Blood Territory

Inside the book

The story begins here.

At dawn, Thomas Reddick finds six pine stakes driven across the south field of his Wyoming homestead. Down the road, the Carter house has been burned to its chimney, and the family has been taken east in a wagon.

By the time United States Marshal Walker Davis arrives from Cheyenne, three more sections have been marked for seizure. Each family has been given the same deadline: leave by sundown or be removed.

The man behind it is Caleb Dorsey, a railroad agent carrying documents that appear to give him federal authority. An Easterner with no name stays close beside him. The local law will not interfere, and the orders reaching Walker from Cheyenne are signed by a deputy whose name appears nowhere on Walker's commission.

On paper, Dorsey's work is legal. On the ground, homes are burning and families are disappearing.

Walker begins sending letters beyond the men trying to control him, looking for someone whose authority he can trust. Then a wire arrives ordering him to stand down while Dorsey prepares to clear the remaining homesteads.

With sundown approaching, Walker must uncover where the federal authority ends and the land theft begins-before another family is driven out or another house is put to the torch.

Blood Territory is Book Two of the four-book Walker Davis Westerns.