La Porte County Public Library System

"There was a new freighting company in Nebraska City. Ajax Overland, owned by Trace Bovard, seemed to be gradually drawing a noose around the neck of the freighting business, reaching out to absorb all the other companies, trying to buy them out, trying to force them out. Bovard had a plan. He could underbid contracts and overpay teamsters until his was the only company left. Then he could make the money back quickly by cutting wages and raising prices...

Young colt Sky was born with the urge to run. Alongside his band, he moves across the range searching for fresh water and abundant grazing. But humans have begun to encroach on Sky’s homelands. With fewer resources to share, Sky knows that he must leave if his family is to survive. He hopes that one day, he’ll be strong and brave enough to return and challenge the stallion to lead the herd. Being a lone wild horse in a vast landscape is not easy,...

"When Turquoise Ranch hand Curly Stevens goes into Flagstaff to meet a new employee arriving on the train, his first impression of Rob Barringer is how big and strong the tenderfoot is. Rob's eagerness to learn and his willingness to take on the most difficult jobs wins everyone over, including ranch foreman Jake Dunford, and Melanie Dunford, his beautiful daughter. Rob is well-educated, and his demeanor and intelligence catch the attention of Melanie,...

It is the fall of 1867. Twenty-two years have passed since Tim Colter and his family were ambushed on the Oregon Trail, forcing the young boy to grow up, forge ahead, and find an unlikely ally in one-eyed mountain man Jed Reno. Now a widowed deputy U.S. marshal and Civil War veteran, Colter is finally ready to remarry and settle down. But, when a dangerous new assignment becomes a life-or-death struggle for the soul of a town and the heart of its...

"Desperate to escape an unhappy marriage, Boston socialite Evelyn Perkins flees west in hopes of losing herself to the dusty frontier. But when her train is boarded by outlaws, Evelyn is taken for ransom. Despite her terror, Evelyn fears being returned to her husband more. Refusing to co-operate, she becomes the responsibility of a man whose steady gaze threatens to pierce her brave facade and reach the wounded heart within. Gabriel Sloan has his...

When logger Decker Galloway sets his sights -- and axes and saws -- on a lakeshore village inhabited by Norwegian settlers, Preacher and his friend, the warrior Tall Dog, remind the Norwegians of their Viking ancestry and declare war on Galloways' gang of bloodthirsty gunslingers.

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...

"Thomas Fitzpatrick always longed for something more -- to see more, do more, and be more. At just seventeen, he leaves home and sails up the Mississippi River in the winter of 1822. Crossing paths with the famed explorer, William Clark, marks the beginning of his epic adventures as a fur trader, leading him through trials and triumphs that are beyond anything he could have ever hoped for. Fitz's adventures unfold as he travels with a diverse group...

"Captured in the last year of the Civil War, Lucas Cain becomes a POW in the infamous Andersonville prison. There he learns how to survive the cruelty of the Confederate guards, and the perfidy of a few who are prisoners themselves. When the war ends, Lucas and over 2,000 others crowd aboard the riverboat Sultana, which was built to carry cargo, not men. After an unforeseen event occurs, Lucas finds himself further adrift. Returning home to Cape Girardeau,...

The Reed family struggles to survive the wagon train journey from Illinois to California as members of the ill-fated Donner Party.