The Reluctant Avenger (Preview)

Preface

Dalton Brady pulled his hat low over his brow and shifted his weight in the saddle. They’d been waiting in that box canyon for an hour, and Benny Mulder still hadn’t shown.

He glanced over at the sheriff. Tom Porter was right beside him, as calm as if he was lounging on his front porch. Tom sensed his gaze and turned to murmur, “They’ll be here, don’t worry.”

Dalton scratched his neck under his collar. “I’m not worried. I’m just hot.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at the rest of the posse behind him: the other deputy, Henry Gibson, and about a dozen men from town. They were all sweating it out under the blazing Arizona sun because they didn’t have a choice. It was that or wait for Benny Mulder’s gang to ride into Lonetree and start shooting the place up.

Benny had bragged that he was going to come and fill Tom Porter full of lead.

It had all started when a couple of his men had blown into Lonetree roaring drunk. They’d been yelling and raising hell and shooting windows out. Tom had slapped them both in jail until they sobered up. When he let them go the next morning, he escorted them all the way out to the county line and told them to never come back.

What they did instead was go riding back to Benny with their long, sad story.

Benny had told them to saddle up, and had sent word to Tom that he was coming to kill him. Said that no two-bit lawman from a nowhere town like Lonetree was going to disrespect any of his men.

So here they were.

Dalton glanced over his shoulder again. Henry looked like he was about to throw up, and it figured. Henry was seventeen and had never been in a posse before. He hadn’t either, for that matter, but he didn’t feel as scared as Henry looked.

He had a few years on Henry. And there was something about Tom sitting in the saddle, as quiet as a cat waiting for a mouse, that calmed him. Tom was patient. Tom kept his head.

It was why he was still there after twenty years as sheriff, and why everybody he’d gone up against was dead.

Dalton’s eyes returned to the arroyo below. They were up in a box canyon overlooking its sandy bed. Benny and his gang would pass right beneath them.

They could see the whole length of the arroyo from where they were, a good two hundred feet of it. It was the longest, straightest stretch in the whole complex of canyons outside of town—the perfect place for a dry gulching.

Benny and his gang would use it because they didn’t know the country. They’d think it was more hidden than just riding down the long, open road into town, and they were right about that.

But what they didn’t know was that the canyon being a more hidden way didn’t mean it was a better way.

They were going to come around the rocky corner at the right end of the dry wash and parade right in front of them.

Tom seemed to read the thought right out of his mind. “Dalton, see if you can get down behind that big rock up there.”

Dalton tossed his reins down, threw a leg over his horse’s neck, and dismounted. He pulled his rifle out of its leather scabbard, cocked it, and walked over to a big boulder at the mouth of the blind canyon. He knelt down behind the boulder, pressing into it, and rested his rifle over the top. Snuggling into the sights, he trained the barrel on the right corner of the dry wash.

“I got it.”

Henry piped up from behind them. “I can do it, Tom.”

The sheriff half-turned his head to reply, “Dalton’s the deadeye, son. Let him do it this time. You’ll get your chance.”

Dalton stared down his rifle sights at that rocky corner into the arroyo, and as he watched, a glint of something metallic flashed off it. He raised his right hand, and everyone behind him hushed.

Closing one eye, Dalton curled his finger around the trigger. The first man around the bend was a blonde fellow riding a bay. He wore a top hat with a feather in it and a blue cavalry officer’s jacket with a row of shiny buttons all down the front.

It was Benny Mulder at last, and he and the men behind him were moving down the wash at a brisk trot. Dalton put his sights on Benny’s battered top hat, tracking it as it bobbed along.

He could feel Tom nudge his horse up behind him, heard him cock his rifle. Dalton’s gun barrel followed that bobbing top hat right down the wash, and when it reached dead center, he sighed, prayed, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a loud crack. Benny spun off the bay. The other men looked around in panic, then broke. Rifle fire exploded from behind Dalton as Tom and the other men in the posse opened up. Dalton levered his rifle like lightning and popped off three more shots.

When he looked up again, five bandits were lying dead on the ground, and the others were flying down the wash, trying to get away. Dalton turned his head as Tom sent his horse past him and down into the arroyo, and the posse poured out after him.

