Marshal's Last Ride

Inside the book

The story begins here.

Eleven years after his first federal warrant, Walker Davis is forty years old. The cottonwoods at the gate of the Davis place have grown tall. Anna still waits at the table when duty calls him away, and their children have filled the corral, porch, and kitchen with the life Walker returns to whenever the badge allows.

For half his years as a United States Marshal, one name has followed him in pieces. A hostler in Marble spoke it first. It came again through the father of a deputy, then from a dying woman, and finally appeared on a wanted poster in Red Hollow beneath a five-hundred-dollar reward. Walker rode past that poster once because another warrant came first. He never forgot the face or the name.

When orders arrive from Cheyenne in the spring, Walker is sent south to finish the pursuit. The warrant is old, the country is difficult, and the man at the end of it has had years to prepare. Walker has experience now, but experience has also taught him what a lawman risks every time he rides beyond the reach of help.

Before daylight, he saddles the gray and finds Anna at the door. Neither of them pretends this is an ordinary assignment. Walker kisses her, looks once toward the house and their children, and turns south.

The badge has carried him across the territory for eleven years. This time, it is leading him toward the man who has been waiting at the end of the trail-and a reckoning Walker may not ride away from.

Marshal's Last Ride concludes the four-book Walker Davis Westerns.