Audiobooks by Johnny D. Boggs

"From nine-time Spur Award–winning Western author Johnny D. Boggs comes the incredible story of the biggest, longest, wildest cattle drive in America’s history—from the heart of Texas to New York City. Tom Candy Ponting was no ordinary trail boss. He didn’t smoke, chew, cuss, or even carry a gun. Unlike his competitors, he learned how to herd cows on a farm back in England—and how to handle cowboys in bareknuckle prizefights. But his skills and know-how were really put to the test when he accepts a bet he might live to regret: lead a cattle drive from Texas to New York City. Not one to back down on a dare, Ponting assembles the motliest crew of cowboys ever seen—Texans, Englishmen, Mexicans, Freemen, Cherokee—and charts a course through the unfriendliest country to move seven hundred head of cattle, never easy in the best of times. Along the way, they’ll cross railroads and rustlers, hucksters and hustlers, with detours and dead ends aplenty. But if they succeed, the team will make more than just a whole lot of money. They will make history. Inspired by the real-life adventures of legendary cattleman Tom Candy Ponting, Longhorns East takes listeners on an unforgettable journey as big and bold as America itself."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Tim Campbell (Narrator)

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Matthew Johnson, US Marshal

"They sing songs about Matthew Johnson. The hero of dime novels, Matt won national fame during a range war in Idaho when he shot and killed an outlaw—and former saddle pal. But the past seventeen years have been an alcoholic blur rather than a heroic journey. Gone are the days when he was a free-wheeling cowboy, swapping poems with his best friend on the cattle ranges. The West has modernized—and practically disappeared—when Matt arrives in Denver in 1894 as the newly appointed US marshal for the state of Colorado. The cowboy turned lawman inherits a state on the brink of collapse. The silver crash has ruined the economy, railroaders are striking, a range war is looming, corruption is rampant, and a rumored gold strike on the Southern Ute reservation threatens to turn into a bloodbath. Slowly, Matt realizes why he got the job. His supporters figure that the man who killed Jeff Hancock will either stay too drunk to realize what’s happening or take their bribes and look the other way. After all, the songs being sung about Matthew Johnson these days are more insulting than glorifying. Instead of the hero who stopped a range war, he is usually thought of as a man who murdered his best friend in exchange for the appointment as Idaho’s US marshal. And he hasn’t been sober in years. What no one has counted on is the love of a woman who has had her own share of hard times and bad decisions. Or the fact that there’s a special breed of man who will fight with his last breath to regain his dignity and self-respect. If Matt can overcome his demons and past, schoolkids might start singing a new verse to an old song."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Tim Getman (Narrator)

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A Thousand Texas Longhorns

"Multiple award-winning author Johnny D. Boggs, one of the most respected and popular writers of Western fiction, brings to life the harsh reality of cattle drives in a powerful, trailblazing adventure inspired by the harrowing true story of the1866 cattle drive from Texas to Montana--and the legendary man who dared the impossible... The Civil War is over. The future of the American West is up for grabs. Any man crazy enough to lead a herd of Texas longhorns to the north stands to make a fortune--and make history. That man would be Nelson Story. A bold entrepreneur and miner, he knows a golden opportunity when he sees one. But it won't be easy. Cowboys and bandits have guns, farmers have sick livestock, and the Army's have their own reasons to stop the drive. Even worse, Story's top hand is an ornery Confederate veteran who used to be his enemy. But all that is nothing compared to the punishing weather, the deadly stampedes--and the bloodthirsty wrath of the Sioux... This is the incredible saga of a man named Story. A true legend of the Old West. And the ever-beating heart of the American Dream."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Graham Winton (Narrator)

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Wreaths of Glory [Dramatized Adaptation]

"A disgraced Confederate soldier and two impressionable youths come up with a plan to organize a militia and give the Yankees a taste of militia warfare. William Clarke Quantrill was a hated name during the War Between the States by the Federals of the Union Army as well as by many non-combatants. Even the high command of the Confederacy distrusted him. But there were others who were passionate sympathizers. He was both friend and mentor but also manipulator and opportunist. Alistair Durant was someone who came to know him in all these guises. Durant was a young Confederate soldier captured by the Yankees and released when he took an oath never again to bear arms against the Union. He had a long walk back to his home in Clay County, Missouri. It is on this trek that Alistair meets another youngster Beans Kimbrough. The two become companions and then friends on the way to Clay County, and it is there that Beans will introduce Alistair to a man calling himself Charley Hart. Hart has a fantastic plan -- to organize a militia to fight against the Federals."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), A Full Cast, Amanda Forstrom, Andy Clemence, Audrey Bertaux, Bill Gillett, Bobby Aselford, Bradley Smith, Cameron Mcnary, Catherine Aselford, Chris Stinson, Colleen Delany, Danny Gavigan, Dawn Ursula, Deidra Starnes, Drew Kopas, Dylan Lynch, Elizabeth Jernigan, Eric Messner, Eva Wilhelm, Evan Casey, Gary Telles, Gregory Linington, Jacob Yeh, James Lewis, Jonathan Feuer, Jonathan Lee Taylor, Ken Jackson, Kimberly Gilbert, Laura C. Harris, Mort Shelby, Nanette Savard, Nick Depinto, Nora Achrati, Patrick Bussink, Patrick Stratton, Paul Reisman, Richard Rohan, Rose Elizabeth Supan, Ryan Carlo Dalusung, Scott Mccormick, Stephon Walker, Steve Wannall, Terence Aselford, Tia Shearer, Tim Carlin, Todd Scofield, Tracy Olivera, Yazmin Tuazon (Narrator)

