California Widow, (Paperback)

California Widow <p><strong>The desert eats good men first. Eldridge Sample is about to find out who served the meal.</strong></p><p>Crossing the blistering white hell of a salt flat, drifter and former lawman Eldridge Sample spots a lone rider frozen in the heat haze. It isn't a mirage-it's Nora Vance, a woman exhausted, dehydrated, and refusing to turn back. She is hunting for her husband, Caleb, a gentle carpenter who ventured west to find gold and build a future, only to vanish into the silence of the high peaks.</p><p>Nora believes Caleb is alive, building a cabin and waiting for her. Sample knows better. In a land defined by sharp rocks and sharper men, hope is usually the first thing to die.</p><p>Against his better judgment, Sample agrees to guide Nora into the jagged teeth of the mountains. Following a trail of discarded boots, dying mules, and cold campfires, they uncover the story of a "good man" who made the fatal mistake of trusting a stranger with kind eyes.</p><p>As they close in on a high-altitude claim, Sample realizes they aren't tracking a lost pilgrim anymore-they are hunting a wolf who is already counting his gold. And when the truth is finally dug up from the hard earth, justice will require a shovel, a gun, and a widow willing to trade her grief for vengeance.</p><p><strong>"He was a good man," she said. "He trusted people."</strong></p><p><strong>"That," Sample replied, "was his first mistake."</strong></p><p><strong>A tense, atmospheric Western mystery that trades the gun smoke of a range war for the slow-burn suspense of a high-country manhunt. California Widow is a story of survival, betrayal, and the brutal arithmetic of the frontier.</strong></p><p></p>

• California Widow, (Paperback)
• Author: Grand Ozarks Media
• ISBN: 9798295620263
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-02-10
• Page Count: 142