Showdown at Dead End Canyon

Prologue

THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES WAS THE COSTLIEST war in American history. From Bull Run to Franklin, neighbor fought neighbor and brother fought brother until half a million men lay dead on the bloody battlefields.

For all intents and purposes, it ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, but for many veterans of that terrible war, the surrender was just the beginning of a much more personal conflict. Young men who had lived their lives on the edge for four years found it nearly impossible to return home and take up the plow, or go back to work in a store, repair wagons, or do any of the other things that were the necessary part of becoming whole again.

Others found nothing to come home to. Many of the veterans—especially those who had fought for the South—returned to burned-out homes, farms gone to seed or, worse, taken for taxes. These men became the dispossessed. Unable to settle down, they became wanderers. Many of them went west, where there would be less civilized encroachment upon their chosen way of life.

Some took up the outlaw trail, continuing to practice the skills they had learned during the war. But most were innocent wanderers, with all bridges to their past burned and the paths to their future uncharted.

Mason Hawke was such a man. When he found that he had nothing to return to, he became a wandering minstrel, playing the piano in saloons and bawdy houses throughout the West. Few of those who heard him playing “Cowboy Joe” or “Buffalo Gals” realized that he had once played before the crowned heads of Europe. There were many, however, who learned to appreciate his talent, for from time to time Hawke would bring out the music at his core, playing a concert at three o’clock in the morning for the ghosts of his past. But it wasn’t just the ghosts who enjoyed those midnight concerts; often, a crowd would gather silently just outside the saloon, listening to the music.

But there was another, darker side to Hawke.

The same digital dexterity that made him a great pianist also made him exceptionally good with a gun. Hawke did not openly seek trouble, but neither would he back away from it. Hotheaded hooligans would sometimes mistake the piano player for an easy mark.

It was a mistake they only made once.