J. T. Edson

Edson decided to leave the Army on his marriage and as he and his wife began to raise their six children, he sought to turn his hobby of writing into an income to support his family.

He won second prize (with Trail Boss, first published in 1961) in the Western division of a literary competition run by Brown & Watson Ltd, which led to the publication of 46 novels with them, becoming a major source of revenue for the company.

His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late 1960s, which gave Edson exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from Westerns into the Rockabye County, the science-fiction hero Bunduki[5] and other series.

Short[6] but strongly built for his height, Dusty is exceptionally fast with his twin Colts and commonly considered the fastest gun in Texas, a skilled rifle shot though usually preferring a Winchester carbine as being more suited to his small stature, and unequalled in hand-to-hand combat either unarmed or with a sabre.

Dusty is a capable cattleman and knows few equals as a horseman, successfully breaking and later using as his regular mount a paint stallion that crippled Ole Devil when he tried to ride it.

[7] Rarely some third party is mentioned as having been capable of equalling one of Mark's feats of strength (one instance is in The Fortune Hunters, but was sabotaged and led to the crippling of the other man).

Lon (Loncey Dalton Ysabel; also "Cuchilo", the Knife, among the Comanche; or "Cabrito", literally "little he-goat" and hence a synonym for one meaning of the English word "Kid", to Spanish-speakers) is the third member of the principal triumvirate of the Floating Outfit stories.

When encountered in The Ysabel Kid, Loncey is using a carbine-stocked Dragoon Colt faut de mieux as a long gun, his muzzle-loading rifle having recently been destroyed, but later in the story he acquires a brass-framed "Yellow Boy" Winchester 1866 with which he rapidly becomes expert.

Having spent his late adolescence as a smuggler on the US/Mexico border, the Kid has contacts on both sides of the law in Mexico and knows the Spanish spoken by bandits or hidalgos alike.

From then on Waco idolises Dusty and eagerly joins him when his employer, Clay Allison, offers him the chance, knowing that he himself is a poor role-model for the young man.

He later becomes a lawman independently from the Floating Outfit, first as an Arizona Ranger, then as the sheriff of Two Forks County in Utah, and eventually (by the time of Hound Dog Man) a United States Marshal.

He is able and willing to put his medical knowledge to good use on the trail, delivering several babies, treating gunshot and other wounds, setting bones, and on one occasion ("Statute of Limitations" in Sagebrush Sleuth) caring for a small mining town that has fallen victim to typhoid.

In his youth Hardin was involved in several adventures concerned with Texas's drive for independence from Mexico, and later he was commissioned as a general in the Confederate States Army where he was considered an extremely able commander.

Connected" ranch intending to devote himself to the cattle business which he, along with a number of like-minded men, viewed as Texas's best immediate prospect for economic recovery, but he suffered an irreparable spinal injury when thrown by a horse he was considering buying and spent the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.

Connected with a stern but fair hand, relying on the Floating Outfit to carry out his wishes and often sending them to the aid of friends or relatives who had need of their talents.

Although formerly having been in arms against Mexico, Hardin retains many important friends south of the border, including even one (Don Ruiz Villaneuva, in The Peacemakers) who fought on the Mexican side at the siege of the Alamo.

His eventual death is reported at the conclusion of Doc Leroy M. D.. Tommy (real forename unknown) is Ole Devil's companion in his earlier adventures, and his manservant during the Civil War and afterwards.

Tommy serves Ole Devil loyally and well, settling generally peacefully into American society although having to correct some individuals who take him for a meek Chinese immigrant who can be bullied with impunity.

When of comparatively advanced age (in Sidewinder) Tommy is still fit and strong, and in regular practice, enough to be capable of feats of tameshiwari that astonish a captured Waw'ai Comanche warrior.

[10] As presented in the books, she is a young woman in her late teens or early twenties who fled a convent school to join a freight-driving crew led by Dobe Killem.

Initially she made herself useful by stepping in for their drunken cook, but soon learned how to manage a team of heavy horses, fight with a whip, and shoot competently with either a .36-calibre Navy Colt or a Winchester carbine (both chosen to suit her smaller, less muscular frame).

In addition to her freight-driving skills, Calamity is a tough fist-fighter who is almost never beaten by a woman – not even a trained prize-fighter billed as the World Champion – and makes good use of Indian-style medicine learned from a Pawnee wise-woman (including an effective contraceptive method also known by Belle Starr, mentioned in Guns in the Night).

Although hot-headed and prone to both speak and act without thinking, Calamity is brave and determined, and regarded with affection by the Floating Outfit even as they wait for the trouble to start.

Although a good-looking, well-educated and gently-bred Southern girl, Betty possesses a strong streak of independence and has both the inclination and the aptitude to hunt stock-killing cougar backed only by a team of her own hounds.

On another occasion, Betty successfully cows an inexperienced outlaw gang by sheer force of personality, such that by the time she is rescued her kidnappers are willing to admit that they would likely have ended up paying Ole Devil Hardin to take her back.

Also in Rio Hondo War, Betty rescues Johnny Raybold from a murderous ambush, and the two soon become attracted to each other, not least over a shared interest in hunting; by the end of the story, Ole Devil has granted permission for the two to marry.

Edson explains it thus: "When supplying us with the information from which we produce our books, one of the strictest rules imposed upon us by the present-day members of what we call the 'Hardin, Fog and Blaze' clan and the 'Counter' family is that we never under any circumstances disclose their true identities or their current whereabouts.

and become increasingly close, culminating in Dusty pondering marriage in Guns in the Night (last book in Floating Outfit series) at the end of which he decides to settle down and "send for Freddie".

JT's political beliefs became more and more prominent in his writings, to summarise a few: There is a huge difference between the pace and complexity of the plots of Trail Boss (1963) and Diamonds, Emeralds, Cards and Colts (1986).

However, by 2005, his failing health forced him to retire from writing, frustrating him as he had been unable to complete the five tie-up titles for his respective series, including Miz Freddie of Kansas which was to have been an anthology of supposed anecdotes and reminiscences being told directly to the reader by Freddie Fog née Woods, as an aged octogenarian, with one story being how Dusty, Mark and Lon, his three primary protagonists, were killed fighting Mau Mau terrorists in Kenya in 1911.