RENEGADE GUNS [Powdersmoke Range] by Robert J. Hogan

THEY PLOTTED TO MAKE MILLIONS BY STARTING A WAR WITH THE APACHES – AND LOCKED THE ONLY MAN WHO COULD STOP IT IN STATE PRISON!

Stag Warren is the happiest cowpoke in Alpine as he rides into town on for his wedding to Melody Hale. What he doesn't know that the town bigwigs suspect he knows about their plot to make themselves the wealthiest men in the West. It's a scheme that will end up with the mass destruction of both settlers and local tribes of Apaches – and they suspect Stag Warren knows about it.

So they've hired a gunman to ambush Stag on the edge of town and gun him down in cold blood.

Then: "Stag turned to see the man draw, and he grabbed for his own .44. The alley thundered with the roar of guns. Stag got out one slug as he dived to the ground, both guns of the other man blazing. He missed, and Stag fanned his gun again. A look of shocked agony spread across the stranger's face, and he pitched to the ground."

It was self-defense pure and simple and Stag couldn't believe it when the sheriff charged him with murder, the jury convicted him on trumped up testimony and the judge sentenced him ten years in a hell hole of human misery known as Territorial Prison. There he uncovered the story of a sinister frontier operation led from Alpine which would bring on full scale war with the Apaches and flood millions of dollars into the pockets of the men behind it.

There were three things those men hadn't counted on: that Melody Hale would believe in Stag's innocence despite the witnesses whose lies convicted him; that his bone-deep decency would win him friends in prison; or just how fast his gun play could be.

"Renegade Guns is a rip snortin' western and Hogan is a craftsman." -Miami News