Gun for Hire

LANDON AND LISSIE–HOW DOES THEIR STORY COME ABOUT? (AND A GIVEAWAY!)–by Cheryl Pierson

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Hi, everyone! Now that LANDON is HERE, and the entire GUN FOR HIRE series is complete and available, I just wanted to talk a bit about this book that was so dear to my heart–and the series that has been a wonderful success for all of us!

Caroline Clemmons’ book, SHAD, was just released three days ago, and Winnie Griggs’ book, LUKE, came out on August 1st! Y’all know by now, this is a 10-book, multi-author sweet historical western set that contains stand-alone stories but with the common thread of a hero that lives by the gun–somehow–could be good, could be bad. AND, each of these heroes has their own unexpected way love comes to him and changes his life forever! Here’s a collection of the covers of all the books in the series, created by Charlene Raddon! And let me just say, they are ALL swoon-worthy, and every book is a new discovery of action, love, and a final happy-ever-after ending–so what more could anyone ask for?

Covers of all books in Gun For Hire series

When I started thinking about the hero for this story, I knew I had to have a person who was a good, decent man. But in his eyes, something so terrible has happened to his beloved younger sister there is nothing he can do but take action for justice for her–and he is determined to get it, no matter what it costs him. He has a healthy dose of mystery in his personality, and we don’t know whether he is on the side of the law or not–or what lengths he will go to for his vengeance.

Alissa has been in a tight spot for many years now. After her own mother dies, her father has married a much younger woman. When the woman dies almost as soon as their baby is born, it’s up to Alissa to step in and raise the boy, Zach, even though she’s only 14 at the time. With a no-good gambler for a father, her life has been misery to try to provide even the most basic necessities for her younger brother. When her father is killed, she sees it as both a blessing and a curse. Set to travel to Indian Territory for the land rush of 1889, she has no choice but to continue with the plans her father has made and try to see it through alone with a 5-year-old to care for. To me, that took a huge amount of courage!

As the story unfolds, all we have to go on in judging Landon’s actions and personality is the same thing Alissa can see in him when she first meets him and gets to know him through their time together. By now, she is a good judge of character, after living the life she’s lived, but she barely knows him. Can she trust him?

Here’s their first meeting–and what a meeting it is! Alissa learns a lot in just a very few minutes!

EXCERPT:

Lissie’s head came up, her attention immediately arrested by the dark, piercing, eyes of the tall man who had just entered. He removed his hat as he came through the doorway, revealing black, too-long hair that reached his collar and fell in unruly, black spikes across his forehead.

He was tall, his hair as dark as Zach’s, with the same obsidian eyes and olive skin. He carried Indian blood, that much was obvious—but what could he want with her?

He stood beside their table, towering over them, and the barest hint of amusement entered his brown eyes, crinkling the corners upward.

“Miss Devine?”

“Yes—I—”

“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Landon Wildcat.”

“I’m Zachary.” Zach put his hand out, and Land took it, the corners of his firm, sensuous lips tilting upward. “Everyone just calls me Zach.”

“Hello, Zach. It’s very good to meet you.”

“Zach—” Lissie started, but she was ignored as the conversation continued without her.

“This is my sister, Mr. Wildcat. Her name’s Alissa, but everybody calls her Lissie. Just like everybody calls me Zach. And we—we had a dog named Nashoba…a long time ago.”

“Ah. Wolf—in the Choctaw language.”

“Hey! Do you know it?” Zach’s surprised joy was evident. “My mother was—”

“Yes.” Land cut Zach off and Lissie noticed a fleeting look of pain that came over his face, then was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Yes,” he said, more gently. “I know it.”

Land turned to Lissie. “My apologies, ma’am. I didn’t mean to intrude, but I was told that you and your brother plan to be in the wagon train that’s heading for Indian Territory come Monday morning. Is that true?”

Lissie nodded. “Yes—will you please sit down with us?”

There was uncertainty in Land’s eyes, but Lissie leaned forward and earnestly assured him, “Indians are allowed here, Mr. Wildcat.”

Caught off balance at her unassuming candor, he gave a quick grin. “Yes, ma’am, I know. But I wouldn’t want to cause your reputation any harm. Me being Indian and all…”

Lissie’s glance flicked to Zach and back to Land’s questioning gaze. “I have nothing to fear on that count, Mr. Wildcat. Zachary and I have had every kind of insult known thrown at us. We’ve heard it all before.”

