Thunderhead: Tales of Love, Honor, and Vengeance in the Historic American West, Book Two

Book Two of the Thunderhead trilogy follows photograph artist Al Franklin to Laramie, Wyoming Territory, where he hopes to settle the score with Jack McCall. Almost two weeks prior to this, McCall had murdered a friend of Al’s in Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok, and then had gotten away with it in an illegal miner’s court. Al will not rest until McCall pays for his transgressions, and that means seeing to it that his neck is stretched by a hangman’s noose.

Quick Maggie DeMarco and Bloody Ray the Knife do battle to see who will win the right to lead the gang. Bloody Ray has two favorite pastimes: mistreating his dun horse and coveting everything that Quick Maggie holds dear. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Harvey McCafferty continues his pursuit of the gang by consorting with Tim Brady, an elite member of Deadwood’s underworld. Apparently Brady has a surefire way of setting up an ambush for Quick Maggie and her cohorts, because he knows where to find the man she is looking for: the lowlife who raped and murdered her mother fourteen years ago.