Dalton crouched behind the rock and laid down covering fire as the posse chased the fleeing bandits. Two more of the outlaws got shot out of the saddle, and the last bandit whipped his horse and rode for election.

Dalton drew down on him, but before he could fix him in his sights, the man twisted in the saddle and popped off a shot. Dalton watched in horror as Tom caught the bullet and went down before his eyes.

The outlaw who’d shot him was almost around the rocks at the end of the wash. Dalton levered the rifle and shot again. The fleeing murderer doubled up in the saddle, but disappeared around the rocks.

Dalton threw the rifle down, hopped up onto his horse, and sent it flying down into the arroyo. By the time he got to Tom, the other men had dismounted and were standing in a circle around him.

Dalton jumped down and pushed them aside. Tom was lying on the ground with his arms spread out and his clear blue eyes looking up at the sky.

Henry’s quavering voice sounded as stunned as he felt. “They got him, Dalton. They got him!”

Dalton pulled a hand over his mouth and looked away, and then looked back down at Tom. Somebody put a hand on his shoulder.

Dalton slowly knelt down on the ground beside Tom. He bowed his head, pressed a trembling hand to Tom’s chest, then moved it to the dead man’s face and gently closed his eyes.

Chapter One

“Lonetree was the luckiest town in Arizona to have a sheriff like Tom Porter.”

Dalton’s eyes moved from the pastor’s sad face to the solid bank of white flowers and the gleaming wooden coffin displayed behind him. Dalton’s jaw twitched, and he rubbed his nose. Tom was lying in the coffin, with his dark, curly hair slicked flat over his head. He was wearing a starched collar and his best suit with his badge shining on it. His fingers were laced across his chest, and peace rested on his face.

Tom had been his best friend.

“Most folks here know that Tom lost his wife a few years back,” Pastor Monroe went on solemnly. “But the whole town was Tom’s family. He took care of us like a good father takes care of his own. We never had any trouble when Sheriff Tom was on the watch.”

Dalton nodded. It was true. Tom Porter had taken his job more seriously than any man he’d ever known. Anybody who’d rolled into Lonetree looking for trouble had come crashing up against Tom Porter. They might’ve come riding in popping off guns, drunk and wild, but they all left grim as judges and stone-cold sober. Tom had made them sadder and wiser men.

His eyes went back to the coffin. As Tom’s deputy, Dalton had seen a side of him that few others had: the long, watchful nights that Tom had spent sucking back coffee to stay awake, the cold mornings that made him grunt when he climbed up into the saddle, the times his grief for his wife had stared out of his eyes, just for a second.

Not that Tom had ever complained. He’d just done his job.

Pastor Monroe lifted a handkerchief to his face, wiped his eyes, and composed himself before quavering, “I know some of you would like to say a few words about Sheriff Tom, so I’m going to step down and let you say your piece. Mayor Axelrod, come on up.”

The white-haired pastor held out a hand and beckoned to a handsome young man sitting on the front pew. Dalton adjusted one big shoulder uncomfortably and shot Clay Axelrod a dark glance.

Trust that one to grab a chance to flap his gums. Dalton sat ramrod-straight in the pew and watched the other man walk to the pulpit, scan the crowd grimly, and fetch a dramatic sigh.

Dalton’s mind wandered a bit in spite of himself. His friend had never had much use for Clay Axelrod. Tom had always described him as “all hat and no cattle,” and it was true. Like most politicians, Clay was a show horse, not a work horse.

Clay looked out across the church in silence, dabbed at his eyes, and pulled his mouth down like a child. “Sheriff Tom came to congratulate me on winning the mayoral election,” he told the crowd. “It was the first time I’d ever held office. I’m the youngest mayor Lonetree has ever had, and I’ll admit that I was nervous. But Sheriff Tom put me right at ease.”

The mayor’s eyes slid to the right side of the church, and Dalton’s shoulders stiffened in annoyance. Something else Clay Axelrod could be trusted to do was make eyes at every young woman in a crowd.

Even a crowd full of mourners.

Dalton’s eyes followed the direction of his glance. Mary O’Neill, the town’s teacher, sat on the far right side of the church. She was pretty as a picture, even in a black dress and bonnet. Her hair was a pale, silky blonde and shone against that dark background like gold dust blown across black velvet.

