(Continued from page 1)

women figure in the story. The first, Martha Drake, had been Rance's dead brother Toby's fiancé in Corey. She blames Rance's cowardice for Toby's death. The second, Julia, a green-eyed redhead in Dorado, attracts his romantic interest and has a surprising connection to his mission.   Ex-prize fighter Burney Duff, a little slow, but staunch and good-hearted, and the town doctor in Dorado, Doc Weathersby, lend support along the way. One by one, Rance tracks down and kills the members of the Cord gang until only one is left: his last man to kill.

In No Man Canyon, another man considered a coward in his youth, Texas Ranger Wade Ramsey, returns home to the south Texas town of Latigo, assigned by Ranger Captain Leander H. McNelly to solve the murder of one of his fellow Rangers, then proceed to the Mexican border to assist in dealing with Juan Cortinas, a Mexican cattle rustler who has been making raids into Texas.  Wade finds Latigo seething with a range war tied in with the death of the Ranger and several sheriff's deputies. Rustlers are stealing cattle from Wade's rancher father, Duke, and suspicion has fallen on Duke's neighbor, Porter, and his foreman, Bert Fargo. Porter's daughter, Calley, had been Wade's childhood friend, but now treats him as an enemy.

Duke resented Wade as a child because his mother died giving birth to him, and made him fight Duke's bullying foreman, Murdock. Now, Wade has to contend with an older, but still potent, Murdock, and can't even talk to his father because he's lost the ability to speak due to a stroke.

As he tries to catch both the cattle thieves and the murderer of the Ranger, Wade gets little help from his former mentor, Latigo's alcoholic old sheriff, Weldon Pickets. Doc Hale, Latigo's doctor, and Buck Thompson, Duke's cook and handyman, do provide support, along with Madge, a whore in one of the local saloons.

Wade rides with Captain McNelly in a raid into Mexico that ends the excursions of Juan Cortinas. Wade kills Cortinas's ally, a badman called El Lobo. When he returns to Latigo, he finds that Madge knows the reason for his complicated relationship with his father, while the key to the mystery of the rustled cattle lies at the bottom of No Man Canyon.
Clint Bodine, the hero of Second Fastest Gun, has a

A Bad Day To Die
by J. Lee Butts
Mass Market
Paperback
historical Western
Berkley Publishing Group, 2004,
240 pages
ISBN: 0425199150

Candace Havens
Signing her story in the anthology
FIVE SEASONS OF ANGEL
At Barnes & Noble Bookstore,
North Richland Hills
Published by
BenBella Books

different problem from Wade Ramsey and Rance McCall. Certainly no coward, he's trying to ride away from his reputation as a fast gun, a reputation that keeps drawing gunmen who want to test his quick draw speed. So far, they've all died in the effort, but Clint is tired of fighting and wants to join his dying mother in Arizona.

In Rosa Rita, New Mexico, an old gunfighter named Ben Gates calls on Clint to draw. Gates shoots first, notching Clint's ear,but Clint's bullet kills Gates. As a result of a bizarre deal the Rosa Rita townspeople made with Gates, in order to avoid being charged with Gates's murder, Clint is forced to agree to go to Brockton, New Mexico, and help Gates's widow, Kate, in her fight against a land-grabber who's trying to steal her water and her land.

In Brockton, Clint builds a list of neighboring ranchers who are suspect in the designs against Kate, including Brock Colter, a former friend of Ben Gates. Apparent allies in Clint's quest to stop the land and water grab include Brockton sheriff Hap Mann, Virge, a waitress in a local café, grizzled old Andy Larkin, the owner of the livery stable, and Josh, a simpleminded black gunfighter who works for Kate. Opposing Clint are Mace Sanger and his gang, who