Western Fighters #9

When word spreads that the federal government is opening the Cherokee Strip to settlers in an 1893 land race, former cavalry man Fred Sutton sees his shot at a new life—but first he has to acquire a horse wild and ornery enough to outrun thousands of competitors across eighteen miles of Oklahoma prairie. After a week of grueling preparation with the untamed mustang Firebrand, Sutton faces an even tougher challenge: waiting in a registration line that stretches for miles and takes nearly three days to reach the window. With the starting gun about to fire, Sutton and Firebrand thunder onto the trail alongside dozens of other contestants, each desperate to claim their piece of land.

Dan Ballew just wants a peaceful weekend of sleep, but when a bank robbery erupts in the sleepy town of Lydon Hollow, he's mistaken for one of the robbers and thrown in jail. Now he's got to break out, track down the real bandits, and recover the stolen gold before Monday morning—or lose his job at the Bar-K Circle Ranch.

A war-weary veteran named Sloan Sayers returns home determined to build a schoolhouse and teach the children of Bakerton to use their minds instead of guns—a dream that puts him at odds with the town's rowdy troublemaker, Gamblin' Gould. When bank robbers take refuge in the school, Sayers must rely on his wits and the clever ingenuity of his students to handle the situation. It's a story about how education and quick thinking can triumph where violence would only create more problems.

In 1868, a wandering fiddler named Charlie Horn arrives at the Bar-O-Bar Ranch seeking work on a cattle drive to Dodge City—armed with nothing but his fiddle and an unusual gift for calming spooked cattle. When a stampede threatens the herd and later a Choctaw war party attacks under cover of darkness, Charlie discovers that his music holds power far beyond entertainment. A stranger's simple instrument becomes the outfit's most unlikely salvation on a treacherous thousand-mile journey through wilderness and danger.

In 1871 Washington Territory, ambitious businessman Doc Baker dreams of connecting Wallula and Walla Walla by rail—a vision his freight-hauling rival Ox Kirby dismisses as madness. Despite skepticism, sabotage, and a parade of obstacles from hostile terrain to ornery cattle, Doc drives forward, improvising ingenious solutions with Native American labor, a resourceful dog, and an unexpected material that becomes the railroad's trademark.

Russian Bill, a western enthusiast who's learned everything he knows about outlaw life from a book, encounters a would-be robber on the road to Tombstone—and decides his new acquaintance could use some proper instruction in the criminal arts. Bill recruits the man, Curly Hill, as his partner and drills him relentlessly on authentic bandit behavior, from the right dialogue to the correct saddle, all according to "the book." As the two embark on their first robberies and adventures, Bill's devotion to his literary playbook leads to a series of increasingly absurd situations that test whether life in the real West actually matches what's written on the page.