Mary stared down at her lap, and a wave of irritation crawled across Dalton’s face. He knew she was mortified.

He cleared his throat as loud as was seemly and glared at Clay, hoping he’d take the hint. Clay was making such a point of staring at Mary that every old lady in town would be saying that something had to be going on between them. That Clay Axelrod couldn’t keep his eyes off the pretty schoolmarm even at the sheriff’s funeral.

It wasn’t good for a teacher of small children to be the subject of gossip, and Clay knew it, but as usual, he was only thinking of himself.

“…Tom ran off the Benny Mulder gang,” Clay was saying, with another glance at Mary O’Neill. “He died protecting the people of Lonetree from a pack of vicious criminals, and let me be the first to say publicly what many have said privately. We all owe him our gratitude.” He paused, nodded at Dalton, and added: “Deputy Brady helped, too.”

The pastor stood up abruptly and walked to the pulpit. “Thank you, Clay,” he said, and ushered the surprised-looking mayor from his spot on the dais. The elderly pastor’s eyes scanned the crowd and lighted on Dalton’s face. “Dalton, why don’t you come up here and say a few words. Nobody knew Tom better than you.”

Dalton stared at him in dismay. Suddenly, every eye in the church was on him. But out of respect for Tom, he unfolded his tall body, shuffled past his pew mates, and walked to the pulpit, slowly and reluctantly.

He coughed into his hand and glanced out at the crowd. “Ah… well… Tom was a good man,” he mumbled. “He knew what to do, he did it well, and he did it with everything he had.”

He paused and blinked. A lump was forming in his throat that made it hard to talk. “Tom wasn’t here in church a lot because of his job, but I never knew a better Christian. He didn’t talk a lot about his faith, but he lived by what he believed.”

He raised his eyes to look out at the mourners and was touched to see tears on many faces. “If Tom told you something, it was so. If he owed you a nickel, he paid it. He never backed away from a fight, and he never started one.” He nodded and swallowed hard. “Tom was a good man.”

He glanced at the pastor, who blinked and smiled at him. He stepped down from the pulpit and went back to his seat to the sound of muffled weeping across the church.

The pastor returned to the pulpit, wiped his nose with the handkerchief, and said, “Let’s all end the service by singing Hymn 250.” He raised his hand to lead the congregation, and the wooden church echoed with their voices as they sang:

“There’s a land that is fairer than day
And by faith we can see it afar,
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

“In the sweet by and by

We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
In the sweet by and by
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”

Chapter Two

“Amen.”

Dalton opened his eyes and raised his head. The funeral was over; they’d prayed over Tom’s grave, and now it was time for the young men to lay him to rest.

Pastor Monroe nodded and dismissed the assembled mourners in the dusty graveyard behind the church. “God bless you.”

Dalton slowly put his hat back on his head and stared down at his friend for the last time. Other mourners approached the open grave and tossed handfuls of powdery dirt onto the closed casket.

A hand closed gently on his shoulder, and Dalton looked up to see the pastor’s sympathetic eyes gazing into his. “Are you all right, son? Twenty is awful young to lose a close friend.”

Dalton squinted up at the sky. It was a bright Arizona morning. The sky was clear as a bell and rolled on until you could almost see forever.

“It is,” he agreed quietly. “But Tom would want me to get on with it. I’m going to do my best.”

The older man’s hand gripped his shoulder. “If you want to talk, my door is always open,” he said softly.

Dalton glanced at him with gratitude. “I know it, Pastor.”

Pastor Monroe turned and walked him back to the church with one hand still on his shoulder. “Have you given any thought to what I asked you?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

The older man turned to look a question, and Dalton frowned.

“I still don’t feel right about it. There’s no way I could fill Tom’s shoes. But if the town knows that and still wants me to be sheriff, then I’ll do my best to be as much like him as I can.”

“That’s all anyone can ask,” the pastor told him with a smile. “But don’t sell yourself short, Dalton. We all have faith in you. You were the one to bring Benny Mulder down, after all.”

Dalton’s frown deepened, and he shook his head. “Tom would’ve gotten him if I’d missed,” he reminded the older man, and the pastor squeezed his shoulder again.

They walked around the side of the clapboard church and on to the front. Only a spindly metal fence separated the church yard from the buggies of departing mourners as they clattered past on Lonetree’s main street.

