Description

When Doctor Clyde Evans is kidnapped from his home in the middle of the night to tend a wounded outlaw, Sheriff Ben Stillman's problems are only just beginning. Stillman tracks the doctor to a remote cabin deep in the Two Bear Mountains. He springs the doctor, shoots the outlaws, and confiscates the bank loot. He also arrests a beautiful young outlaw, Hettie Styles, who promptly puts a bounty on Stillman's head.

While Stillman waits for the sheriff from Sulfur to come for the stolen money and Hettie, he walks warily. All he needs is another bullet in his back.

Compounding his problems, his old foe Jacob Henry Battles rides into town with a steel hook replacing the arm Stillman shot off years ago before sending Battles to prison. Dying from consumption, Battles was recently let out of Deer Lodge Pen. He says he's in town merely to settle down, but after a shot is fired into Stillman's house in the middle of the night, the sheriff thinks Battles is out for revenge.

Meanwhile, Doc Evans must navigate more personal torments when young Evelyn Vincent, the waitress from Sam Wa's Café, professes her love for the older sawbones only weeks before Evans is due to be married to the Widow Kemmett!

As we've come to expect from Peter Brandvold, king of the fast-action, sexy, hard-hitting western novel, it's all here -- love and death, bullets and blood . . .