Land pulled out a chair and positioned himself facing the door, his back to the wall. He shrugged, meeting her eyes. “It still hurts, when you’re that age.” He glanced at Zach. “And please just call me Land—that’s what my friends call me.”

“Will you be going West with the wagons, Mr. Wildcat? Ah-Land?” Lissie raised a bite of the succulent beef to her mouth.

“I’ll be the scout.”

“Oh…”

“I’ll come right to the point, ma’am. Wagon train’s no place for a woman alone—especially a woman and child with no man.”

Lissie’s skin flushed with anger. She tried to keep her voice calm as she spoke. “Are you warning me away from going, Mr. Wildcat?”

He grimaced at the return of the formality, watching her a moment before he answered. “No, ma’am,” he said finally. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Fact is, I…I know this wagon master, Bill Castle.”  He frowned. “He’s…ah…not someone I’d trust to be alone with a woman—just a word of caution.” He spoke slowly, choosing his words with care.

Lissie daintily wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Why are you telling me this? Truly, are you trying to scare me?”

He shook his head. “No. Just warning you. I know you two are alone. You’ll be the most obvious target.”

Lissie smiled, but she had to force it. “I assure you, sir, I’ve handled far rougher men than this Mr. Castle, I believe. And I’ve held my own. You must have heard of my father, Happy Devine, gambler extraordinaire.” She said it with a dash of mockery she couldn’t hold back. “I’ve dealt with everything life’s thrown so far. I don’t believe Mr. Castle will be the exception.” Bitterness seeped into her words. “And if you know I’m alone, you also must be aware that my father is dead.”

Land leaned forward and lowered his head a fraction, veiling his expression. “Yes, ma’am. I know.” Slowly, he raised his dark, tempestuous gaze to hers once more. “I was the one who…I was there.”

For a moment, Lissie thought she had to have misunderstood. But no. His eyes told her all that he’d kept from saying—for Zach’s benefit, she was sure. Not only had he been “there”—he had pulled the trigger. How could a man who possessed such a heartbreakingly handsome smile be a killer? How could she have invited her father’s murderer to sit at the same table with her and Zach?

But, she had to know one thing—and everything depended on his answer. Her gaze arrowed to his and held. “Was he cheating?”

The question took Land by surprise, she could see. He slowly leaned back in his chair, his near-black stare puzzled. But he wasn’t a man accustomed to wearing his thoughts in his expression, and in the next instant, a curtain slid into place, transforming him, hiding anything that may have given Lissie a hint as to his feelings.

Some of this series is available in paperback and in Kindle, and LANDON is one that can be purchased in either format—and, hopefully, soon, in Audible, as well.

BLURB FOR LANDON

Alissa Devine finds herself in an unthinkable situation when her father is murdered, and she’s left to raise her young brother, Zach. With $22 to her name and her no-account gambler father’s burial to pay for, Lissie has no choice but to carry on with her father’s plan to take part in the Oklahoma land run. But single women aren’t allowed on the wagon train.

Landon Wildcat’s mission for months has been to find the man who abducted his younger sister. His search ends when crooked gambler Happy Devine gets what he deserves at the end of Land’s gun. But that act of vengeance leaves Lissie and Zach alone with no man to accompany them on the wagon train.

Wagon Master Bill Castle hires Land as his scout; a devil’s bargain—for both of them. Land offers Lissie his protection, suspecting the unscrupulous Mr. Castle has indecent intentions toward her.

When one of the settlers is murdered, Land takes the outlaws on in a desperate battle to protect the only witness, and nearly pays the ultimate price. Land’s life hangs in the balance, but the wagon train moves on, callously deserting him and the teen boy he saved, along with Lissie and Zach.

Through the hardship, Lissie and Land both realize how much they love one another, and what they have come so close to losing. Though danger lurks around every curve in the road, Lissie believes with all her heart there is a place for their small band of settlers in this untamed Territory. Now that love has finally come, will Fate allow a miracle for their happiness with this new beginning?

I’m giving away TWO KINDLE COPIES of LANDON today! Here’s my question for the day:

Do you think you could have traveled from another part of the United States to settle in Indian Territory during the Land Run of 1889? What would you do for a living? Where would you settle–near a town or out in the country away from others? Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win!

