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Outlaw. Assassin. Thief. Christopher Burr had been all these things and more. As a shootist, he’d gotten a name for himself as the man who shot Button Haggard in cold blood. Most of what was said about him happened to be true. He’d done the majority of the things he was credited with and was only disappointed that he wasn’t responsible for the rest. He was good at what he did, but his true calling was at the keys of an old piano. He hadn’t been born to it—hadn’t even laid eyes on a piano until he was nearly twenty. But he was a natural and could play a rendition of almost anything at a moment’s notice as long as he’d heard it before. While he waited in the saloon of a little town called Amity Creek, Chris took the opportunity to dabble with the keys of the old honky-tonk there, losing himself to a rough-around-the-edges version of an old church hymn he enjoyed playing once in a while. Some of the old boys in the saloon were nodding along, eyes closed, already heavily inebriated with beer and whiskey. Lost to thoughts of the past, their own regrets and failures. In the bad times, Chris had played the piano to make enough spare change to buy food with. These days, he played when it suited him or when he had time to kill, as he did now. This particular number always made him think of his father, Nate, and for a long time, he didn’t know why. It wasn’t until he played it for his mother one Christmas that she told him the hymn had been played at his father’s funeral. Then it all made sense.
“You must be Chris,” a deep voice said behind him.
Chris did not turn around, nor did he stop playing. “What makes you say that?”
The man came around the piano, fingers walking over the worn varnish of the wood as he did so. “ ’Cause you’re the youngest fella in here by a long shot. And none of these folks seem the type to have a bounty on their heads, far as I can tell.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Chris said, glancing up.
The man was in his late fifties or early sixties, with a thick white handlebar mustache under his nose and white hair on his head, coiffed high to disguise the baldness beneath. Chris finished playing his song, then relinquished his seat at the piano for a local barfly to take over. He suggested they talk at a table situated at the rear. The other man ordered a bottle of whiskey and a pair of glasses from the bartender. He carried them over and plonked them down on the wooden tabletop.
Chris shook hands with the older man. “Chris Burr.”
“Boothe Lockhurst. You came recommended.”
“Old Tom Preston still singing my praises, is he?”
“He is,” Lockhurst said. “Not that I have any direct dealings with him. I do not trust the man.”
“You’re wise not to. His record speaks for itself.”
“Yes. Not a whole lot to be proud of there,” Lockhurst agreed as he poured them each a full glass of whiskey. “To new acquaintances,” Lockhurst declared.
Both men clinked their cups together.
Chris threw his back, the fiery nectar burning his gullet. He looked at the way Lockhurst was dressed—he had the air of a man with money for sure.
“Ride all the way out here on your own?”
“Of course not,” Lockhurst said. “I have trusted men in town with me.”
“Where they at now?”
“Nowhere near here,” Lockhurst said. “They’re not much protection if they’re drunk and I’d be a fool to trust any man around a saloon—including myself, I might add.”
Chris smiled. “I see,” he said, not believing Lockhurst for a moment.
The answer had been given to dissuade Chris from pulling anything. Not that he would’ve tried—he was far too curious to see what kind of job the man had for him first. He smelled money.
“Quiet town,” Lockhurst said.
“It’s kinda out of the way. They got a new sheriff here. He’s no trouble. Don’t know me from Adam, which suits me to the ground. He ain’t gonna be lookin’ at a wanted poster one minute, then comparing it to me the next.”
“I heard you got a rather hefty price on your head, you know, depending on where you go, who you ask.”
“All true.”
Lockhurst poured them another drink. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?”
“Being a marked man.”
“No.” Chris shrugged. “Look, mister, I’ve been a marked man my entire life. Ain’t nothin’ new to me. Comes part and parcel with the job.”
“So you come to places like this to lie low, I take it.”
“Yeah, but not only that,” Chris said, shifting in his seat and grinning. “They got a nice bordello at the edge of town. Not a dive, either. High-class, quality place.”
“Ah,” Lockhurst said, smiling, replenishing their whiskey. “Say no more.”
They drank and slammed their glasses down. “So what was it you wanted to talk about?” Chris asked.
“I heard you’re good at taking things that don’t belong to you,” Lockhurst said.
“From time to time,” Chris told him. “Depends what I’m goin’ after.”
“A map.”
Chris’s brow furrowed. “A map? To what?”
“I’m afraid the purpose of the map does not fall under the purview of the job. I want to hire you to steal it for me. That’s all. No questions asked . . . and I am prepared to pay handsomely for your discretion.”
“How handsomely?”
“Very.”
Chris thought about the four thousand acres of land he’d been trying to purchase for years. Having the money and then losing it over and over again on games of poker and fast women. This job would set him on his way for good. Get him within spitting distance of that land, that dream. The world would always call to him, but he’d have something to his name for once. Something to say he had been there, he’d been substantial.
“Any other parties interested?”
“Not that I am aware,” Lockhurst said. “The man you are going to steal it from is called Richard Kiel, a former business associate of mine. A long time ago, we were in business with each other but we had a falling-out of sorts. He took off with half of the map and I was left with the other. Dick knows as well as I do that neither half is worth anything by itself alone.”
