In 1875, wild horse wrangler Jud Holman returns to his isolated hometown of Tubac, Arizona, and faces the schemers who threw his father out as registrar of the Santa Cruz Land Office. Surviving a canyon ambush through nerve and luck, he dodges the combined forces of the Circle T and Bar J ranches. He is forced to pose as a U.S. Marshal, and risks exposure at the Circle T headquarters, owned by Jacob Tullar, the big man in the valley. Holman's chances take a stunning blow when he falls for Tullar's daughter. Where will his luck take him now? To bullets, blood and maybe death in a double...

Most of the characters in these seven stories spend a lot of time in the saddle-chasing or being chased, standing and fighting, or making a run for it. In the short-short "Ride to Black Creek," Jake stumbles into a scrape with Apaches. In "Barrow and the Marm," two boys fall under the contrasting spells of their new schoolmarm and the town's Tonkawa Indian. In "South of Mariposa Springs," Rick Meyers tries to out-distance the posse on a worn-out horse. His jilted girlfriend takes three fresh horses and goes after him. "The Ridge Rider" is about two ex-soldiers who dare to seek gold in the...