Outlaw Gunsmoke
Where there’s gunsmoke, there’s an outlaw…
Ulric Degard and his partner, Boyd Fennick have been hired by Kegan Dowling to stop a spate of railway robberies along the Carson-Benson line.
Each time, the thieves take silver owned by the Ballast Lode Mine owner, Walt Shackley.
With his profits slumping and threatening to no longer use Dowling’s line, both men are desperate to capture the thieves for good.
It should’ve been a simple job.
Instead, an attempt to trap the robber ends up with the thieves trapping Degard and Boyd instead, and making off with Shackley’s silver to boot.
The only silver lining is that they now know for sure that there’s a mole working on the rail line. The only suspect is a man named Henriques.
But before Degard can even question the man, Henriques is gunned down, silenced for good.
Most are convinced that he was killed by Pasqual Vassa – the leader of a brutal gang of outlaws, who live somewhere in the nearby mountains.
Dowling is even convinced that his gang is also behind the train robberies.
But no one in Ballast, not even Sheriff Smyth, knows exactly where the outlaws’ lair is, and those that do know, never live long enough to tell.
With his own plumb luck, Degard manages to get captured by the gang. But Vassa claims to have nothing to do with the robberies or with Henrique’s death.
Is he telling the truth?
Nevertheless, the only way Degard can get out alive is to make a deal with Vassa – find the real thieves and restore Vassa’s ‘good’ reputation.
And of course, if Degard dares touch Vassa’s girl – the beautiful but dangerous Consuela Javarez – then he dies too.
His only other lead is Henriques’ girl – the local singer, Cora Johnson. It’s obvious she’s hiding something but darned if they can get a thing out of her.
And then there’s the fact Cora’s come into a lot of money all of a sudden.
In which case, the only men rich enough in Ballast to silence her, is Degard and Boyd’s very employers…
Outlaw Gunsmoke is another thrilling and suspenseful Western, perfect for fans of Zane Grey.
Praise for Denis Hughes
“A classic of the genre” – Tom Casey, bestselling author of Trade Off
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Pioneering Press is a western imprint of Endeavour Press – the UK’s leading independent digital publisher. We publish new and classic westerns by authors from the US and the UK.