A solitary mourner lingered on the church steps, and the pastor turned to him and smiled. “I’ll see you soon, Dalton. Be sure to come to church when you can.”

“I will,” he promised and stood still until the older man had disappeared inside. When the pastor had gone, Dalton pulled his hat off and drifted up to where Mary O’Neill was waiting beside the church door.

Her eyes were full with sympathy as they rested on his face, and she asked, “Are you all right?”

He smiled at her. “I’m all right.”

A cloud crossed Mary’s clear brow, and her sky-blue eyes frowned into his. “I know what the pastor was asking you,” she quavered. “What… what did you tell him?”

He looked down at his boots. “I told him I’d be the sheriff, if they want me to be.”

“Oh.”

Dalton frowned, because there were tears in that little word. Mary’s voice had been so faint it had evaporated into the air. He looked away, off toward the street.

“I’m sorry, Mary.”

Her reply was so soft that he wasn’t sure he’d heard it right, but when she lifted her skirts and fled the churchyard, he knew.

“So am I.”

He stood there staring after her until her slight figure disappeared in a swirl of dark skirts and a whisper of rose water. He sighed deeply, put his hat back on his head, and walked off slowly toward the jail, in the opposite direction.

Chapter Three

Dalton opened the front door of the town jail and walked inside. Sunlight streamed onto the wooden floor through the front window of the sheriff’s office, and he could see every mote of dust in the air, every crisp piece of paper on the big wooden desk.

It was the first time he’d been there since Tom died, and it still felt so much like him in that room that Dalton almost expected to see his friend sitting behind that battered desk with his big boots stuck up on top of it.

He sighed and closed the door behind him. There was nobody in jail at the moment, but there were still things to tend to: he had to gather up Tom’s stuff from the office and take it back to his house in case anybody might want it.

He didn’t know if Tom had any relatives. Tom and Clara hadn’t had any kids, and Tom had never mentioned any brothers or sisters. Still, Dalton was going to gather his things, just in case.

His boots creaked on the wooden floorboards as he walked to the wall and took Tom’s hat down off a peg. He held it in his hands and looked down at it with a little smile. That beat-up gray Stetson had seen more than most men. The nick in the back brim showed where an Apache bandit’s arrow had almost taken off Tom’s right ear. The smudge on the crown had come from Big Jim Tattersall’s greasy wrench. He’d tried to brain Tom with it, but Tom had been slightly faster.

Dalton flipped the hat over. The lining had a slit that Tom had cut into it with a pocket knife, and Dalton pulled out the dollar bill that Tom had stuck into it and had always carried with him.

He’d found it in a dead gambler’s pocket. Tom had told him that the man had started a fight over a dollar and had been shot dead. “I keep it to remind myself to stay cool,” he had said. “Temper makes a man stupid.”

Dalton stared down at the crinkled bill in his hand, then took his own hat off, slowly cut a slit in the lining with his pocket knife, and stuck Tom’s dollar bill into it.

The door behind him opened, and Dalton turned to see Tom’s other deputy walk in. He nodded wordlessly and lifted Tom’s hat, and Henry Gibson reached out and took it.

The boy shook his head as he stared down at it. “Sure do miss Tom.” He sighed and handed the hat back. “I hear you’re gonna be the sheriff now.”

“They asked me to do it,” Dalton muttered, rubbing his nose. “Guess I’ll have to fill in until they can find somebody else.”

Henry’s freckled face looked puzzled. “What are you gonna do first?”

Dalton looked down at Tom’s hat. “Gather up Tom’s things and take ‘em to his house. After that, just the same as we have been doing. Benny Mulder and most of his gang are dead. I guess we have time to settle in.”

“I’m glad of that,” Henry muttered, and rubbed his neck.

Dalton stared at him. Henry was a freckle-faced kid, barely seventeen, and at twenty, Dalton wasn’t much older. But now that he was sheriff, Henry looked too young to him.

He was too young himself.

“Well, I’ll go over to the livery and check on Tom’s horse.” Henry sighed. “I guess we should keep it there until we can find somebody to buy him.”

Dalton frowned, but nodded, and watched Henry leave. It didn’t seem right that anybody else should ride Soldier.

