Sidewinders

Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, two aging cowpokes and friends for years, have seen their share of cattle drives, shootouts and bust-ups. They do their best to stay on the right side of the law, and never go looking for trouble, but it seems to find them just the same. In Arizona Territory, they get stuck in the midst of a battle between competing stagecoach lines. Of course, a pretty woman who happens to own one of the lines has a lot to do with it, and things aren't quite what they seem.

In the west, there's always work for the kind of men willing to get their hands dirty from rounding stray cattle to stringing barbed wire. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are just such men. Now they've been hired for the one job they've never tried: wearing badges in a little stain of a town called Whiskey Flats. What Bo and Scratch don't know is that a gang of outlaws is bent on burning down the town the Sidewinders have been hired to protect. With only a passing acquaintance of the law, a keen sense of self-preservation, and a range-war gathering round them, Bo and Scratch need a good plan or it's a one-way ticket to Boot Hill. They'll also need a little luck, a whole mess of bullets, and the courage to stand tall and shoot true.

William Johnstone's towering Mountain Man and The Last Gunfighter series are epics of the frontier. Now, with J.A. Johnstone, he has created Sidewinders, a wild, rollicking ride alongside two hardheaded cowboys with a knack for staying on the wrong side of the law but for all the right reasons... Sometimes, it's bad to be good. That's what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man's bacon. The catch: this mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That's when they discover that the thieves aren't who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all the kind that can steal your heart. For Scratch and Bo, this gold mine might make them rich. But it's more likely to get them killed just as soon as they can figure out who wants them dead...

Sometimes when a man's luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink, than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens and the killers have a personal vendetta against Bo and Scratch. As the only hope for a besieged town, Creel and Morton now have a chance to become real heroes - that is, if they don't get their heads blown off the minute they stick their snoots out of the door.

Two years after Wild Bill Hickok made his mark on Deadwood, Scratch Morton and Bo Creel make theirs. Their job is guarding gold shipments from the mining camps shipments that keep getting hijacked by a gang called the Devils of Deadwood who plunge pitchforks into their victims' bodies. With Thanksgiving approaching, Scratch just wants to carve a turkey with a handsome widow woman at his side. Course, when the U.S. Army comes to the rescue, all hell breaks loose. The widow gets taken hostage. So do a bunch of soldiers. Now, Scratch and Bo are going after missing gold and a band of vicious killers in the heart of a winter storm. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

If there's anything better than coming home to Texas, it's getting paid to do it. For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler, Texas for trial. Little do they know that one of the criminals, the one that's a beautiful woman, is the most dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and another double cross - until Scratch and Bo are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash through the land of their birth ...or the land of their death...

There's nothing like family. At least that's what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo's family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he's in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman. With Bear Creek in an uproar, a man with Bo Creel's face and body is about to kill again. And the worst is still hovering on the horizon: a family secret that could turn Bo's hair bone-white.

Bo Creel is back at his family's Star C Ranch in Bear Creek, Texas. Along with his buddy Scratch, he's finding out that home is where the hell-raising is. A rival ranch is trying to drive the Creel family out of business, using any means necessary. For Bo, Scratch and Bo's nephew Lee, always suckers for a pretty face, come three ladies. Two to melt hearts and one to blur the battle lines between the ranches. Desperate to raise cash and save the Star C, the Creels set out on a cattle drive to the Gulf of Mexico. That's when their rivals strike a devastating blow by rustling the herd. Now, Bo & Scratch, madder than two wet hens, must assemble a ragtag army of what's left of the cattle drive crew to recapture a stolen herd and make it to the Texas coast in time to save the Creel family's future - while a relentless enemy is about to unload the bloodiest mayhem to ever drench Texas...

Two hard luck, hard-living cowboys, Bo Creel and Scratch Morton, are the heroes of this new adventure by USA Today bestsellers William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone--in a bloody all-out battle for one family's survival. Texas, Bloody Texas Bo Creel is back at his family's Star C Ranch in Bear Creek, Texas. Along with his buddy Scratch, he's finding out that home is where the hell-raising is. A rival ranch is trying to drive the Creel family out of business, using any means necessary. For Bo and Scratch, always suckers for a pretty face, come two young ladies who just might blur the battle lines. Desperate to raise cash, the Creel family sets off on a trial drive south to Rockport and a thriving cattle market on the Gulf of Mexico. That's when their rivals strike a devastating blow. Now Bo and Scratch are madder than two wet hens. Assembling a ragtag army of aging, crusty cowboys who've seen their share of gun battles, Bo and Scratch need to recapture a stolen herd and make it to the Texas coast in time to save the Creel family's future--while a relentless enemy is about to unload the bloodiest mayhem to ever drench Texas . . .