When Fergal O'Brien sells a bottle of his universal remedy to the dying Leland Crawford, Leland makes a miraculous recovery, for several minutes. Then he drops dead. But before the end Leland bequeaths to Fergal his beloved Clementine, a 250-foot sidewheeler that once ruled the Big Muddy, until it sank.Worse, Leland was in debt and now the creditors expect Fergal to pay up. With Fergal having no money, minstrel Dayton Hyde offers him a way out, but only if he kills Marshal Swift. To avoid carrying out this unwelcome task, Fergal will need to use all his cunning or like as not in this wet weather, he'll share the fate of Clementine.

The stage magician Malachi Muldoon is the world's most dangerous practitioner of the arcane arts with his performance of the notorious bullet catch. And his show in Bear Creek draws the interest of Adam Clements, and Deputy Hayward Knight, although for very different reasons. While Clements is keen to join Malachi on stage and became part of his act, Hayward is out to try and solve an old mystery: it seems that wherever Malachi performs, a trail of bodies is left behind.Before long, Adam and Hayward are embroiled in Malachi's web of deception. Can they unmask the guilty when they are forced into a showdown with a man who hides the truth in plain sight?

Jeff Steed rode into Carmon looking for work, but when he got caught up in a bank raid he found himself running from both Sheriff Cassidy Yates and the bank raider Blake Kelly. To escape from the net that was inexorably closing in on him he assumed the identity of a dead man. But as that man was the leader of a supply convoy, he had to undertake a hazardous journey across the Barren Plains to the silver miners at Bleak Point. With the convoy being escorted by the lawman who had been trying to catch him and the bandit he double-crossed hiding out in the Barren Plains, can Jeff ever hope to survive?

When Galen Benitez killed Mike Donohue's wife, Mike vowed to get his revenge that very day. But it took five long years before he tracked the outlaw down to the inhospitable region known as the Cauldron. Here, Mike meets the beguiling Lucy Reynolds who is searching for the legendary lost city of Entoro, a place rumored to have its streets paved with gold. As Mike suspects that Galen might also be searching for the treasure, he decides to help her. With Galen still at large, and now Lucy's jealous admirer determined to kill him, Mike will need his trusty six-shooter to ensure that he isn't the one who is dead by sundown.

In a travesty of justice, bounty hunter Brodie Latimer's sister Lucinda is found guilty of murder. Thwarted, when a witness is killed, but convinced of her innocence, he vows to find the real killer and, as more of Hamilton's leading figures die in mysterious circumstances, the clues lead him to Derrick Shelby, a man known as the Devil's marshal.The only trouble is, Derrick died a year ago. How can Brodie clear his sister's name and bring the guilty to justice when the killer appears to be the specter of a long dead lawman?

When Leopold Hopeman bequeaths his fortune to the townsfolk of Little Creek, they use the money wisely and found the prosperous Hopeman Town. But with the booming settlement attracting men who want only personal gain, Mayor Tucker hires former Pinkerton detective Nimrod Dunn to find out why the fortune is now being squandered. Nimrod soon uncovers the likely culprit, but his investigation takes a strange twist when he learns that Mayor Tucker has a dark secret and that he might not be the benevolent man everyone thinks he is. With Nimrod both carrying out an investigation for the mayor and at the same time investigating him, he'll need all his cunning to uncover the truth while staying one step ahead of the many guns lining up against him.

When a game of poker ends in acrimony Sheriff Cassidy Yates has to step in to resolve the dispute. After jailing one man he reckons the matter will end there, but that very night one of the players is killed and another is thrown out of a hotel window. With the players having included a railroad man and an outlaw Cassidy reckons the incidents are connected to a silver shipment that is due to pass through the town shortly. Raids have been attempted before, but this time it looks as if the men hired to protect the shipment are involved in a plot to seize it. Even with brutal raiders and corrupt railroad men to defeat Cassidy vows that this is one raid that will never happen.

Six western short stories with a sting in the tail.Once Upon a Time in Mirage – Tucker Crowley and Durango Jones share a cell in the jailhouse, and they both have a story to tell.Last Throw of the Bones – Bounty hunter Broughton McKay visits NeetaanTakaTa for advice, but he'd be better off not knowing his fate.Return to Purgatory – Somerville Durant seeks answers about his past, but does he have a future?Five Hundred Dollars for a Dead Man – Clarence Lear gets more than he bargained for when he calls on the services of manhunter Mortimer Drago.The Finest Deputy in the West – Six men apply to be Sheriff Callaghan's new deputy and only the finest lawman will get the job.The Man Who Shot Garfield Delany – Frank Beckett relives the day he became a legend, an event he's regretted ever since.

Having finally become a wealthy man Fergal O'Brien no longer has to sell his universal remedy to cure all ills, but that leaves him with the problem of what he wants to do instead. An opportunity arises when he comes across a theater that has been abandoned after the untimely death of its owner Harold Beaumont.Fergal sets out to bring his skills as a showman to a larger audience, but he soon faces plenty of problems. The theater has a poor reputation, it's haunted by the ghost of a pirate and, worst of all, the gunslinger Laramie Todd wants a regular pay-off or he'll burn the place to the ground.As the theater has never made a profit, to succeed in his new venture Fergal must work out how Harold ever managed to pay Laramie in the first place, a mystery that can only be solved by confronting the curse of a long-buried pirate.

When fossil-hunter Jim Dragon is on his way to Bear Creek to sell his latest discovery, he goes to the aid of a woman in distress, Elmina Fay. Unfortunately, Pierre Dulaine takes advantage of the situation and steals his fossils. Jim vows to reclaim his property and Elmina offers to help him, but only if he'll do something for her. She has heard a tale about the bones of a winged horse being found nearby and she wants Jim to find Pegasus for her. At first, Jim is skeptical about embarking on such a mission, but before long he discovers that the truth behind the tale is even stranger than he could ever have imagined.

After the death of his long-time partner Nathaniel McBain forms a new partnership with Spenser O'Connor, a man he'd ridden with before he'd turned his back on a life of crime. Spenser claims that he, too, wishes to lead an honest life and he helps Nathaniel with his task of transporting prisoners to Beaver Ridge jail.Despite carrying out his duties with distinction, Nathaniel fears what would happen if temptation were to come Spenser's way, and their mission to transport Irvin Bess to jail does just that. Irvin escapes before they can take charge of him and Spenser wants to help with the search. Unfortunately, it seems that Irvin has a stash of ill-gotten gains leaving Nathaniel to deal with the possibility that his uneasy partner is more interested in finding the cash than the prisoner.

The arrival of Jim Dragon and Pierre Dulaine in Monotony gives Sheriff Cassidy Yates plenty of problems when they both claim to be the owner of a wagonload of valuable cargo. Unbeknown to them the wagon also contains a rusty lump of iron, which turns out to be the infamous Bar-Z branding iron, also known as the cursed brand.Fifteen years ago a fierce range war had raged and the iron had been used to brand its mark into human flesh. Now its presence stirs up old hatreds and it's not long before a body turns up branded. With the tension in town rising Cassidy must expose the culprits before a new, even deadlier conflict erupts.

Sheriff Cassidy Yates reckoned he'd foiled a bank raid in Monotony, but then he discovered that a safe deposit box had been broken into. Nobody knew what had gone missing, but Cassidy suspected that the robbery was connected to the infamous gunfight that had erupted in the Red Eye saloon two years earlier, an incident in which five men died.Severin Lorde never paid for the crime he committed that day, but in a twist of fate he was appointed as the sheriff of Carmon. Cassidy was determined to prove that Severin had a murderous past, but to bring a fellow lawman to justice he will have to risk not only his life, but his faith in the law he has sworn an oath to uphold.