A drunken plan to make some quick money with two friends landed drifter Whit Ralston in the Yuma Territorial Prison-the worst prison in Arizona. Now he's doing hard time in the inferno the inmates call the Hell Hole, counting the days until his release. He's vowed never to do anything so stupid again... but then his crazy cellmate, Ratero, starts talking about a load of stolen gold stashed up in the mountains. At first, Whit dismisses it as fantasy, the feverish rantings of a man who'd spent too many years in stir. Then he's furloughed to help with a construction project outside the prison. The taste of freedom is intoxicating, but everyone he meets wants to know just one thing-where's Cordova's gold? Could Ratero's rantings possibly be based in truth? Could the gold really exist? When he falls for a beautiful, blue-eyed lady of the evening who seems as taken with him as he with her, Whit realizes he might have a new reason to run some risks.
Once he gets out of prison, Whit starts making plans-but he's going to have to make better choices about just who to believe in order to hit pay dirt. People say a lot of things, but when it's money on the line, your best friend today could be holding you at gunpoint tomorrow. In the Old West, though, following the law is never as important as trusting the right people.

Dusty Richards grew up riding horses and watching his western heroes on the big screen. He even wrote book reports for his classmates, making up westerns since English teachers didn't read that kind of book. His mother, though, didn't want him to be a cowboy, so he went to college, then worked for Tyson Foods and auctioned cattle when he wasn't a news anchor on television.His lifelong dream, though, was to write the novels he loved. He sat on the stoop of Zane Grey's cabin and promised he'd one day get published, as well. In 1992, that promise became a reality when his first book, Noble's Way, hit the shelves. In the years since, he's published over 160 more, winning nearly every major award for western literature along the way. His 150th novel, The Mustanger and the Lady, was adapted for the silver screen and released as the motion picture Painted Woman in 2017. In a review for the movie, True West magazine proclaimed Dusty "the greatest living western fiction writer alive." Sadly, Dusty passed away in early 2018, leaving behind a legion of fans and a legacy of great western writing that will live on for generations.