Out of the Ashes was a smash. The series would continue for the next twenty years, winning Bill three generations of fans all over the world. The series was often imitated but never duplicated. “We all tried to copy The Ashes series,” said one publishing executive, “but Bill’s uncanny ability, both then and now, to predict in which direction the political winds were blowing brought a certain immediacy to the table no one else could capture.” The Ashes series would end its run with more than thirty-four books and twenty million copies in print, making it one of the most successful men’s action series in American book publishing. (The Ashes series also, Bill notes with a touch of pride, got him on the FBI’s Watch List for its less than flattering portrayal of spineless politicians and the growing power of big government over our lives, among other things. In that respect, I often find myself saying, “Bill was years ahead of his time.”)
Always steps ahead of the political curve, Bill’s recent thrillers, written with myself, include Vengeance Is Mine, Invasion USA, Border War, Jackknife, Remember the Alamo, Home Invasion, Phoenix Rising, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge, and the upcoming Suicide Mission.
It is with the western, though, that Bill found his greatest success and propelled him onto both the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists.
Bill’s western series include The Mountain Man, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, MacCallister (an Eagles spin-off), Sidewinders, The Brothers O’Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter, and the upcoming new series Flintlock and The Trail West. Coming in May 2013 is the hardcover western Butch Cassidy, The Lost Years.
“The Western,” Bill says, “is one of the few true art forms that is one hundred percent American. I liken the Western as America’s version of England’s Arthurian legends, like the Knights of the Round Table, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Starting with the 1902 publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister, and followed by the greats like Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and of course Louis L’Amour, the Western has helped to shape the cultural landscape of America.
“I’m no goggle-eyed college academic, so when my fans ask me why the Western is as popular now as it was a century ago, I don’t offer a 200-page thesis. Instead, I can only offer this: The Western is honest. In this great country, which is suffering under the yoke of political correctness, the Western harks back to an era when justice was sure and swift. Steal a man’s horse, rustle his cattle, rob a bank, a stagecoach, or a train, you were hunted down and fitted with a hangman’s noose. One size fit all.
“Sure, we westerners are prone to a little embellishment and exaggeration and, I admit it, occasionally play a little fast and loose with the facts. But we do so for a very good reason—to enhance the enjoyment of readers.
“It was Owen Wister, in The Virginian who first coined the phrase ‘When you call me that, smile.’ Legend has it that Wister actually heard those words spoken by a deputy sheriff in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, when another poker player called him a son-of-a-bitch.
“Did it really happen, or is it one of those myths that have passed down from one generation to the next? I honestly don’t know. But there’s a line in one of my favorite Westerns of all time, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, where the newspaper editor tells the young reporter, ‘When the truth becomes legend, print the legend.’
“These are the words I live by.”
TURN THE PAGE FOR AN EXCITING PREVIEW!
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
Present a Blazing New Series
FLINTLOCK
He is brave, tough as leather, takes no prisoners, and has left behind a trail of deadly enemies—outlaws he’s hunted down or killed with the cold heart of a man used to violence. A feared bounty hunter and the scourge of bad men everywhere, Flintlock carries an ancient Hawken muzzle-loader, handed down to him from the mountain man who raised him. He stands as the towering hero of a new Johnstone saga.
BLOOD QUEST
Busted out of prison by an outlaw friend, Flintlock joins a hunt for a fortune—a golden bell hanging in a remote monastery. But between the smoldering ruin of his former jail cell and a treasure in the Arizona mountains there will be blood at a U.S. Army fort, a horrifying brush with Apache warriors, and a dozen wild adventures with the schemers, shootists, madmen, and lost women who find their way to Flintlock’s side. From a vicious, superstitious half-breed to the great Geronimo himself, Flintlock meets the frontier’s most murderous hardcases—many who he must find a way to kill . . .
On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.
CHAPTER ONE
“I’m gonna hang you tomorrow at sunup, Sam Flintlock, an’ I can’t guarantee to break your damned neck on account of how I never hung anybody afore,” the sheriff said. “I’ll try, lay to that, but you see how it is with me.”
“The hammering stopped about an hour ago, so I figured my time was near,” Flintlock said.
“A real nice gallows, you’ll like it,” Sheriff Dave Cobb said. “An’ I’ll make sure it’s hung with red, white and blue bunting so you can go out in style. You’ll draw a crowd, Sam. If’n that makes you feel better.”
“This pissant town railroaded me into a noose, Cobb. You know it and I know it,” Flintlock said.
“Damnit, boy, you done kilt Smilin’ Dan Sedly and just about everybody in this valley was kissin’ kin o’ his. Ol’ Dan was a well-liked man.”
“He was wanted by the law for bank robbery and murder,” Flintlock said.
“Not in this town he wasn’t,” Cobb said.
The sheriff was a middle-aged man and inclined to be jolly by times. He was big in the belly and a black, spade-shaped beard spread over the lapels of a broadcloth suit coat that looked to be half as old as he was.
“No hard feelings, huh, Sam?” he said. “I mean about the hangin’ an’ all. Like I told you, I’ll do my best. I’ve been reading a book about how to set the noose an’ sich an’ I reckon I’ll get it right.”
“I got no beef against you, Cobb,” Flintlock said. “You’re the town lawman and you’ve got a job to do.”
“How old are you, young feller?” the lawman said.
“Forty. I guess.”
“Still too young to die.” Cobb sighed. “Ah well, tell you what, I’ll bring you something nice for your last meal tonight. How about steak and eggs? You like steak and eggs?”
“I don’t much care, Sheriff, but there’s one thing you can do for me.”
“Just ask fer it. I’m a giving, generous man. Dave Cobb by name, Dave Cobb by nature, I always say.”
“Let me have my grandpappy’s old Hawken rifle,” Flintlock said. “It will be a comfort to me.”
Doubt showed in Cobb’s face. “Now, I don’t know about that. That’s agin all the rules.”
“Hell, Cobb, the Hawken hasn’t been shot in thirty, forty years,” Flintlock said. “I ain’t much likely to use it to bust out of jail.”
“You’re a strange one, Sam Flintlock,” the lawman said. “Why did you carry that old gun around anyhow?”