A Western Adventure by Ronnie Ashmore "Ashmore creates fierce characters with confidence and authority. A fresh and welcome Western narrative." -Best-Selling Author Ralph Cotton John Riley has a plan to wait out the winter by a warm fire until a rancher hires him to track a killer. Now Riley is on the trail of a killer like he has never seen before. With a backtrail littered with dead men, Tom Karnes follows his own path on his own terms. Riley’ abilities are put to the test by trailing the outlaw across the rough country. It soon becomes clear Riley is out matched and he starts to doubt he will ever survive the killing trail. Excerpt Riley slid his pistol from his holster keeping it hid under the table. He decided to push the two men, hopefully into a mistake. The room was empty except for the four. “Yeah, you are a fool. I’m looking for Karnes. If you know anything you should really tell me.” “Why should we?” the quiet one said. His voice was gruff and dry sounding like he had sand stuck in his throat. The mouthy one moved his hand to his gun. In one movement Riley came up from his chair and hit him over the head with the barrel of his gun. The man crumpled to the floor in a heap, his gun falling uselessly to the floor. Sally Jones gave a little gasp as Riley unleashed his swift violence on the man. As soon as he hit the mouthy one, he spun to cover the quiet man pointing his gun at him. The man had not moved from his chair and gave no indication that he wanted to. He looked at his fallen friend, “You’re right. We are fools.” “You know Karnes?” “Played cards with him, until he beat Sherman up. Me and Hoss there pulled Karnes off. He left heading north.” “Why harass me?” “Nothin’ personal.” He nodded toward his friend, “Hoss found out there was a reward for Karnes. Heard you was a bounty hunter.” Riley holstered his pistol and sat back down to his meal. Sally was staring at the lump of man on the floor. “What are you going to do with him?” she asked. “Nothin’. He picked this fight. I told him he couldn’t win.” With that the man stood, picked up his friend’s pistol, and left the restaurant leaving him unconscious in the floor. Sally looked back at Riley. “You’re mighty quick to strike out,” she said. “We need to be gone by daylight tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the livery if you still want to go along.” “I ain’t changing my mind. I want to see Karnes punished for killin’ my poor excuse for a husband. I will see you in the morning.” They rode out before the sun was up, Riley checking his backtrail to make sure they were not followed. He pointed the horses north, unsure where Karnes was headed. They rode in silence, which seemed to be their habit, until mid-day. Riley could tell Sally was wore out from the hard riding of the last few days. She slowly went about making coffee as Riley tended to the horses. He glanced back at the woman. She was prettier than he thought when he had first seen her. But life on the Texas frontier was hard on women, and she had a face that was beginning to age before its time. He quickly glanced away as she looked up. “You thinkin’ on somethin’, John?” “Thinkin’ Karnes is a fool to come all the way out here. Ain’t much civilization out here. Too much farther we will be deep in Indian country.” “You know this area?” “No. I do have a vague notion of what’s ahead of us.” “We are a long way from where we started, huh, Mr. Riley.” He noticed how she called him Mr. when before it was John. Despite that, he could not disagree.