Floodwater Ferry
THE RIVER IS RISING. THE FERRY IS CONTROLLED BY AN OUTLAW. AND THE MAN ELD RIDGE SAMPLE IS HUNTING HAS ALREADY SHOT HIM TWICE.
U.S. Marshal and bounty hunter Eldridge Sample knows something is wrong the moment he reaches the Pawnee Creek crossing.
Then the rifle fire starts.
Wounded twice and bleeding badly, Sample rides thirty miles through the Kansas spring countryside to reach the Cottonwood River—only to discover forty-seven pioneers trapped on the wrong side of a raging flood.
The only ferry across the river is controlled by Luce Gidney, a ruthless operator who has seized the crossing and is demanding more money than the settlers can possibly pay. The river is rising, and the window to cross is shrinking by the hour.
Then Sample learns Gidney has another problem.
Harmon Blevins.
A wanted killer with a federal murder warrant, Blevins is the same gunman who ambushed Sample at Pawnee Creek. He's riding somewhere east with a packet of evidence that could destroy Gidney's entire operation.
Gidney makes Sample a deal:
Bring Blevins back alive.
Recover the evidence.
And Gidney will let the pioneer train cross the flooded Cottonwood at a price they can afford.
But there's a catch.
Sample has less than thirty-six hours to ride back into dangerous country, track down the man who nearly killed him, and return him alive—while the Cottonwood River continues to rise.
Because once the flood peaks, the ferry won't run.
And forty-seven settlers, eleven children, their livestock, and everything they own will be stranded on the wrong side of the river.
FLOODWATER FERRY is a hard-driving Western thriller packed with a wounded bounty hunter, a dangerous outlaw, frontier justice, gunfights, a desperate manhunt, a corrupt ferry crossing, pioneer survival, and the relentless threat of a flooding river.
For readers who love classic Western action, bounty hunter stories, outlaw manhunts, frontier adventure, Western suspense, and gritty historical Western thrillers, Eldridge Sample's latest case puts one simple question on the line:
Can he bring the killer back before the river takes the crossing?