When prospector Morgan Clay found a mountain full of gold, he thought all his troubles were over, but they were just beginning. It seemed like they were lining up one after another. Kiowa Indians, gunslingers, women. Every single one of them gunning for Morgan Clay.
There was no tougher place than the Old West. And Morgan Clay’d had a tough life. He knew a man could spend every waking hour striving to make money. Enough to keep his head above water. And maybe a little extra for the finer things. Then when he does get lucky and gets a little something, he thinks he’s solved his problems. But only then his real troubles start. Suddenly he has to fight off the rest of the world who are trying to take it away from him.
Flat broke, prospector Morgan Clay, had already given up. Beaten, dejected, he was on the trail down out of the high country. But then he got real lucky. Luckier than any man had the right to be. He found a mountain full of gold. Then it seemed like they were lining up one after another. A Kiowa Indian brave, Comes-Walking, and two boys, all hungry, were tired and desperate to count coup and steal his horses. Down the road apiece was Shuck Allison, a two-bit gunslinger, looking for an easy mark to roll, and if he couldn’t do it with a crooked card deck, then he would do it any way he could. He didn’t much care how. And then there was Anne Marie, Allison’s woman. She’d been looking for Mr. Right, but had settled for Mr. Right Now. Not that she’d stopped looking. Problem was, she was a w**re, which made it all a little more difficult. Every single one of them was trouble.
And they were all looking for Morgan Clay. But before he could deposit his fortune in the nearest city’s bank, he had to make the Double Mountain Crossing.
Excerpt
Comes-Walking consulted the sky, noting the sun had passed through another hour, then looked down over the neck of his pony at the ground. These tracks were very fresh. He could not be far away.The Kiowa sat quietly on the little roan, listening to the breeze that blew gently through his chest length braids. His handsome bronze face with the long roman nose was tilted slightly back, his eyes narrowed to slits against the sun. The fringes of his deerskin shirt rippled in the air current, discouraging the flies and mosquitoes. Above him, a redbacked hawk, the swiftest of its family, circled, searching out prey. You too, brother,thought Comes-Walking as he gazed out over the land. Behind him, the two boys, Short-Lance and Swift-Foot, sat their exhausted pony in silence, heads drooping with fatigue.
“It is a good day,” Comes-Walking said with feeling. “We will find him soon.” With a glance at them he nudged the roan forward with moccasined heels. The two boys nodded at his back and coaxed the grey into a walk, tracing the roan’s hoof prints across the rocky soil.
They rode for an hour before they heard it.
A dull boom echoed in the hills to their right. Immediately, they drew rein and listened to the song of the wind, both men and ponies alert now. All that could be heard in the aftermath of the gunshot was the bear claw necklace clacking softly against the hair pipe breastplate on Comes-Walking’s powerful chest.
“We have found him,” the warrior said, thin lips barely moving as he urged the roan into a canter. The weary grey responded too, and the three Kiowas headed for the dark stretch of pines above the cedar brakes, the drumming of unshod hooves dying away behind them.
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