On a broken ankle, a vengeful man carves a path into hell
John Dancer hauls himself out of bed and stuffs his swollen ankle into his boot, gritting his teeth through the pain. That boot won’t come off again unless he cuts through the leather, but for now it will do just fine. His ankle was blown apart by a Winchester rifle, and he will never walk right on it again. John Dancer can’t run, but he can ride—and he is fine with dealing justice on horseback.
His trouble started three months earlier, when his drifter lifestyle led him to an abandoned ranch, where a woman lay weeping over the body of her lynched husband. His instincts told him to ride on, but he couldn’t leave the woman alone, and he stayed behind to help her bury her man. When the raiders who killed him returned, Dancer was caught in the middle, his ankle destroyed and his thoughts turned forever towards revenge.
Paul Lederer spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Texas. He worked for years in Asia and the Middle East for a military intelligence arm. Under his own name, he is best known for Tecumseh and the Indian Heritage Series, which focuses on American Indian life. He believes that the finest Westerns reflect ordinary people caught in unusual and dangerous circumstances, trying their best to act with honor.