MARSHAL JEREMY SIX

Jeremy Six, marshal of Spanish Flat, Arizona Territory, pocketed his law badge and rode across the Mexican border on a personal vendetta. His prey was Steve Lament – gambler, gunslinger, and the slayer of Jeremy's girl friend.

Six soon found himself embroiled in the chaos and destruction of the Mexican revolutionary struggle. Relying on instinct instead of common sense, Six found himself choosing sides – and the lawman in him was outraged.

But Jeremy Six was not the only one who struggled with his conscience even as he battled for his life. There was still Steve Lament to meet lead justice.

Spanish Flat was a town balanced between high country and desert, between mines and ranches, between horsemen and foemen, between the law-abiding and the naturally lawless.

At any moment the balance could shift and the place go up in gunsmoke. One man kept watch on the balance. is name was Jeremy Six and he wore the marshal's badge.

But even the best lawman has to have a deputy – and when Jeremy's new segundo set out to even a few old scores with the owlhooters, it meant that the law itself in Spanish Flat had gone loco – and every badge was a fair target for a six-shooter.

Wade Cruze and his men were in Spanish Flat, waiting. As hardcase a crew as ever rode the Arizona range, they were loaded for bear. Because their herd was on its way to town also, but under another man’s brand and prodded by an equally gun-quick crew.

Marshal Six knew he'd need every bit of his trigger talent and lawman cunning to keep that restless bunch from shooting the town to pieces before their real targets arrived. The dispute was between two ranchers and it might be that both had right on their side, because it seemed to Six that there was an unknown third party prodding things along.

If Six didn't move lightning fast at the exact right time, there was sure going to be a blood-red round up right in the center of Spanish Flat and maybe no town left by sunset.

"I'll have your guts for guitar strings, Jeremy Six!"

If you've ever seen a she-bear defend her cub against a pack of wolves, you'll know what Ma Marriner was like, only maybe she was bigger and meaner and the wolves were on her side.

What the marshal of Spanish Flat had done was to shoot Ma's husband, Buel, while he was going about his business of robbing the town's bank. And neither Ma nor her ornery son Cleve were going to let that go unavenged. Especially when Jeremy Six had added insult to injury by tossing Cleve into the calaboose.

So Ma gathered up the clan and all their thirty or more border-rider friends, and the whole pack of them set out for Spanish Flat to skin Jeremy's hide once and for all.

If it hadn't been for John Paradise arriving in town the same time as a government payroll amounting to sixty-five thousand dollars in gold, Marshal Jeremy Six might have passed a peaceful Fourth of July weekend.

But the one-armed killer with a reputation of having gunned down fifty-seven men in his time was perched, sphinx-like, on a barstool, "waiting for a friend."

And Harry Rose, a fat dude from the East, arrived with his entourage in Spanish Flat, gravitated toward the Drover's Rest Saloon "to wait for his partner."

The talent accumulating in town made the marshal itch. Then as four men were shot dead and the payroll disappeared, Jeremy knew he was refereeing a free-for-all between two bands of professional bandits.

"If the law's only wanted when it's convenient, then you can find yourself a marshal who thinks that way." Jeremy Six took his badge off, mounted his horse, and rode away from Spanish Flat.

But habit lingers and a trained trigger finger gets itchy. So when Jeremy fell in with an odd pair—a greenhorn newspaperman and bespectacled ex-con—and the three were ambushed on the road to Rifle Gap, it proved beyond his ability to keep out of the action.

And action there was in plenty as an intricate plot unfolded for control of the lush Concho Valley that also involved extracting a six-gun vengeance for the dark doings of a desperado past.

It started out with four drunken gunslingers raising the devil in a local saloon. Jeremy Six, marshal of Spanish Flat, knew it was going to be tough enough to silence that bunch.

But Spanish Flat was in for more than just that little ruckus that night. The tough little crossroads town was in for a blizzard that would make the roads impassable, that would drive the temperature down to zero and the frustrated anger of its frontier toughs boiling.

And then would come the refugees from the storm – the chilly-eyed killer riding in from the outlaw trail and the two-legged wolves from their rangeland hideouts.

They'd all be playing hell in Spanish Flat. And if there was to be a town still standing there tomorrow, it would be up to Jeremy to survive ... The night it rained bullets!

It was a hot, summer in Spanish Flat, and Marshal Jeremy Six figured on the usual amount of trouble: liqored-up miners, brawls between farmers and cowhands, and a couple of scraps over girls or cards.

Until Ben Sarasen rode into town..

Something ugly was brewing and the mood of the town reflected it. Where Sarasen walked, so did trouble. And yet Jeremy couldn't help respecting the man … almost liking him. But he knew that Oakley Madden's bunch were ripe to start something, and, if so, Sarasen was pretty sure to be involved in it.

Then, Jeremy knew, there would have to be a showdown – and either he or Saracen wouldn't come out of it alive.

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