Then again, nothing seemed right to him that day. But if there was anything he’d learned from Tom, it was that you had to keep going no matter how you felt. So he was going to.

He set Tom’s hat down on the desk, walked to the wall, and lifted a framed daguerreotype hanging on it. It was a picture of Tom and him and Henry, all standing in front of the jail with their rifles in hand. It had been their first day as deputies, and he’d been proud enough to bust his buttons.

Dalton’s smile faded. That was probably why Tom had the picture taken: to give them confidence.

Tom had been like a father to him.

A clock in the corner wound up and chimed off twelve tinny strokes, and Dalton stood there, listening to it fade back into silence. And because the office was silent and empty, and he was alone, he broke down at last, put a hand to his eyes, and wept.

Chapter Four

Mary O’Neill took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her lips, and turned to face her students. She’d been racked by evil dreams the night before, and her nerves were jumping that morning.

Her eyes moved to the big, ceiling-high schoolhouse windows. The windows faced the street, and the jail just happened to be directly across the road.

She bit her lip. She knew she shouldn’t, but she watched as the sheriff came out of the brick building and leaned against the door with his arms crossed.

Mary couldn’t resist letting her glance linger. Dalton Brady was a sandy blond with straight bangs that fell down into his eyes. He was tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, wiry, muscular. He had high cheekbones, dark eyebrows, and clear gray eyes.

He was her age, barely twenty, and he looked almost like a farm kid, but he wasn’t a kid and he’d never been a farmer. She was beginning to fear he never would be.

Dalton kept his temper and his own counsel, and she’d never heard him raise his voice. Before she got to know him, she had to watch what he did to sense what he was thinking, because he didn’t talk much.

He was Tom Porter’s son, just as sure as if he’d been born to him.

Mary frowned, closed her eyes, and forced her wandering thoughts back to the schoolroom. Her students deserved a bright, pleasant teacher, and she was going to give them one.

“Good morning, children.”

Twenty sleepy voices responded listlessly: “Good morning, Miss O’Neill.”

She turned to face the blackboard and wrote across it quickly in white chalk. “Now this morning, we’re going to do sums,” she told them, and scratched out a simple problem on the board. “Who can tell me what ten and five equal?”

She turned around to scan the room, answered not by a child but by the pop of pistol shots in the street. She dropped the chalk in dismay as all the children jumped up from their desks and raced to the front windows to see what was happening.

“Students, back to your seats!” she cried, and flew to the window to press her hands up against the pane. She saw a boy running down the street trailing a flurry of dollar bills and an angry knot of men chasing after him, yelling and shooting.

To her horror, Dalton stepped out into the street between the fleeing boy and the mob, and her fingernails curled painfully into her palms as he faced them down. Ten men with guns stopped dead in the road and glared at Dalton as the boy escaped.

Mary’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t,” she breathed, and the next thing she knew, she’d yanked the door open and was standing on the schoolhouse steps, frozen and breathless.

Dalton wasn’t even wearing a gun, and she closed her eyes, because it was her nightmare, coming horribly true.

Dalton crossed his arms and nodded to the men. “Morning.”

Mary’s eyes jerked to the gang. She recognized one of them, the town blacksmith, a giant of a man named Doug Booth. Doug was a redhead with a temper as fiery as his hair. Especially when he was drunk.

Doug pointed after the boy and shouted, “Don’t try to get in our way, Dalton! That kid just snatched twenty dollars off our poker table, and we’re gonna get it back!”

The other men nodded in agreement and Mary put a hand to her mouth. Now some of them were pointing their guns at Dalton.

“You men shot at a kid,” Dalton replied, in an even voice. “You’re not going to do it again. It’s my job to see that a thief gets punished.”

“Well, go do it then!” Doug snapped.

“I’ll take care of it,” Dalton told him. “You and your friends need to go back to the saloon and settle down.”

Doug swept Dalton with a scornful glance. “You needn’t act so high and mighty, boy,” he spat. “You’re not Tom Porter.”

Mary pinched her lips into an angry line, but Dalton’s expression never changed. “No,” he agreed, “but I’m the sheriff now. Go on back.”

The blacksmith pulled himself up to his full height and gripped his pistol in one big hand. His friends punched his shoulders indignantly.

