All Ben Allison wants in El Paso is to buy a horse. But after the sale falls through, he runs into an old acquaintance and agrees to escort her son home to his father. But Ben is late and misses the stagecoach, and when it's attacked by Apaches, the boy is kidnapped because Ben wasn't there to protect him. Will he be able to fix the mess he never intended to be a part of in the first place?
Kirby Randolph was a tough mountain man. He had promised himself that he would get the wagon train to Santa Fe because Aurelie St. Clair was in one of the wagons. She was half Indian, the most beautiful and the toughest girl he had ever seen. This is the story of men and women who kept the Santa Fe Trail open in the 1880s, from Westport, Kansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
When a courageous Mestizo priest with a desperate dream needed a man of strength to fulfill his vision, there was only one warrior fierce enough to turn to. It was the one they called the Black Apache.
For twenty-four winters, the blond child had been held captive by the Indians. Now rangy, raw-boned Ben Allison set out to heat up a stone-cold trail and bring Amy Johnston home. He was armed with only an old mountain man's map, a cheap gold locket, an ornery pack mule, and his army Colt. It was an impossible mission leading straight into hostile Indian country. Ben was keenly aware that the search for Amy could very well be his own death hunt.