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Summer of the Star [Dramatized Adaptation]

"I do remember my first love Mad Carter MacRae recalls in this memoir of his early life. Her name was Estrella O Sullivan. I met her the summer I turned sixteen back in 1873. The summer of 1873 marked my last drive up what these days they call the Chisholm Trail and what some were starting to call it back then. It was the first time I tasted oysters and the only time I pinned on a badge. It was the summer of longhorns of miserable heat of friendship and betrayal and of murder. In the end it was the summer the whole world came crumbling down on our United States. My world crashed too. See the summer of 1873 was the year I watched a bunch of men die. One of those men I killed. You never forget that either"

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), A Full Cast, Alexander Strain, Andy Clemence, Bradley Smith, Christopher Graybill, Colleen Delany, David Coyne, David Jourdan, Dexter Hamlett, Dylan Lynch, Eric Messner, Evan Casey, Gary Telles, James Konicek, Jeff Allin, Joe Brack, Jonathan Watkins, Ken Jackson, Kimberly Gilbert, Matthew Mcgee, Michael Glenn, Michael John Casey, Mort Shelby, Nanette Savard, Nathanial Perry, Nick Depinto, Nora Achrati, Richard Rohan, Rose Elizabeth Supan, Scott Mccormick, Steve Wannall, Terence Aselford, Thomas Keegan, Tim Carlin, Tim Getman, Yasmin Tuazon (Narrator)

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Buckskin, Bloomers, and Me

"What’s a sixteen-year-old boy to do when he learns that his stepmother and a local judge have murdered his father and now plan to kill him, too? Well, when it’s 1906, and you can play pretty good second base, you join a barnstorming baseball team making its way across Kansas. It also helps that the team is the Kansas City National Bloomer Girls. After all, who’d look for a runaway boy disguised as a girl on a women’s team that competes against town-ball teams of male players? Of course, it’ll take more than long hair, a Spalding glove, and a quick bat to stay alive. Luckily, another Bloomer Girl, Buckskin Compton, alias Dolly Madison, is on the dodge after some shootings and beatings in Wyoming—and he takes the kid under his tutelage. Staying alive won’t prove easy for either of the reluctant female impersonators as they deal with a budding romance, hitting slumps, a crooked manager, bean balls, drunken teammates, bank robbers, lousy umpires, a revolution for women’s rights, and a rapidly changing Western frontier. Baseball isn’t always fun and games—especially when one bad play might leave the both of you cut from the Bloomer Girls … or just plain dead. In a novel very loosely based on fact (Bloomer Girls teams of mostly women players did barnstorm across the country in the early 1900s), eight-time Spur Award winner Johnny D. Boggs blends America’s pastime with the American frontier. This episodic, tongue-in-cheek adventure showcases what made, and still makes, America and the Wild, Wild West great: Strong heroes. Stronger women. And a good, clean game."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Alex Boyles (Narrator)

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The Fall of Abilene

"Noah Benton, a teenager with a great memory, a head for arithmetic, and dreams of excitement, is hired along with his older brother to help drive a herd of Texas longhorns to Abilene, Kansas. But Noah’s trail boss happens to be John Wesley Hardin, a notorious killer who thinks Texas lawmen won’t look for a fugitive in a crew of hardworking cowboys. After Hardin sees a profit in Noah’s ability to count and memorize cards in gambling dens, Noah’s dreams of excitement quickly turn into nightmares—for Hardin will kill with little provocation. Earning the nicknames “Counting Boy,” “The Abilene Kid,” and “Abilene,” Noah survives the bloody journey to Kansas, only to learn that Abilene rightfully deserves its nickname as a Sodom or Gomorrah. In a town where anything goes, the marshal, legendary gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok, reluctantly forms a truce with Hardin—leaving Noah caught in the middle. As summer stretches into fall, Noah finds another friend, a special deputy named Mike Williams, who tries to keep Noah from stumbling on his way to manhood. In this well-researched historical novel, eight-time Spur Award–winning author Johnny D. Boggs chronicles Abilene’s last year as a cattle town, 1871, while humanizing Hardin and Hickok and painting sobering portraits of a city undergoing rapid change, and the never-changing challenges teenagers face on their path to adulthood."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Nick Sullivan (Narrator)