“You gonna let that puppy talk to you that way, Doug? Bust his chops.”

“Yeah, Doug, show him who’s the big dog around here!”

Mary’s heart sank in dread as she watched Doug grin, hand his pistol over to one of his friends, and shoulder out of his jacket.

“Come on then, junior,” he shouted and beckoned Dalton closer as he marched out to meet him. “Let’s see what kind of a sheriff we got!”

Mary’s eyes widened in terror as Dalton straightened, put his weight on his back foot, and raised his fists. He stood there waiting, arms at the ready, as the big man charged him.

The blacksmith swung at Dalton, missed, and swung again as Dalton dodged away and circled him. Dalton ducked his head and circled again as his opponent’s face drew into a furrow of frustration.

“Stop running away, boy!” he jeered and jabbed at Dalton’s chin. He missed again and got his head snapped back when Dalton saw an opening and nailed his jaw.

“Hey!”

“Get him, Doug. Don’t let him trick you!”

Mary’s eyes went to the gang of men watching the fight. They were ginned up now, eager like the crowd at a boxing match, and they looked like they might all jump in at any minute.

“Get him, Doug!”

She scanned the street in desperation, looking for someone, anyone, to help Dalton face down the mob. But the street was empty and Dalton was all alone. He was going to be beaten to a pulp, and tears pooled in Mary’s eyes as she watched him circle a giant twice his size.

She turned, skirts swirling, and rushed inside to grab one of the older boys in class. “Isaac,” she told him urgently, “run to the livery, quick, and see if Henry Gibson is there. Tell him to come help, and to bring a pair of shotguns, because the sheriff needs him!”

Isaac gaped at her, and she pushed his shoulders impatiently. “Hurry!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She followed the boy with her eyes as he skinned out the back of the schoolhouse. Then she returned anxiously to the front steps.

Dalton was picking himself up off the ground, and he put up a hand to swipe his jaw. Mary saw a trickle of blood on his mouth, and she put a stricken hand to her own.

“That’s the way, Doug!”

“Pop him, Doug.”

Dalton put his fists up again, dodged a wild haymaker, and landed two lightning-fast strikes to the blacksmith’s gut. The big man staggered back, swung at him, missed, and circled warily.

“Go, go on back to the saloon,” Dalton panted, to howls of laughter.

“Yeah, I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, boy?” Doug crowed and swung at him again. Dalton dodged him and beat him back again. Right, right, cross. Dodge, gut, gut, right.

Howls of protest rose from the blacksmith’s gang of friends, and Mary stifled a scream as they broke at last and rushed Dalton. The first two men overwhelmed him, and for an instant she could only see their flying fists—but then a shattering boom made them all freeze and stare up the street.

Henry Gibson re-racked his shotgun and aimed it at the gaping crowd of men. “The next man to throw a punch gets blasted!” he yelled. “Get back and throw your guns down!”

The man stared at one another and then at him.

“Now!”

---

My new novel “The Reluctant Avenger” is coming soon! Stay tuned for the announcement!

Do you want more Western Adventure? Check out my latest Amazon Best-Selling novel, “The Homestead Defender”!

When the town’s Sheriff is killed by an outlaw’s bullet, Deputy Dalton Brady suddenly becomes Arizona’s youngest sheriff. The loss of his best friend and mentor is hard enough, but Dalton quickly finds himself thrust into a deadly maze of intrigue and revenge that threatens not just his life, but the lives of those he loves.

Is this new responsibility a burden too heavy to carry?

Mary O’Neill is in love with Dalton, but she hates his dangerous job. Mary is the town’s gentle schoolmarm, a girl who isn’t sure that she can marry a man who lives by the gun and who might die by it. When storm clouds gather over Lonetree, Mary’s resolve is tested as she decides to risk the pain of loving a man who might make her a widow.

Her heart is torn between her love for him and her fear of losing him forever.

When a homeless boy shows up in Lonetree one day, Dalton takes him in out of compassion. The boy’s presence stirs up more than just sympathy; it brings a whirlwind of secrets and danger that could engulf the entire town. As Dalton and Mary delve deeper, they uncover more and more, leading to a climactic confrontation that will test them to the core…

“The Homestead Defender” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

Get your copy from Amazon!