Sheriff James Carmichael is barely recovered from the assassination attempted by a fellow law enforcement officer when he is thrown a new problem. A prominent local rancher has gone missing. His distraught son tells the sheriff that his father had gone into the Mala Suerte to check on some lost cattle.
The Mala Suerte. As unforgiving a place as exists anywhere else in the world. Born of tectonic upheavals, the ground broken and scarred, swept by the ever-present wind, everything out there will puncture, bite, poison or starve anyone foolish enough to enter.
The sheriff doesn’t have the heart to tell the boy that the only thing they’re likely to find of anyone five days overdue from what should have been a two day trip is going to be scattered bones.
He is nowhere near a hundred percent able yet, has other issues with which he must deal – not the least of which is his unresolved situation with Eileen Parker - and in the midst of it is confronted with a natural disaster.
To add to his problems, Special Agent Sara Kickingbird of the FBI has been assigned the case. Kickingbird has had a love/hate relationship with Jim Carmichael since the events they shared in Devil's Canyon. Mostly it has been hate.
Nevertheless, he has no choice. He must enter the Mala Suerte, somehow survive and find his quarry. Or die trying.
The latter option seems all too likely.
The Mala Suerte. As unforgiving a place as exists anywhere else in the world. Born of tectonic upheavals, the ground broken and scarred, swept by the ever-present wind, everything out there will puncture, bite, poison or starve anyone foolish enough to enter.
The sheriff doesn’t have the heart to tell the boy that the only thing they’re likely to find of anyone five days overdue from what should have been a two day trip is going to be scattered bones.
He is nowhere near a hundred percent able yet, has other issues with which he must deal – not the least of which is his unresolved situation with Eileen Parker - and in the midst of it is confronted with a natural disaster.
To add to his problems, Special Agent Sara Kickingbird of the FBI has been assigned the case. Kickingbird has had a love/hate relationship with Jim Carmichael since the events they shared in Devil's Canyon. Mostly it has been hate.
Nevertheless, he has no choice. He must enter the Mala Suerte, somehow survive and find his quarry. Or die trying.
The latter option seems all too likely.
