In this game, the winning hand is the one that holds the gun!A cardsharp with a conscience, Frank Derringer came to the crooked town of Tribune, Kansas, looking to even a score or two. But after cheating the cheaters who'd robbed a good friend blind in a fixed game, Frank's escape didn't go exactly as planned – especially after he hooked up with a sharp-shooting lady named Martha Jane Canary, better known as "Calamity." True to her moniker, Calamity Jane was soon leading Frank into a hail of gunfire that surrounded a dead man's dying words and a fortune in stolen gems. Now, stripped of the one edge they've both always had – the advantage of working alone – Frank and Jane are riding hell for leather into a deadly free-for-all and a killer's ingenious trap. And it'll take a sharp eye, a quick gun, and a strong dose of gambler's luck to keep them alive long enough to rake in the pot!

J T Edson has created more dynamic Western gals than any other writer. Into a world of rough, tough, gun-slinging heroes, his high-stepping ladies hold their own with the best of the cowboy breed, out-riding, out-shooting, out-wrestling the toughest men in the West. The lady outlaw, Belle Starr; Woman Deputy Alice Fayde of Rockabye County; Rita Yarborough of Company Z, Texas Rangers; Annie Singing Bear, known as 'Is-A-Man' to the Comanche Indians; Dawn, Drummond-Clayton of Amabagasli, all demonstrate that J.T.'s ladies: beautiful and mostly virtuous, depend solely on themselves when danger threatens. 

It spelled trouble—in a big way.Dusty Fog knew this when he agreed to become marshal of Mulrooney, Kansas—knew it and accepted it because he had good men at his back. Yet it seemed that not even the combined talents of Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid, Waco and gambler Frank Derringer could handle the feud between Freddie Woods and her chief rival in the saloon business, Buffalo Kate.The feud came to a rip-roaring, brawling head one day when Buffalo Kate faced Freddie and warned, "This town isn't big enough for the both of us. One of us has to go!"

Waco was a product of the times. Left an orphan in a Waco Indian attack on a wagon train, he grew up among the large family of an impoverished rancher. Although treated as one of the family, some urge set him drifting at the age of thirteen. Even then he carried a gun, a battered but operational old Navy Colt. Four years later he wore a brace of Army Colts and bore a log-sized chip on his shoulder. His truculence might have sent him on the trail of Wes Hardin, Bad Bill Longley or other fast-handed Tejano boys running from the law after a killing too many.Then fate stepped in. Waco met Dusty Fog, the fastest of them all.

When the gunplay started the five Texans were in there, fighting to a man. And when the gunsmoke cleared, they were the ones still on their feet, If you were lucky enough to be their friend you were a friend for life. If, though, you made yourself their enemy, you might as well start digging your own grave. Because if you called down one of them, you called down all five. That was the way things were with the legendary Floating Outfit.

At first most people, even the majority of his victims, regarded the Owlhoot as something of a joke. Armed with a long-barreled Colt Peacemaker, masked by a bandana and dressed like an old West cowhand, he robbed couples necking in cars on lonely roads. Woman Deputy Alice Fayde and her partner, modern-day gun wizard Deputy Bradford Counter, did not think he was a joke. Especially as they stood looking at the two bodies sprawled by the Pontiac convertible. They had been shot at close range by the .45 caliber, black powder-powered bullets from the Owlhoot's revolver. The deputies' fears had been realized. No longer was the Owlhoot a joke. Now he was a killer who had to be located and arrested before he used the Colt again.

A mercenary General in Mexico offered to use his army for the Confederate cause. Belle Boyd, the Rebel Spy, received orders to deliver $15,000.00 as payment for his services. Helping her rode two tough Texans, the Ysabel Kid and his father. Matched against them were the United States Secret Service, determined to prevent the delivery; the French, who wanted the gold for Maximilian; Mexican supporters of Juarez who saw it as a way of freeing their country from foreign domination; and, when word of it leaked out, the worst rabble of murderous thieves the bloody border between Texas and Mexico ever saw.

When the members of the Rockabye County Sheriff's Office spoke of a bad hombre, they usually meant an exceptionally large, tough, vicious and ruthless criminal with a temper as mean as a stick-teased rattlesnake's.The small, slender, meek-looking Oscar Burgenhof was so insignificant in appearance that he might be passed unnoticed on a deserted street. Yet his weird and erotic tastes in entertainment had driven him to a life of crime. By the time Burgenhof was brought to justice, he had killed five people and involved Woman Deputy Alice Fayde in the tightest, most bizarre and perilous situation of her life. No matter how he might look, Oscar Burgenhof was a bad hombre.

To protect the life of a visiting European Crown Prince from threatened assassination, the Governor of Texas could have called up the Texas Rangers, or even the United States Army. Instead, Stanton Howard obtained the services of Ole Devil Hardin's floating outfit. Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco had handled many dangerous people in their time, but they'd never met the like of the one employed by this band of conspirators to kill the Crown Prince. Acknowledged as Europe's premier assassin, Beguinage came and went unnoticed by all except the victims. And had never failed in an assignment. The only way Dusty saw of saving the Prince was to use himself as bait for a trap—knowing that when it was sprung, either Beguinage or he would be dead...