"Killing time in his garden outside Fort Smith, Arkansas retired US Marshal Doyle Hardy has softened up some. The brutal double murder in Shacktown shapes him up fast. Suddenly, redeputized, he follows a trail that snakes from owlhoot whorehouses to moonshine shacks, dogged by vicious outlaws with old scores to settle. Riding the treacherous Choctaw Trail he is sworn to ferret out the heartless killer, the hell-reaiser who will force him to face the...

"Fleeing his ruined fortunes, Blake Corley agrees to drive the Durango stagecoach out of town, carrying a cargo of two dead railroad workers killed in a holdup, a prostitute gone straight, and a black laborer"--