In this gritty Ralph Compton western, a cold-blooded killer uses his deadly skills for fiery vengeance. When it comes to killing, Lucius Stark is just about the meanest mongrel of a man who ever aimed a gun in West Texas. For him, taking lives means making a living, and if the price is right, he’ll do the job. But even hardest of men has a soft spot... When Stark grows too fond of a woman he is hired to kill in a range war, his client shows his displeasure by shooting him in the back. Stark is saved by the Butcher family—the very ranchers he was paid to eliminate. But when the Butchers end up slaughtered without mercy, Stark sets out to deliver his own brand of revenge...free of charge. More Than Eight Million Ralph Compton Books In Print! Praise for the novels of Ralph Compton “Compton offers readers a chance to hit the trail and not even end up saddle sore.”— Publishers Weekly “Compton writes in the style of popular Western novelists like Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey…thrilling stories of Western legend.”— The Huntsville Times (AL) “If you like Louis L’Amour, you’ll love Ralph Compton.”— Quanah Tribune-Chief  (TX) Ralph Compton  stood six-foot-eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel,  The Goodnight Trail , was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. David Robbins  has been a writer for more than twenty-five years, publishing under a variety of pseudonyms. He is the author of  Badlanders  and has written more than a dozen successful titles in the Ralph Compton series. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page   Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Death in the Dark I was cat footing across the prairie when I should have been thinking about Samson in particular, and Ty and Clell. I was forgetting the rules that had kept me alive for so long, rules I had made myself. I came on a gully I hadn’t known was there, stumbled down the slope, and collided with someone slinking along the shadows at the bottom. The next instant, iron fingers like a vise clamped onto my throat. In the dark above me loomed Clell Butcher. I seized his wrist and sought to wrench his hand from my throat, but he was strong as a bull. His other hand locked on my right wrist even as his knee gouged into my gut, and he slowly bent me backward into a bow. All the while, his fingers dug deeper into my flesh. I could not break his hold. I could not throw him off. My lungs started to ache for air. . . . SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. First Printing, February 2007 Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2007 eISBN : 978-1-101-00755-6 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA     Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER’S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Interne