A Crow to Pluck (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781633734364)

Vengeance... At Any Price.

Ex-mustanger Cope Worley met his wife E.J. late in life. They fell in love and he gave up chasing wild horses and settled down as a lawman in a quiet little town in New Mexico. It's a good life, until one fateful evening when Cope chases a scared kid into a barn and takes a bullet. After he recovers, E.J. lays down a little law of her own--it's her or the badge. Unwilling to face the prospect of a life without her, he agrees. Seeking greener pastures, they move to a small town in Texas and start over. He goes back to chasing horses instead of outlaws, and she sets up a stable to train and sell them. Their prospects never looked so bright. Until they cross paths with Lorenzo Cholla, that is.

Cholla is an outlaw on a mission to rob the local bank. Recruiting his gang from the dregs of the town itself, his masterfully-planned holdup goes off without a hitch... until he fires on a teller and accidentally cuts down E.J., instead. The crew escapes with the money, but in their ignorance, they've sown the seeds of their own destruction.

A devastated Cope rides out in pursuit, bent on killing the men who murdered his wife. One by one he runs them down, but no matter how much blood he sheds, the pain of his loss only seems to worsen. "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," sayeth the Lord. Is this the reason why? Is vengeance worth the cost if he becomes no better than the men he hunts?

In the end, to stop Cholla, Cope is forced to face his own misdeeds head-on and make a gut-wrenching decision that may well define him forever.