Wyoming Territory, April 1878. Three men robbed the Sweetwater stage station and left the station keeper for dead. Two of them are sitting in the jail at Juniper Flat waiting on the circuit judge. The third was never caught. The only one who saw all their faces is a twelve-year-old boy, and the judge sits in six days.

Somebody has to get him there.

About me. I drive a school bus in Amarillo, Texas, and have for seventeen years. I have two routes a day, one at 6:40 in the morning and one at 2:30 in the afternoon, and in between I sit in the bus barn lunchroom with a spiral notebook and write westerns. My daddy read Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour out loud to us kids on the porch every summer night of my life, and I suppose I'm still trying to find out how those stories end.

My first serial, The Laramie Bride, ran here all last winter. I've taken it down while I fix it up to send to some publishers. Wish me luck. If you read it and liked it, thank you. Some of you wrote me the nicest letters I've ever gotten about anything.

I try hard to get the history right, and when I can't find out a thing for sure, I make up a town instead. Juniper Flat is one of those. Don't go looking for it on a map. If you know the country better than I do and I've got something wrong, please tell me. Nicely.