AMAZON GUN FOR HIRE SERIES PAGE

ORDER LANDON HERE

I love series like this one. The heroes and heroines are all different because they come from varying backgrounds and places, but the heroes have something in common that holds the thread of the series together. I have loved every single one of these books as I’ve read them, and I think you will, too!

CHERYL’S AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE! 

HISTORY OF MARTY ROBBINS’ “EL PASO TRILOGY”–and a GIVEAWAY–by CHERYL PIERSON

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Hi, everyone–I did a series on “learning history through songs” a while back, and I just knew I had to include this “series” of songs by one of my favorite songwriters/balladeers, the incomparable Marty Robbins. This isn’t specific history, but these songs give us an idea of how life was for this particular gunfighter, then for his love, Feleena, and then how a modern-day man feels such a connection to it all. I love that there is “history” as we think of it, and then the modern-day connection to it all to “complete the circle.”

How many songs do you know that had sequels to them? Remember “back in the day” when recording artists would sometimes “answer” a song with one of their own? Well, if you love Marty Robbins like I do, you’ll know that his song El Paso had not only one sequel, but two, and he was working on a third sequel when he died in 1982! I think that’s a “record” for musical sequels, don’t you? I love ballads, or story-songs, and to find out that there were sequels to my all-time favorite one was pure pleasure!

El Paso was written and originally recorded by Marty Robbins, and was released in September 1959 (I was two years old at the time, but Marty was my man from the minute I heard this song!) Though it was originally released on the album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, within a month it was released as a single and immediately became a hit on both the country and pop music charts, reaching NUMBER 1 IN BOTH at the start of 1960! But that wasn’t the end of it at all—it also won the Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording in 1961, and with good reason. It still remains Robbins’ best-known song, all these years later.

 

Wikipedia states: It is widely considered a genre classic for its gripping narrative which ends in the death of its protagonist, its shift from past to present tense, haunting harmonies by vocalists Bobby Sykes and Jim Glaser (of the Glaser Brothers) and the eloquent and varied Spanish guitar accompaniment by Grady Martin that lends the recording a distinctive Tex-Mex feel. The name of the character Feleena was based upon a schoolmate of Robbins in the fifth grade; Fidelina Martinez.

The storyline is this: The song is a first-person narrative told by a cowboy in El Paso, Texas, in the days of the Wild West. The singer recalls how he frequented “Rosa’s Cantina”, where he became smitten with a young Mexican dancer named Feleena. When the singer notices another cowboy sharing a drink with “wicked Feleena”, out of jealousy he challenges the newcomer to a gunfight. The singer kills the newcomer, then flees El Paso for fear of being hanged for murder or killed in revenge by his victim’s friends. In the act of escaping, the singer commits the additional and potentially hanging offense of horse theft (“I caught a good one, it looked like it could run”), further sealing his fate in El Paso. Departing the town, the singer hides out in the “badlands of New Mexico.”

The song then fast-forwards to an undisclosed time later – the lyrics at this point change from past to present tense – when the singer describes the yearning for Feleena that drives him to return, without regard for his own life, to El Paso. He states that his “love is stronger than [his] fear of death.” Upon arriving, the singer races for the cantina, but is chased and fatally wounded by a posse. At the end of the song, the singer recounts how Feleena has come to his side and he dies in her arms after “one little kiss”.

Robbins wrote two songs that are explicit sequels to “El Paso”, one in 1966, one in 1976. Robbins intended to do one more sequel, “The Mystery of Old El Paso”, but he died in late 1982 before he could finish the final song.

Feleena (From El Paso) (FIRST SEQUEL TO EL PASO)

In 1966, Robbins recorded “Feleena (From El Paso)”, telling the life story of Feleena, the “Mexican girl” from “El Paso”, in a third-person narrative. This track was over eight minutes long, but what a story it tells! This may be one you have not every heard before–I didn’t know it existed until I was an adult.

Born in a desert shack in New Mexico during a thunderstorm, Feleena runs away from home at 17, living off her charms for a year in Santa Fe, New Mexico, before moving to the brighter lights of El Paso to become a paid dancer. After another year, the narrator of “El Paso” arrives, the first man she did not have contempt for. He spends six weeks romancing her and then, in a retelling of the key moment in the original song, beset by “insane jealousy”, he shoots another man with whom she was flirting.

