The Greatest Western Writer Of The 21st CenturyIn Colorado Territory, Smoke Jensen is trying to live at peace with the big, beautiful world around him. Then a tinhorn named Puddle enters his valley--and unleashes a hellstorm of a range war.

Then The Shooting Started

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk--from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man's former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke's neighbor is his enemy, kill-crazy hired gunmen are threatening the whole valley and good men are dying. Puddle may not be much, but he's all Smoke has--as a take-no-prisoners mountain man and a timid tinhorn make for an army of two...in one hell of a fight.