Mayhem, murder and a maverick sheriff in what was surely the craziest and wildest plot Blade ever got mixed up in. Lawmen and outlaws want his hide as he moves in the shadow of the hangman's noose.

JOE BLADE: an unwilling killer, hunted and betrayed. LAFE OLAFSON: sheriff, Blade's boyhood friend. He hunted Blade as ruthlessly as he would a mad dog. EARL WANNAKER: multi-millionaire and girl-stealer. A man of no morals and less conscience. KID WANNAKER: his wild son. Crazy as his father. He thought Blade was too old and too slow. NELL: an outlaw's woman who stood between Blade and a cut throat. LIAM SHANDY: mad Irish king of the Border smugglers. HOLLY GOODCHILD: who always smiled and carried death wherever he went.

A violent and fast-moving climax to Joe Blade's cyclonic career.

The Mexicans called them Apache de Navajo. The Americans called them everything they could lay their tongues to. Other Indians feared them like nothing else on earth. They were …

THE NAVAHO

Years ago Warren Haffner had ridden fearfully down the Navaho Trail with the great Kit Carson. Now he was coming back for revenge. In his path stood Joe Blade and Charity Clayton, who would rather be exchanging vows with each other than shots with the enemy. And in the bloody Indian uprising that followed the murder of the Navaho chief, men died as they had lived – violently and in vain.

Joe Blade was hunting for the men who had murdered his mother and father. All their lives Cy Hartman and Carl Roe had concealed their guilty secret—and grew rich and powerful on it.

When Blade went against them they hired the best killers to bring him down. They finally cornered him in Cheyenne. At the end of a trail of death, they wondered if they'd bitten off more than they could chew. And when Charity Clayton came on the scene, they choked.

FRANK O'HARA had a treasure. Everybody knew about it but nobody could find it. Or Frank O'Hara. CHARITY CLAYTON knew about the treasure and was after it. She was after Joe Blade too—which he didn't mind. EDDIE PRENTICE was town marshal of Cheyenne. He wanted O'Hara, the treasure, and Charity Clayton. He also wanted Joe Blade so he could hang him. JIMMY WHITTLE was a pint-sized horse-thief with a giant ego. He'd kill to own a good horse. And frequently did. Which gave the clue to O'Hara's treasure. CLEOPATRA VIVALDI was beautiful, passionate, greedy for men and gold—and claimed to be Mrs. Frank O'Hara. Only Frank didn't know about it.

They were living out a violent human drama against the massive backdrop of the west. And with a stunning indifference to death, they were out to break the Montana Deadlock.

The Nevada mustang was the famous spotted stallion sought after by all men who had horse fever.

Chavez— the Mexican.

Little Wolf—the Kiowa.

Marty Carr—the gunman.

and Joe Blade.

They had one thing in common the hope that it would be their rope that snared the great Appaloosa mustang. And they were ready to kill for him. It was one of the greatest horse hunts of all time a hunt which led four men to their fatal destiny..

"Posset was the stranger who held it ... Chavez was the Mexican who worked it ... and Geronimo baptized it with blood.

Arizona was a wild, forbidding land. The Indians had possessed it since the beginning of time, and they prized their freedom. The white men were newcomers who hungered for gold, silver, cattle and the land itself.

Apache and white man were natural enemies and the Mexicans were alien to both. So when each claimed the territory, their clash was bloody, violent and disastrous. With Joe Blade in the middle of it all!

Together they made ...

THE ARIZONA CLIMAX!

"Blade knew the lives of the others rated on him. As he charged into the black tunnel, he knew he was a plain target against the light. The other man's gun roared deafeningly in the confined space … "

BLADE: tough, tender and temperamental. Slow to anger, fast with a gun and no slouch with women. A man tempered by the West, dangerous living and a perpetual gamble with death.
The Women: the Indian girl was a lovely waif of a grisly massacre. The Mexican girl: mettlesome as a thoroughbred filly and heiress to half of New Mexico. Both of them more desirable than the women of men's dreams …
The Killers: drawn to gold like steel to a magnet, blind the mercy, indifferent to death, they plundered the living and the dead. They were the scourge of the West. Now they faced Blade …

Read Chapter One Here

They gambled bloodily with the lives of innocent men and women ...

They used mayhem and murder to fulfil their ambitions ...

The prize in their deadly game was the Territory of Arizona. Law and order rested in the hands of Joe Blade, lovely Charity Clayton and veteran scout George McMasters. The Tucson Ring has penetrated all walks of life in the Territory. Only two men and a woman stood between them and power ...

"It was the classic challenge, the meeting of two famous guns ... an incident rare in the West and seen by few men. They met in the lamplight of old Laredo Tow, each man pacing slowly in the face of death. Only one would walk away ..."

Even the Texas Rangers and the local law held back from the two powerful, land-hungry millionaires. Joe Blade was the only man left to challenge them. They ambushed him, bushwhacked him and tried to run him out of town, but he survived. Meeting violence with violence, Blade would never surrender until he had concluded the Laredo Assigment.

"The girl was in the saddle with the tope around her neck. Tweley started to mount his horse. Knowing that the girl's life was held in the balance, Blade lifted the Colt from his belt, pulled back the hammer and pressed the trigger in one movement ..."

Pecos country - tough on horses, hell for women. Land where Kiowas hunted horses, Comanches looked for loot, Mescalero hunted the white man-and Joe Blade hunted a child killer. He knew he rode to his own possible death at the hands of the Indians. But he had no choice, for in his hands lay Western justice and the fate of the white girl in the lonely Pecos ranch house.

"Doke Struther saw the light glimmer faintly on the barell of the gun in the loft ... Blade drew his gun with the speed that put him in the top echelons of gunfighters and he hit the man standing directly in front of him ..."

JOE BLADE: a man who survived in a dangerous world with only his gun and wits to back him. SALOME AND ROXANNE: beautiful women who survived in the same world by knowing how to use their beauty and wits. DOKE STRUTHER: who had checked in his gun for a bottle of whiskey and looked like he would not survive at all. MART SUMMERS: the old mountain man who found the Spanish gold and meant to keep it. HARRY LISTER:who master-minded a bunch of hard cases with murder in their hearts and rape in their minds, in search of the women and the gold.

An explosive mixture - can they survive the blast?

"A man appeared from behind a bench in front of him. He had a gun in his hand and it was pointed at McMasters. A faint sound behind him brought him around. Two more men stood between him and the door. They also held guns and they were also pointed as McMasters ..."

The Mexican Proposition was the creation of a new state comprising northern Mexico and south-western United States - the Republic of the Rio Grande. It would stretch from Louisiana to the Pacific.
Brigand and murderer Profirio Rojas and hi stand of traitors raised the new flag and relied on a secret weapon for victory.

They were opposed by three men and a girl - Doke Struther, the millionaire's son who gambled his life without question, George McMasters, half-Cheynene and true to his word, Joe Blade - and Charity Clayton, as brave as she was lovely. Their job was to defeat the new republic ... or die!