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Hard Way Out of Hell: The Confessions of Cole Younger

"In 1913, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Lawrence, Kansas, Massacre, former bushwhacker Cole Younger stands before a preacher at a tent revival. “I was, I remain, and I will always be a wicked man,” Younger states, taking a step toward salvation. And for a man like Cole Younger, there is much to confess."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

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MacKinnon

"Saddle tramp Sam MacKinnon is in trouble. Double-crossed by his partners after robbing a saloon and gambling hall, MacKinnon has been left behind in the mountains of southern New Mexico with busted ribs, a banged-up head, no gun, and no horse. And no chance—because aging lawman Nelson Bookbinder and his Mescalero Apache scout, Nikita—both made legendary by dime novels MacKinnon has read—are leading a small posse hot in pursuit of the bandits. Miraculously, MacKinnon escapes the law, finds his horse and rifle, and, despite his injuries, sets out on the vengeance trail. But fate has something else in mind for Sam MacKinnon. Miles away in the desert furnace between Ruidoso and Roswell, nineteen-year-old Katie Callahan has troubles of her own. Her mother has died of tuberculosis, and her worthless stepfather has abandoned the family, leaving Katie with her younger sister and five-year-old stepbrother, a busted wagon, a blind mule, little water and food, and her mother’s body that needs to be buried. When the wounded MacKinnon rides into that camp, he’s faced with a choice. Fate, however, still has a few other surprises in mind for the saddle tramp, the young woman, MacKinnon’s partners, and even that aging New Mexico lawman. Inspired by Pasó Por Aquí, the classic 1926 novella written by Eugene Manlove Rhodes—“The Bard of the Tularosa”—and filmed as Four Faces West (1948), seven-time Spur Award winner Johnny D. Boggs tells a story of the detours, road blocks, and sidetracks along the journeys to justice, love, vengeance, and redemption."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Ramiz Monsef (Narrator)

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Top Soldier

"William Lee Braden was no secessionist, no slave owner. In fact, when the polls opened in Jacksboro, Texas, on February 23, 1861, Braden rode twelve miles up Lost Creek from his small ranch not only to vote against secession, but on his ballot, right next to his signature, he wrote For the Union forever. But come the fall of 1861, William Lee Braden rode off to join his brother Jacob in Harrisburg to fight, not for the Confederacy, but rather to defend the state of Texas from invasion and occupation. Braden left behind him his wife, Martha Jane Pierce Braden, and his six-year-old son, Pierce Jonathan Braden. Certainly, one of the things Wil Braden, as well as the others from Jack County who had joined the army, had overlooked was that the warlike Kiowas and Comanches would seize the opportunity to wage a series of raids against the undefended ranches and farms they had left behind. Unlike many of the men who went off to war, Wil would return to Texas four years later with scars he tried to keep hidden and no desire to talk about his war experience."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Traber Burns (Narrator)

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Taos Lightning

"Fifteen-year-old Evan Kendrick has traveled from New Mexico Territory to Galveston with his father, Edward, who will be competing in a horse race that’s offering a $3,000 prize to the winner. But a terrible accident seriously injures Evan’s drunken father, forcing Evan to saddle up instead. This is no ordinary race. Running from Texas to New England, its course is eighteen hundred miles—maybe even longer—and Evan will be riding a barely half-broke mustang stallion that he and his father caught. He’ll be competing against all breeds of horses, ridden by professionals and amateurs from across the world. Although Evan has learned a lot about horses from his father, Edward has also taught his son that horses are good for nothing—“You ride one to death, you get another and do the same.” Luckily, but somewhat reluctantly, the race’s chief veterinarian, Patrick Jack, takes Evan under his wing. But a horse doctor can teach a hot-headed teenager only so much. For six weeks, Evan Kendrick will learn a lot about horses, riding, friendship, life—and himself. He’ll form alliances with two of his competitors, a Negro Seminole Indian scout named Dindie Remo and a hard-drinking young woman, Arena Lancaster, whose life has been harder than even young Evan’s. Evan will make enemies, too. He’ll see new country, and he’ll discover what America can offer, both good and bad. But to win this race—to even survive it—Evan will have to put his trust in a tough stallion the color of trader’s whiskey: a mustang named Taos Lightning."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Michael Crouch (Narrator)

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Greasy Grass: A Story of the Little Bighorn

"Johnny D. Boggs turns the battlefield itself into a character in this historical retelling of Custer’s Last Stand, when George Custer led most of his command to annihilation at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in southern Montana in 1876. More than forty first-person narratives are used—Indian and white, military and civilian, men and women—to paint a panorama of the battle itself. Boggs brings the events and personalities of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to life in a series of first-hand accounts."

Johnny D. Boggs (Author), Chris Abell, Donald Corren, Eric G. Dove, Jim Meskimen, Johnny Heller, Lloyd James, Michael Kramer, Sam Osheroff, Tanya Eby, Traber Burns (Narrator)

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