Phantom Bandit

Frank Bonham's talent for combining picturesque historical and geographical settings with swiftly paced narratives makes him one of the premier Western writers of all time. Now for the first time in book form here is a new collection of Frank Bonham's finest Western stories, selected and edited by Bill Pronzini. "A River Man Goes to War" is set at the beginning of the War Between the States. Todd Macon and Jasper Peacock are partners in the Natchez, a riverboat on the Ohio. Macon's sympathies are with the Union and Peacock's are with the Confederacy. Well, they cannot very well cut the boat in half, or stay out the war moored in Cincinnati harbor. What breaks the stalemate is the arrival of a one-legged man who purports to be a preacher with a proposal to rescue the citizens of a river town who have been driven out onto an island in the river by Confederate sympathizers. But one of these three is going to be a big loser. In "Wanted!" a former captain of the Army, Swain Barker, has been convicted of embezzling, but he escapes and takes at once to the trail of Alva Cosbee, now retired, who he believes was guilty of the embezzlement. Cosbee is on his way into Mexico with a herd of former Army horses he intends to sell to General Villalobos, a Mexican revolutionary and definitely not a man to be trusted. In "Hell in Dakota" rancher Sam Randall, like everyone else on the range, has his back against the wall, but unlike the majority of other ranchers he will have no part of Mustang Cassiday's scheme to "harvest" the herds of wild mustangs for their hides. Wild mustangs are not a renewable resource, and Randall distrusts Cassiday's ultimate intentions that have nothing at all to do with mustangs. In "Death Valley Silver" Jim Bayliss knows Death Valley well from his time as a cartographer with the Army. It is this skill that outlaw gang leader Charlie Hoffmeyer needs in order to find an Army payroll lost years before in an Indian attack. They don't find the payroll, but locate a fabulous silver deposit instead. But how can Bayliss finance working the claim with only wanted men for partners? The answer to this question makes for a tense, colorful narrative under the burning sun in Death Valley.Bonham, Frank is the author of 'Phantom Bandit ', published 2005 under ISBN 9781594141362 and ISBN 1594141363.