Badgetoter Clem Brackett had enough trouble on his hands keepin' the peace in the Nebraska cowtown known as "Little Texas." What with whiskey-drunk drovers shootin' up bars, roughin' up cribhouse girls and raisin' holy hell every night, the lawman kept his gun loaded and his jail full. But that was just horse apples compared to the trouble riding in with big Texas cattle baron Tyler Kane. Two years back, Tyler's brother got himself killed in a fight with a local cardhustler name of Stanhouse. Now Kane's back with a passel of tough wranglers to even the score ... Texas-style.
But the ganbler's hideout gun's been busier'n than a rustler's branding iron. When Tyler goes to git his revenge on the double-dealer, he finds Stanhouse locked up in the sheriff's hoosegow for pumping some cowpoke full of lead. Waitin' on circuit justice ain't what Tyler had in mind and suddenly Sheriff Brackett was facing off against Kane's guntoting mob, hell bent on either lynching the killer or turning Little Texas into ashes!
1990 by Jason Manning Zebra Books (New York) 220 pp ISBN: 0-8217-2898-9
This novel turned out to be my favorite of the Zebra books, and was inspired by the work of Ernest Haycox, while the gambler Stanhouse was a salute to the work of Bret Harte. Good action and good character development, I thought. As it was my third published western, I came away thinking I was making some progress as a writer.