Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

With 40 novels in his gunbelt, Kelton has been named "The Greatest Western Writer of All Time" by the Western Writers of America. In this outing, Rusty Shannon returns in the third installment in his Texas Rangers series (The Bucksin Line, 1999; Badger Boy, 2001). When the federal government moves into Texas and takes over, following the Civil War, Shannon falls into a briar patch of Kelton plotting that includes raids by the Ku Klux Klan, the loss of his homestead to killers from his past, playing big brother to almost-grown Badger Boy Andy Pickard, saving ranchers from marauding Indians (in his youth, the Commanches killed his original family, his foster father, and held him captive, and Andy himself has only recently escaped being a captive of that tribe). Rusty tries to settle back into his old life as a farmer-but it's not to be. What's more, he's suffering from an arrow wound in his leg. Meanwhile, he joins some lawmen chasing Indians, clansmen, and whiskey runners. As the dust settles, will bad Clyde Oldham sign Rusty's farm back to him? May Kelton's rangers ride on many a long mile.