There are six passengers on the stagecoach from Promontory to Ratchet Creek -- among them a beautiful singer with bad intentions, a lawman dressed in deacon's garb ... and a red-headed hellion named Martha Jane Canary, who's hell with a whip and quicker on the draw than most male gun artists. But Calamity Jane has met her match in Marshal Solly Cole, which is just as well, since they're both rolling into more bad news than ever. Because Ratchet Creek's home to a lot more than the lowlife swindler that Cole's been trailing; it's a hotbed of mystery and death that abandoned the law long ago. And for Cole, Calamity, and a kid named John Browning -- who, if he lives, could become the greatest gunsmith there ever was -- this snake pit in the Utah Territories might be a hard place to get to ... and a whole lot harder to get out of.
J.T. Edson brings to life the fierce and often bloody struggles of untamed West. His colorful characters are linked together by the binding power of the spirit of adventure -- and hard work -- that eventually won the West. With more than 25 million copies of his novels in print, J.T. Edson has proven to be one of the finest craftsmen of Western storytelling in our time.