Central Kansas Library System

In the final volume of a trilogy, "the two-bit gunslinger," as Del Tackett is known, shows off his skills at poker in Shalak Springs, Colorado. The winnings include the saloon where the game was played, the saloon's comely bookkeeper, and her mule. By the author of Tackett and the Teacher.

"Shirley Benson was owner now of the beautiful Valle de los Reyes, mistress of the old Spanish ranch house and its faithful Mexican servants. On the night that her father was killed in a rustler's raid, she made the unpleasant discovery that the Box B ranch was heavily mortgaged and that most of her cattle had disappeared, stolen by the men who had murdered her father. With courage inherited from her pioneer forebears, she refuses to sign the quit-claim...

"$10,000: Dead or Alive. That was the price on Jack Rodiker's head. But after seven years on the run, the tough-muscled young cowpuncher had only one thing on his mind--vengeance. A woman's word had branded him an outlaw, and he'd come back to his home range to clear his name. "When I take her by the throat," he said, "she'll tell me what I want to know!" But the Santsander Valley was rumbling with a lot more than a worn-out murder charge. A bloody...