Sheriff Justice

Shadows Over Cottonwood Bend

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The deputy watched the widow load her freshly bought cartridges into a canvas sack, calculating how far into the northern badlands a lone woman could be hunted before her screams faded. She had no idea that the man tracking her footprints had already marked the exact clearing where her blood would soak the dust. Every pair of eyes on Redemption Creek's sun-bleached main street followed the widow as she guided her tired bay horse between the ruts of dried mud. The afternoon heat was a physical weight, pressing down from a brutal Texas sky, shimmering off the weathered board storefronts and baking the horse dung into the dry air. Catherine Fletcher did not look like a woman who needed watching, yet every man standing on the boardwalk paused his chewing or his trading to track her progress. Beneath a battered felt hat that shadowed her …

Shadows Lengthen Where Blood Meets Stone

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The hammer of Deputy Roy Sutter’s revolver cleared leather with a dry, metallic rasp that promised sudden death beneath the merciless Texas sun. Every man on Redemption Creek’s dusty main street froze, their breath caught in their throats as a predator in a badge closed the final yards toward the lonely northern trail. The heat was a physical weight, pressing down on the warped wooden boardwalks and baking the scent of horse manure and stale horseshoe iron into the stagnant air. Every man in town had noticed Catherine Fletcher when she rode into Redemption Creek, but Chester Callaway had noticed something the others missed. The widow wasn't afraid of anything. Under the brutal sky, Catherine had guided a tired, sweat-streaked horse while a heavily loaded mule followed behind like a patient shadow. She moved with the distinct, economy-of-motion grace of a woman who had already …