Filled with action, adventure, mystery, and historical detail, the Sackett series is a remarkable contribution by one of America’s greatest storytellers. The Sky-liners Flagan and Galloway Sackett had made a deal to escort Judith Costello, the granddaughter of a wealthy Irish horse trader, to her father’s home in Colorado. Flagan saw nothing but trouble in the pretty, fiery young woman, but they needed the horses. Unfortunately, Flagan was right, for Judith had fallen for James Black Fetchen, a charismatic gunman whose courtship hid the darkest of intentions. Flagan and Galloway could only guess why Judith was so important to Fetchen and what awaited them at her father’s ranch. One thing Flagan knew for sure: the tough and spirited woman had won his heart. But could he trust her with his life? Galloway Trouble was following Flagan Sackett with a vengeance. Captured and tortured by a band of Apaches, he had escaped into the rugged San Juan country, where he would try to stay alive until his brother, Galloway, could find him. But the brothers were about to find worse trouble ahead. Their plan to establish a ranch had angered the Dunn clan, who had decided that the vast range would be theirs alone. Now Galloway and Flagan would face an enemy who killed for sport—but as long as other Sacketts lived, they would not fight alone…. Our foremost storyteller of the American West, Louis L’Amour has thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world. Chapter One EVERYBODY IN OUR part of the country knew of Black Fetchen, so folks just naturally stood aside when he rode into town with his kinfolk. The Fetchen land lay up on Sinking Creek, and it wasn't often a Sackett got over that way, so we had no truck with one another. We heard talk of him and his doings-how he'd killed a stranger over on Caney's Fork, and about a fair string of shootings and cuttings running back six or seven years. He wasn't the only Fetchen who'd worked up to trouble in that country, or down in the flat land, for that matter. It was a story told and retold how Black Fetchen rode down to Tazewell and taken some kin of his away from the law. James Black Fetchen his name was, but all knew him as Black, because the name suited. He was a dark, handsome man with a bold, hard-shouldered way about him, as quick with his fists as with a gun. Those who rode with him, like Tory Fetchen and Colby Rafin, were the same sort. Me and Galloway had business over in Tazewell or we'd never have been around those parts, not that we feared Black Fetchen, or any man, but we were newly home from the western lands and when we went to Tazewell we went to pay off the last of Pa's debts. Pa had bad luck several years running and owed honor debts we were bound to pay, so Galloway and me rode back from the buffalo plains to settle up. We had taken off to the western lands two years before, me twenty-two then and him twenty-one. We worked the Santa Fe Trail with a freight outfit, and laid track for a railroad mountain spur, and finally went over the trail from Texas with a herd of steers. It wasn't until we went buffalo hunting that we made our stake. About that time we heard some kinfolk of ours, name of William Tell Sackett, was herding up trouble down in the Mogollon, so we saddled up and lit out, because when a Sackett has trouble his kin is just bound to share it with him. So we rode down to help him clean things up.* This debt in Tazewell now was the last, and our last cent as well. After two years we were right back where we started, except that we had our rifles and hand guns, and a blanket or two. We'd sold our horses when we came back to Tennessee from the hunting grounds. We walked across the mountain, and when we got to town we headed for the town pump. Once we'd had a drink we started back across the street to settle our debt at the store that had given Pa credit when times were bad. We were fairly out in the middle of the street when hoofs began to pound and a passel of folks a-horseback came charging up, all armed and loaded for feudin' or bear-fightin'. Folks went high-tailing it for shelter when they saw those riders coming, but we were right out in the middle of the street and of no mind to run. They came a-tearing down upon us and one of them taken a cut at me with a quirt, yelling, "Get outen the street!" Well, I just naturally reached up and grabbed a hold on that quirt, and most things I lay a hand to will move. He had a loop around his wrist and couldn't let go if he was a mind to, so I just jerked and he left that saddle a-flying and landed in the dust. The rest of them, they reined around, of a mind to see some fun. That one who sat in the dust roosted there a speck, trying to figure what happened to him, and then he came off the ground with a whoop and laid at me with a fist. Now, we Sackett