From a "master storyteller of frontier history," the saga of a rancher who goes undercover to chase horse thieves and discovers his true destiny (Elmer Kelton, award winning author of The Good Old Boys).

Texas rancher Ben Langham hired Luke Starbuck for his loyalty and toughness gained by riding with Rip Ford's Texas volunteers. But when Langham sent Starbuck after a band of horse thieves, a loyal man left behind the only home he had ever known—and met the stranger in himself. 

One man found a home . . .

To track down a thief, Starbuck posed as an outlaw, misled his woman, and killed to protect his own life. Then he rode into a kingdom of vicious horse thieves and entered into a fierce duel with a criminal mastermind hiding behind a respectable life. Somewhere along the line, honest, hardworking Starbuck discovered that he was a changed man—one who had forged himself a freedom and a future in a place where other men died . . .

"Braun is one of the best!" —Don Coldsmith, author of the Spanish Bit series

"Matt Braun is head and shoulders above all the rest who would attempt to bring the gunmen of the Old West to life." —Terry C. Johnston, author of The Plainsman series

"Matt Braun has a genius for taking real characters out of the Old West and giving them flesh-and-blood immediacy." —Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee