Cold Deck, Hot Lead

In this game, the winning hand is the one that holds the gun!A cardsharp with a conscience, Frank Derringer came to the crooked town of Tribune, Kansas, looking to even a score or two. But after cheating the cheaters who'd robbed a good friend blind in a fixed game, Frank's escape didn't go exactly as planned – especially after he hooked up with a sharp-shooting lady named Martha Jane Canary, better known as "Calamity." True to her moniker, Calamity Jane was soon leading Frank into a hail of gunfire that surrounded a dead man's dying words and a fortune in stolen gems. Now, stripped of the one edge they've both always had – the advantage of working alone – Frank and Jane are riding hell for leather into a deadly free-for-all and a killer's ingenious trap. And it'll take a sharp eye, a quick gun, and a strong dose of gambler's luck to keep them alive long enough to rake in the pot! J.T. Edson brings to life the fierce and often bloody struggles of untamed West. His colorful characters are linked together by the binding power of the spirit of adventure -- and hard work -- that eventually won the West. With more than 25 million copies of his novels in print, J.T. Edson has proven to be one of the finest craftsmen of Western storytelling in our time. Calamity (Martha Jane Canary) is acknowledged by the author not to be the historical character of that name. As presented in the books, she is a young woman in her late teens or early twenties who fled a convent school to join a freight-driving crew led by Dobe Killem. Initially she made herself useful by stepping in for their drunken cook, but soon learned how to manage a team of heavy horses, fight with a whip, and shoot competently with either a .36-calibre Navy Colt or a Winchester carbine (both chosen to suit her smaller, less muscular frame). She has several adventures of her own in addition to intermittently associating with the Floating Outfit. While enjoying an on-off physical relationship with Mark Counter, it is mutually understood that they are only what a later century would call "Friends with benefits", and she enjoys other male company routinely, including on one occasion the Ysabel Kid (in White Stallion, Red Mare).