Gunman's Reckoning

A freight train roars through the night, and in the cab, a weathered gunfighter named Lefty Joe spins tales for a brakeman. Once the fastest draw in the territory, Lefty was king of the range. Then Donnegan destroyed his gang through betrayal, and now Lefty haunts the same train, carrying a rich man's payment to kill the man who ruined him. But vengeance and hired gun work make strange bedfellows, and Lefty finds himself caught between the coin he'd promised to take and the blood he'd sworn to spill. Max Brand, the bard of the Western range, builds this novella around a simple question: what remains when a gunman's whole identity is built on being the fastest hand in the territory, and that gift is taken from him? The answer is a story of bitter pride, hollow redemption, and the particular loneliness of men who measure their lives in holster time.