WILD
BILL HICKOK
JUDD COLE
Reprinted from Steve Myall's Western Fiction Review blog...
A series of eight books published by Leisure Books from
February 1999 to May 2001. Judd Cole is a pseudonym used by John Edward Ames.
The books weren't numbered, but are shown in the correct order.
Marshal, gunfighter, stage driver, and scout, Wild Bill
Hickok had a legend as big and untamed as the West itself. No man was as good
with a gun as Wild Bill, and few men used one as often. From Abilene to
Deadwood, his name was known by all—and feared by many. That’s why he was hired
by Allan Pinkerton’s new detective agency to protect an eccentric inventor on a
train ride through the worst badlands of the West. With hired thugs out to kill
him and angry Sioux out for his scalp, Bill knew he had his work cut out for
him. But even if he survived that, he still had a worse danger to face—a
jealous Calamity Jane.
Wild Bill Hickok was a legend in his own lifetime. Wherever
he went his reputation with a gun proceeded him—along with an open bounty for
$10,000 for his arrest. But Wild Bill was working for the law when he went to
Kincaid County, Wyoming. Hundreds of prime longhorn cattle had been poisoned,
and Bill was sent by the Pinkerton Agency to get to the bottom of it. He didn’t
expect to land smack dab in the middle of an all-out range war, but that’s exactly
what happened. With the powerful Cattleman’s Association on one side and
land-grant settlers on the other, Wild Bill knew that before this war was over,
he’d be testing his gun skills to the limit if he hoped to get out alive.
Even among the toughest hardcases in the West, Abilene,
Kansas, was known as pure hell on earth, a wide-open wild town that was reined
in only briefly—when Wild Bill Hickok was its sheriff. Ever since he rode out
of Abilene, Wild Bill had never wanted to go back. But now he had to. A lot of
people were dying there. The Kansas Pacific Railroad was laying track where
somebody obviously didn’t want it, and bullets were flying thick and furious.
The Pinkerton Agency needed their best operative to get to the bottom of it and
that meant only one man—Wild Bill. But as hard as it was for Wild Bill to go
back, he knew there was a bigger challenge ahead of him—staying alive once he
got there.
When the Danford Gang terrorized Arizona, no one—not the
U.S. Marshals or the Army—could bring them in. It took Wild Bill Hickok to do
that. Only Wild Bill was able to put them in the Yuma Territorial Prison, where
they belonged. But the prison couldn’t hold them. The venomous gang escaped and
took the Governor’s wife and her sister as hostages. So, it was up to Wild Bill
to track them down and do the impossible—capture the Danford Gang a second
time. Only this time, the gang’s ruthless leader, Fargo Danford, had a burning
need for revenge against the one man who had put him and the gang in prison in
the first place, a need as hot as the scorching Sonora sun—and as deadly as the
desert trap he had set for Bill.
All Wild Bill Hickok wanted as he set out for Santa Fe was a
place to lie low for a while, to get away from the fame and notoriety that
followed him wherever he went. But fame wasn’t the only thing that stuck to
Wild Bill like glue. He’d made a lot of enemies over the years. And one of
them, Frank Tutt, has waited a good long time to taste sweet revenge. He knew
he was ready for him—ready and eager to make him pay. But he was in no hurry.
After all these years he could wait a bit longer, long enough to play a little
game with his legendary target. Oh, he would kill Wild Bill, all right—but
first he wanted Bill to know what it was like to live in Hell.
Deadwood, South Dakota, held a special place in the pantheon
of frontier hellholes. Even to a man like Wild Bill Hickok, that was the
toughest town in the West, a town where only the strongest and most daring
could survive. But that’s exactly where Wild Bill had to go, whether he liked
it or not. He was sent there by the Pinkerton Agency to investigate reports of
stealing at a particularly dangerous mine, dangerous even by Deadwood
standards. The mine guarded by Regulators, vicious hardcases who made sure no
one interfered with their plans. Three Pinkerton men had already been killed
when they went up against the Regulators—and Bill was determined not to be the
fourth.
The U.S. Army needed help. Someone seemed intent on driving
the Sioux off their reservation. Someone was slaughtering their animals and
poisoning their water. Were these the acts of renegades, like some thought, or
something far worse? Whoever was responsible, the army knew it wouldn’t be long
before the Sioux fought back and left the reservation for the war path. The
army also knew there was only one man who could restore peace before all hell
broke loose—Wild Bill Hickok. Bill had to ride point on a dangerous trail drive
to bring cattle to the reservation before the simmering Sioux were pushed too
far. But this was no ordinary cattle drive—it was a trip through pure hell,
with enemies on every side.
Leland Langford, owner of the Overland Stage and Freighting
Company, had a dangerous but essential job and he knew there was only one man
for it, the legendary Wild Bill Hickok. Leland knew that only Wild Bill could
ensure that an important gold shipment travel safely by stage from the Black
Hills to the U.S. Mint in Denver. With Wild Bill as driver, the stage had to
make it through. But there was an even more important part of Bill’s mission.
Bill had to break up one of the cleverest and most vicious rings of thieves
ever to terrorize the West, and send one message loud and clear: Steal gold
from the U.S. Treasury and you’ll face the harshest law in the West—gun law.
******
Two artists fronted the books, Ken Laager’s work appeared on
book one, and probably book seven (but not confirmed). All
the other books used paintings by Shannon Stirnwiss (although book eight isn't confirmed).
