Central Kansas Library System

In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers...

"In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, and writer. That is all fact. Everything She Didn't Say imagines Carrie nearly ten years later as she decides to write down what was really on her mind during those adventurous nomadic years. Certain that...

"Whip Station, a critical stop on the Butterfield stagecoach line, is dead smack in the middle of no-man’s land. The lawless call it an easy target. Joe O’Malley calls it home. If anybody can tame a wild, violent territory, it’s the seasoned frontiersman. So can his family, who have the same pride and honor coursing through their veins. Helping to plant roots is his son Jackson, a former wrangler married to a steadying force of...

For Gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt. A year ago, he felled sixty-two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican herd before it. In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak is awe of a last great heard to the south-but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory. None but Gage Jameson...

"On the lawless frontiers of the American West, there is one rule every outlaw should remember: Never cross a mountain man like Matt Jensen. Not if you want to keep breathing... No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That's the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to--dazed and confused--until he slowly pieces together what happened. The...

"It's 1852. The wounds of the Mexican War are healing. Regis Royle, co-owner of a steamship fleet, has made it out alive, relatively unscarred and with enough profit and foolhardy ambition to envision a new life in south Texas. With the help of his crack-shot kid brother Shepley, his glad-handing riverboat partner Cormac Delany, and his old friend, raw-edged former Texas Ranger Jarvis "Bone" McGraw, Regis is laying claim to the prime jewel in a magnificent...

"Smoke Jensen is mighty proud of his son Louis for finishing law school. But he can't help being a little disappointed that Louis isn't returning to the Sugarloaf Ranch. Instead, he's setting up his own law practice in nearby Big Rock--a career choice that turns out to be every bit as dangerous as fending off cattle rustlers. The boy's first case lands him smack in the middle of a heated dispute between two riled-up ranchers over water rights. If...

During a thirteen hundred mile journey from Kansas to the Bitterroot Mountains, Caleb O'Toole faces deserts, tornadoes, wolves, and the infamous Blackstone Gang as he tries to honor his promise to his dying mother and keep his sisters safe.

Recounts Will Cody's, later known as Buffalo Bill, legendary Pony Express ride where he covers 322 miles, using twenty-one horses, and taking over twenty-one hours to complete.

In 1869, a curious horse saves the day when outlaws try to steal the gold spike intended to ceremoniously complete the railroad tracks that stretch from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean.