COVER GALLERY: BUSHWHACKERS

BUSHWHACKERS

By B.J. Lanagan

Cover art by Bill Dodge
(except book 7)

This nine book series was published by Jove. First book appeared in July 1997 and the last January 2000.
B.J. Lanagan was a pseudonym used by Robert Vaughan.

When the Civil War was over, the regular soldiers of the blue and gray returned to the peaceful lives they had known before. Not so for Win and Joe Coulter, members of Quantrill’s Raiders, the most brutal gang of Yankee hatin’ cutthroats ever assembled. They returned not as heroes, but as wanted men. Now they’re committed to a lifetime on the edge – experts with guns, with women, and with keeping just ahead of the hangman’s rope…

Like others in Missouri, Win and Joe Coulter didn’t take sides during the war. Until a band of marauding Yankees brutalized and murdered their parents. They had nothing left but each other and a desperate thirst for vengeance. Then they met William Quantrill and joined his bloodthirsty Raiders. Killing men at the drop of a hat, the Coulter brothers became two of the most wanted men in the West. And learned just how sweet – and deadly – revenge could be…

After the fall of the Confederacy, every one of Quantrill’s Raiders was a wanted man. But in San Saba, Texas, Yankee hatin’ and baitin’ were still favourite pastimes. Lured there by a promise of easy money, Win and Joe Coulter joined forces with a fiery redhead in a plan to rob her lover – the richest Yankee in the county. Win was happy to oblige the woman, in more ways than one. Because for men with a score to settle, the war wasn’t over – it had only just begun…

Win and Joe don’t like getting shot at, especially by varmints who don’t have skill enough to kill them. Then, after fending off an unsolicited attack, they find themselves a genuine lady in distress – bound, gagged, the works. Her name’s Pamela Wellington, and her daddy owns Camelot, a bright, shining sixty-thousand-acre kingdom in the middle of Texas. But like that golden ranch of yore, there’s foul-smelling evil afoot. And it’s not Joe Coulter’s boots…

Someone’s about to mess with the Bushwhackers. And that means someone’s about to be messed back.

All Win Coulter wanted was a nice hand of poker. But his hand was hotter than the Devil’s coffee mug, and he ended up winning the deed to a Belle Springs saloon named the Desert Flower. Now Win and his brother Joe, have a place to drink for free.

But Belle Springs is run by a sheriff as crooked as an old man’s spine. He runs his own watering hole, and he doesn’t cotton to competition. So it looks like the Bushwhackers will have to ante up a special “sheriff’s tax” – or get out of town.

Yeah, right.

Normally the Coulter brothers didn’t pay any mind to some varmint’s love life. But Win and Joe were down to their last dollars, so they agreed to find the guy’s long-lost lover, a little filly named Cat Clay. It seemed like their easiest job yet. Except that Cat was living smack-dab in the middle of a Mexican ranch war with bullets flying thicker than blazes.

Now they have to find a ruthless killer, settle a ranch dispute and rescue a very lovely lady in distress without ending up six feet under. All in a day’s work for these two men from Missouri…

Epitaph, Arizona. Nice place. Beer’s cold, at least. But Win and Joe barely get two drops to their lips before the shootin’ starts. When the smoke clears, a marshal and two lowlifes are dead, and the Coulter brothers are hip deep in a war.

On one side’s the ranchers. Other side’s the miners. Who’s good and who’s bad ain’t the issue. Who’s gonna survive is. And with the Coulters in town, every two-bit gunslinger’s chances just dropped to zero.

These ain’t the kind of fireworks Win and Joe were expectin’. The coldhearted massacre of a Bushwhacker’s family turns their Fourth of July festivities into a funeral. All signs point to the work of Kansas Charley Beckett, a Jayhawker who rode against the Bushwhackers during the war – and who lusts to gut every rebel soldier who ever forked a horse.

Now, the only red, white, and blue Win and Joe want to see are the red of his blood, the white of his eyes, and the blue of his body as it hangs from the gallows…

All Win and Joe want out of the tiny town of Sulphur Springs is a cold beer, a hot bath, and some warm company for the night. But Win’s company offers more than he bargained for when she confides that her brother has been murdered by an outlaw rustler bent on ruining every rancher for miles around. It’s more than the Marshal can handle, but word is that it’s something the Coulter brothers can…

The Coulter brothers have gone their separate ways for the time being. While Joe’s strikin’ gold, Win is being tracked by someone with a well-placed burr under his saddle…

But what really rankles Win is his less-than-hospitable welcome in Horseshoe, Nevada. After being left for dead in the street, all Win wants is a good meal, a cold beer, and the sultry coos of a soiled dove. All that stands in his way is a no-good sheriff, whose mouth is faster than his draw. Killing the man gets Win a date with the gallows. But you can’t count one Coulter out while his brother still has the gumption – and the guns – to do something about it…