“Tell me about this fella. You say he’s a former business associate?”
“Let’s just say that we ceased seeing eye to eye,” Lockhurst said. “He cannot use the map without having possession of my half and I cannot do the same without having possession of his.”
“Sounds like a stalemate.”
“Never was a truer word said.”
Chris grinned. “You’re thinkin’ you’d better get his half before he tries comin’ after yours. Am I right?”
“I didn’t want it to come to this. But Dick is uncompromising. He’s left me no choice.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
Chris sat back in his chair. “Are you wealthy, Mr. Lockhurst?”
“Yes.”
“And your former business associate, is he wealthy, too?”
Lockhurst’s face tightened. “Yes.”
Chris weighed it up. “Okay. Tell me where he keeps this map.”
“Dick doesn’t trust anyone. Never has. He never leaves anything with the railway agents, like any normal person. So he travels with the map in a little lockbox. You can’t miss it. It has his initials engraved in the top.”
“Gotcha.”
“Anyway, I caught wind that Dick is traveling through Texas the month after next by train,” Lockhurst said, retrieving a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket. He handed it across the table. “This is his itinerary. Where he’ll be and when. I’d imagine you’d want to pull this off before he reaches the end of the line at Burnham’s Rest.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Chris said.
“Coincidentally, it’s where I’m based,” Lockhurst said. “It was positively ruined by the war. But we’re gradually rebuilding, best we can.”
Chris cocked an eyebrow. “If he’s going to Burnham’s Rest and you’re based in Burnham’s Rest . . . don’t it make sense to rob the guy in Burnham’s Rest?”
“On the contrary! I can’t have that kind of heat where I have my place of residence. Can you imagine the implications? As it stands, I have a good relationship with the mayor there. He happens to look the other way now and then when I need him to, which suits me just fine. No, sir, I do not need this happening on my own doorstep. Never mix business with pleasure, as they say.”
“Fair enough. So we hit him on the rails, then. If he sticks with his plans.”
Lockhurst drank some whiskey. “If there’s one thing I can be certain about when it comes to Richard Kiel, he is a stickler for punctuality. If he plans on being somewhere, he’ll be there. He’s never late. Never pulls out of anything. The man is as predictable as the hour and minutes of a clock.”
Chris scanned over the paper, then slid it inside his own jacket. “So he’s traveling by train and gonna have that lockbox with him at all times. You realize that makes this a very complicated job to pull off?”
“Why would that be? It seems it would only be as difficult as robbing a bank or holding up a stagecoach.”
“To the uninitiated, yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
Chris shifted in his seat. “It means, you’re talkin’ about hitting a bank, but the bank is on wheels traveling fifty miles an hour and guarded by armed railway agents. Get what I’m saying here?”
“I see your point,” Lockhurst said.
“It’s more complicated, a bigger risk.”
“Well, when the risk increases, so, too, does the price,” Lockhurst said.
Chris smiled. “Took the words right outta my mouth. I’m gonna need another set of hands for this job, which means double the fee.”
“Double the fee . . . I can do that.”
Chris laughed. “Mr. Lockhurst, you don’t even know what the fee is yet!”
“I had a figure in mind for a job of this scope,” Lockhurst said.
He reached into the other side of his jacket and produced a much smaller slip of paper folded in half to conceal what was written on it. He slid it across the tabletop.
Chris opened it out and looked at the figure written on it in pencil. His eyebrows rose in surprise. He had to look at it twice to believe it. “And you’re willing to double that?”
“I am.”
For a moment Chris was stunned speechless. He cleared his throat, which had gone suddenly dry. “I’m gonna need at least half of that as retainer.”
“Consider it done.”
“For both of us.”
Lockhurst’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he said somewhat reluctantly.
“Damn,” Chris said, whistling through his teeth. “Paying good money for me to rob a train. Sure hope that map is worth it.”
Lockhurst poured them both another drink. He lifted his own tumbler to the lamplight and peered into the smoky gold liquid within.
“It is,” he said, his voice suddenly intense. “More than you could know. I have coveted this for many years. Now that I’m so close, I simply must have it. I will spare no expense.”
Chris Burr hardly noticed the man’s tone. He was caught in the maze of his own thoughts. The trick would be in getting aboard the train and stealing the map without getting killed by railroad agents, and for that, he needed the best at his side.
Luckily for him, he knew just where to find her.

Two bandits are forced to put aside their rivalry to find a hidden cache of gold in this suspenseful installment in Ralph Compton’s bestselling Gunfighter series.

Outlaws. Assassins. Thieves.

That is how Chris Burr and Katie Roper are known. Ordinarily they’re enemies and competitors. But when they each find themselves in possession of half a map that will lead them to a fortune in hidden gold, they’re left with no choice but to work together. Their alliance is tenuous at best, and what begins as a tentative, untrusting partnership will soon become a game of cat and mouse through a sun-scorched land ravaged by the fiery conflict of the civil war.

As Chris and Katie learn that survival may depend on trusting each other, they are pursued across the desert by both a sheriff and a relentless, cold-blooded killer. With their fortunes and futures hanging in the balance, the hunters and the hunted find themselves on a collision course that will culminate in a final, deadly reckoning!