John D. Nesbitt

With a lot of rustling in the area, tensions are high and rumors are flying. Word's going around that some of the larger ranchers have hired gunman Wolf Carlton to protect their cattle. And now a couple of the smaller ranchers have been found shot to death. Unfortunately for Spencer Prescott, some people think he's the one killing the competition, not Wolf. Worse, some think Spencer is behind the rustling - which means Wolf will be looking to put...

Cowhand Lawrence Elwood investigates the theft of cattle from the Crown Butte ranch, but soon realizes that whoever is behind the missing cattle is also out to kill him.

"A stranger named Dunbar comes to the town of Dry Camp and goes to work at Rich Stanton's Clay Creek ranch. Soon after arriving, he and Whit Barnett ride out on a search party and find the body of old Ross Guilford. Both get fired when foreman Paul Kelso picks a fight with ranch hand Willard Brumley and Dunbar intervenes. Asking around, Dunbar learns that Guilford knew something about Brumley's wife, a beautiful woman of color who disappeared twenty...

"Del Rowland, working for Bill Overlin at the Spoke ranch, begins to doubt the boss's integrity when Overlin and others bully a homesteader named Holt Warren and goad him into a fatal gunfight. Dels curiosity increases as he gets to know Overlins stepdaughter, Lawna, and hears stories from saloon patrons. One of them is shot in the street at night. Meanwhile, the cattlemen step up their aggression by burning Holt Warrens buildings and running their...

"An aspiring Ohio transplant's dream of owning his own spread in turn-of-the-century Wyoming is put on hold due to a series of inconvenient murders. Earl Miner, who owns the Pick, makes no bones about insisting that every man who works for him file a claim to 160 acres under the Homestead Act and then sell it to him so he won't be troubled by competing ranchers in the Decker Basin. As soon as cowpuncher Reese Hartley bridles at that arrangement, foreman...

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.

When a stranger named Dunbar comes to Cantera, he shows interest in local history, especially Frenchman's Quarry and the death of the owner's son twenty years earlier. He asks about the town marshal and about Dolores Carreau, the Frenchman's widow. Then the murders begin.

"Lawrence Orme, who has left his work as a professor, comes to the countryside of Wyoming, only to find the body of a young man. He attends a meeting in town in which one of his neighbors is running for public office. Before long, this neighbor is found dead. Lawrence finds out that the unoffending neighbor was looking into the death of the young man, as part of his sense of obligation as a candidate for public office. An ally of Lawrence's, the hired...

"The Spoilt Quilt and Other Frontier Stories, edited by Hazel Rumney, features sixteen brand-new stories that will delight historical fiction fans. These stories capture the spirit of freedom and individualism in the evolving American frontier through the early 1900s and feature pioneering women of the West who face life-changing challenges in settings that are in stark contrast to civilized society. Ranging from high-action traditional Westerns to...