As the crow flies, Cananea stands about 25 miles south of the border, in Sonora, Mexico. Known as the copper city, it was no mirage in that vast tract of bone-dry country under a huge blue sky, but a makeshift sprawling town of saloons and whorehouses. Populated by drifters and gamblers and chancers, they were all there for one reason. To mine the wealth from the grudging earth. And when the copper turned into gold, the parasites came, scenting the lure of easy pickings.

It was into Cananea that Quantro rode, looking for honest employment to earn the money for a ranch whose cattle would carry his brand. He knew it would take hard work. But something always killed his dream. A crooked businessman protecting his interests, a miner like a grizzly bear who didn’t much like Quantro’s face and who tried to alter it, two men trying to rape his woman, or a bunch of outlaws determined to steal the silver he was protecting.

Whichever way it happened, Quantro always found himself in the middle of the gunfire.

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Boson Books publishes several books by Chris Scott Wilson. They can be found under Westerns on the fiction page.