Everyone in Tennyson wanted their town to look really good … Reconstruction was ending and a new Governor was taking over … respectability and affluence were the order of the day!Then, to Tennyson's alarm, they learned the Hide and Horn Saloon had changed hands. There was nothing wrong with the new owner, a hard shooting, hard punching lady called Madame Bulldog who looked as though she could run the whole show with one hand. The trouble came with the family of the previous owner - they wanted the saloon back - anyway they could get it …And suddenly, at the worst possible time, the folk of Tennyson found they had a war on their hands … and the prize was THE HIDE AND HORN SALOON... 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).