Her lover’s return to El Paso comes only a day after his flight (the original song suggests a longer time frame before his return) and as she goes to run to him, the cowboy motions to her to stay out of the line of fire and is shot; immediately after his dying kiss, Feleena shoots herself with his gun. Their ghosts are heard to this day in the wind blowing around El Paso: “It’s only the young cowboy showing Feleena the town”. Here’s a 1973 performance of the original EL PASO on Midnight Special!

 

El Paso City (SECOND SEQUEL TO EL PASO)

In 1976 Robbins released another reworking, “El Paso City”, in which the present-day singer is a passenger on a flight over El Paso, which reminds him of a song he had heard “long ago”, proceeding to summarize the original “El Paso” story. “I don’t recall who sang the song,” he sings, but he feels a supernatural connection to the story: “Could it be that I could be the cowboy in this mystery…,” he asks, suggesting a past life. This song reached No. 1 on the country charts. The arrangement includes riffs and themes from the previous two El Paso songs. Robbins wrote it while flying over El Paso in, he reported, the same amount of time it takes to sing–four minutes and 14 seconds. It was only the second time that ever happened to him; the first time was when he composed the original “El Paso” as fast as he could write it down.

Though there have been many cover versions of the original “El Paso” song, Marty Robbins put out more than one version of it, himself. There have actually been three versions of Robbins’ original recording of “El Paso”: the original full-length version, the edited version, and the abbreviated version, which is an alternate take in stereo that can be found on the Gunfighter Ballads album. The original version, released on a 45 single record, is in mono and is around 4 minutes and 38 seconds in duration, far longer than most contemporary singles at the time, especially in the country genre. Robbins’ longtime record company, Columbia Records, was unsure whether radio stations would play such a long song, so it released two versions of the song on a promo 45—the full-length version on one side, and an edited version on the other which was nearer to the three-minute mark. This version omitted a verse describing the cowboy’s remorse over the “foul evil deed [he] had done” before his flight from El Paso. The record-buying public, as well as most disc jockeys, overwhelmingly preferred the full-length version.

I can’t tell you how many times I played my 45 record of El Paso on my little portable record player as a little girl. As a country and western song, this has to qualify as my all-time favorite, and my husband even managed to record and adapt the ringtone for me on my iPhone, so when my phone rings it plays the opening words to EL PASO. This has been a huge embarrassment for my kids when they were teens and had to be with me in public, but also was a source of amazement for them when other people actually smiled and said, “Hey! Marty Robbins!

Now THAT recognition is the mark of endurance—a song that is still beloved by so many after over sixty years!

A picture of “retro” Rosa’s Cantina that hangs in my breakfast nook.

 

In the new sweet western historical series GUN FOR HIRE, all the heroes have something in common–they live by the gun, some of them walking a very thin line on the right side of the law. My hero, Landon Wildcat, is half Seminole/Choctaw Indian, and half white. He’s done a lot of things, including being a sniper and scout for the army. He has a good education, having been sent to a mission school. Yet…there is more than a hint of dangerous savagery in him, as the heroine finds out near the beginning of the story. I had to find the right mix of civilization and ruthlessness to make his character believable and make the heroine, Lissie, still fall in love with him. Though his story is not the same as the singer in these El Paso songs, he does share the longing for a brighter future, though he’s not sure at the beginning what that might mean, since Lissie is off limits to him for many reasons.

My LANDON is available for pre-order at Amazon, and will be released on July 15, 2025. BUT, there are 10 books in this wonderful series and they are coming out every two weeks, with Linda Broday, Margaret Tanner, and Charlene Raddon’s stories already being available, and Heather Blanton’s coming at the end of April!

 Aren’t these covers gorgeous? 

 

I’m offering a free copy of LANDON to one lucky commenter today (USA only)–so don’t forget to leave a comment and your contact info!

What’s your favorite classic country & western song? Is there a sequel to it?

Here’s the link for the series page. The link for LANDON is just below.

AMAZON GUN FOR HIRE SERIES PAGE

PREORDER LANDON HERE! 

I love series like this one. The heroes and heroines are all different because they come from varying backgrounds and places, but the heroes have something in common that holds the thread of the series together. 

CHERYL’S AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

Petticoats & Pistols