Eyes gave him a new name, Daniel Killstraight, and that was the name by which he was known after his return to the reservation of the Kowas, Comanches, and Apaches. He became a native police officer, called a Metal Shirt by the Indians.

When Toyarocho, drunk on contraband whiskey, rolls over onto the body of his four-year-old daughter, smothering her to death, Leviticus Ellenbogen, the new Indian agent, is appalled and wants Killstraight to find out who supplied Toyarocho with the whiskey. If it was a white man, Killstraight cannot make an arrest, but he can collect evidence. There is one clue. The whiskey Toyarocho had drunk was in a ginger beer bottle manufactured by Cox and Coursey Bottling Works of Dallas, Texas.

In the course of his investigation, Killstraight finds additional instances of whiskey running among the Indians, all of it in the same kind of bottles. But Killstraight is working against impediments other than not being able to arrest a white man. Teepee That Stands Alone, the dead girl’s grandfather, perhaps knows something, but he will not share it with a Metal Shirt.

If Killstraight leaves the reservation in the course of his investigation, he will have no authority at all. And the white men involved undertake to have Killstraight jailed for numerous infractions against territorial and federal laws as an opening strategy. There is an even more certain way of making sure that Killstraight’s investigation is stopped—permanently—and that is by killing him.

Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns—books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians—are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Greasy Grass

by Johnny D Boggs

Published 18 December 2013
Boggs brings the events and personalities of Little Big Horn to life in a series of first-hand accounts.

Hard Winter

by Johnny D Boggs

Published 1 December 2009
Weather and creaking joints permitting, Jim Hawkins could be found every weekend sitting in that rocker right outside the Manix Store in Augusta, whittling and spitting. But Jim Hawkins didn't say much. Few knew what age Jim Hawkins might own up to, but Big Clem Ellis said he'd heard that Jim Hawkins was fifty years old, which might explain why his hair was so gray, or why he needed a scarred hickory cane to push himself out of that rocking chair, especially when it got cold, and it got bitter cold in Augusta. Especially the past winter.

Folks figured the Chinooks would never get there, and the warm winds didn't arrive in time for many farmers. Come spring, homesteaders by the score gave up, saying good-bye to their mortgages, the unforgiving wind, and forlorn dreams. Still, Jim Hawkins said hardly anything. Ever. That's how Henry Lancaster felt.

That all changed when Jim Hawkins took Henry along on a scouting trip. The man who so rarely talked told his grandson how it was during that winter he could so clearly remember, the winter of 1866. Now that was a hard winter, harder than anyone living could remember, and harder than any winter since

Rio Chama

by Johnny D Boggs

Published 1 June 2009
After a priest is lynched, gunfighter Britton Wade is the only one left who can guarantee justice!

In Santa Fe, Jeremiah Cole has been convicted and sentenced to hang for the lynching of a priest. Still, most people believe Cole will never be executed. He is the son of Senator Roman Cole, a man with both the wealth and political power to stop the hanging. The odds are so good that Jeremiah Cole will escape execution at Chama, where he must be taken to be hung, that a reward is offered to anyone who will successfully transport the prisoner.

Britton Wade, a gunfighter and gambler, accepts the challenge. Wade's reputation as a gunfighter might stop most people dead in their tracks, but that's not likely to deter Senator Cole's riders. To further complicate his mission, Britton Wade is in dire health, and doesn't know just how much longer he has to live.

The greatest mystery of all is that Wade doesn't seem the least interested in the money. Why has Wade accepted such a dangerous challenge? What is he hiding from? Will he make it to Chama with the prisoner in tow alive? Rio Chama is a nail-biting classic Western from a modern master of the genre.

Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.