Delaware Tom; or, The Traitor Guide

1855. A wagon train rolls westward through territories where every hill conceals danger and every stranger might be a killer. At its heart stands Clara Calhoun, a young woman whose sharp tongue and sharper mind make her the only person who suspects the smooth-talking guide called Dusky Dick. He's charming, he's indispensable, and he's leading them straight into a trap.For only Tom Maxwell, the weathered scout they call Delaware Tom, sees the truth: Dusky Dick has sold the emigrants to a band of raiders waiting in the canyons ahead. Now Clara must outwit a traitor while Tom races to save a train of innocent people from becoming orphans, widows, and corpses on the bleeding frontier.This is dime novel storytelling at its rawest: a tale of moral clarity wrapped in frontier violence, where a woman refuses to be silent and a good man must prove his worth with gunpowder and guts. Badger writes with the punchy certainty of a world where right and wrong are as clear as the dust on the plains, and the journey west becomes a crucible that tests who survives and who deserves to.