Tackett (Tackett Trilogy : 1) - Tapa dura

Del Tackett never knew where his roaming would take him until he was knee deep in trouble, as he surely was now. He'd just gone to work punching cattle on the R Bar R ranch owned by a beautiful, young woman named Esmerelda Rankin. The ranch had its share of troubles, not the least being that Esmerelda's father had been killed by rustlers who were stealing the ranch's cattle and weren't content to stop at killing Colonel Rankin. Each time Esme hired on new hands, the rustlers would drive them off. That left her perilously short of hands while trying to control 3500 cattle. Tackett needed to do more than get the ranch in shape. He had to find some tough men to work the R Bar R and help him find out who was trying to ruin the ranch. But no sooner did he start to get the lay of the land than the oldest hired hand, Billy Bob Doyle, was found dead out on the range. Billy Bob was a good man who stayed with Esme even when it was getting dangerous to live on the ranch and he knew how to handle a gun. Whoever killed him did it the coward's way - by firing in mid-conversation. Old Billy Bob's murderer was a man he knew, a man he trusted. Out on the ranch in the dark of night was a dangerous place but Tackett knew he wasn't going to find the men who killed Colonel Rankin and Billy Bob sitting around a saloon in the middle of the day. He'd ridden the trail long enough to know he'd have to find them on his own. Tackett could hold his own with just about anyone. He'd seen his fair share of violence and gun slinging growing up in a high Sierras mining camp and wandering the West from the time he was sixteen. He didn't like it, the shooting and killing, but he knew there were times that it couldn't beavoided. He knew this trip into the night would probably be one of those times but he couldn't walk away from the men who were rustling R Bar R cattle or from Esmerelda herself. She needed him...and not for just punching cattle! Anyone who's missed the spirit and grit of Louis L'A