Being caught, bloody gun in hand, leaning over the body of the man he
had threatened to kill forces bronc-buster Glenn Crawford to turn up at
the Big O ranch, a weary, footsore fugitive with more than one score to
settle.
Even the murder of the ranch owner in San Antonio had not prepared
Crawford for the state of affairs he finds at the ranch. His sudden
presence there seems to scare some of the crew half to death and lead
others to try to kill him every chance they get.
For the moment, however, Crawford is more interested in the state of
affairs in his own body than in those of the Big O and the murderer he
is sure the ranch harbors. A veteran of the saddle, Crawford discovers
that since an accident which he suspects was planned, he goes into a
frenzy of pain and trembling panic whenever he gets near a horse. But
in spite of the torture it costs him, Crawford stays on at the ranch.
He knows he cannot be a free man until he finds the murderer of Otis
Rockland. Nor can he be a whole man until he conquers the black devil
of a killer horse, Africano. After he meets Merida Lopez, an exotic
beauty whose presence at the Big O is surrounded by mystery, he has a
third motive for staying around, although he stands to lose his reason
if not his life.
Trapped by forces which he cannot understand, and half-crazed by the
torturing pain and panic which he tries desperately both to overcome
and to hide, Crawford gets himself more and more hopelessly entangled
in what, as old Delcazar points out, looks like the most dangerous
thing that ever hit the wild brush country. Crawford is offered a
strange proposition by sinister Dr. Huerta; he listens to Merida's
spellbinding tale of Santa Anna's chests--and as he listens, the jagged
third of a map he possesses, plus a dying man's painfully gasped
out words, take on a new and important meaning; he waits, trapped,
weaponless, for a killer to come nearer, nearer--And he delivers to
his other pursuers the body of one sent out to kill him--only to
become more deeply enmeshed in new and still more terrifying trouble.
Crawford's irritation at being stirred by Merida, whom he alternately
respects and suspects of playing him for a fool, doesn't prevent him
from riding secretly with her in the night in search of a place so
malicious few men have ever stepped foot in it. Nor does it later
prevent him from risking an agonizing death to follow her into it.
Before the true murderer reveals himself, and before Crawford can again
call himself a whole man, much violent action takes place. Set against
the exciting background of the untamed Texas border country, this is a
thrilling brew of suspense, quick death, adventure, and love.
[Illustration: Map]