Bring Me His Ears

The title tells you everything: Governor Armijo wants Tom Boyd's ears, and he wants them brought to him as proof of death. That's the brutal mission riding into the frontier with Ephriam Schoolcraft and his nervous companion Pedro. Boyd humiliated the governor in St. Louis, and Armijo's cruelty knows no bounds. But Boyd isn't an easy man to find or kill. He's a plainsman who knows the wilderness like his own heartbeat, and every step deeper into the territory brings the hunters closer to becoming the hunted. Mulford builds tension like a coiled rope, each page pulling tighter as the party moves through dangerous territory where a man's survival depends on his gun, his wits, and how far he's willing to go for a payday. This isn't a glorify-the-frontier Western. It's darker than that. It asks what men become when they're ordered to do monstrous things, and what happens when the monster's reach exceeds his grasp.