(Also available in eBook format)
The old west settlement of Bluestone had its characters — unruly miners, cardsharps, drunks, and prostitutes — but Expansion brought a deadlier variety of malcontents, and the town’s spirit changed.
Nearby towns had hard-hitting sheriffs like Wyatt Earp — Bluestone had Bonny Lou Baker, a female Sheriff. The headstrong college dropout claimed the sheriff job no one else wanted, almost as a lark. Even her boyfriend, a Copper Queen Mine geologist, thought those fancy frontier six-shooter were baubles to go with her buckskins. But her no-nonsense attitude, and her twin ivory-handled Colts, kept petty criminals at bay.
The Mayor and the townspeople weren’t sure she could handle the new trouble-makers: a gang leaving a trail of robberies and slaughtered victims, bearing down on Bluestone. What could one Eastern-raised woman do?
Bryan Cox writes novels and short stories. After several careers and geographical locations, he has settled down to a quiet life in sunny Florida.