Rounding Up the Law

A dusty frontier berg—half mirage, half mud—becomes the arena for a high-stakes poker hand that turns into a deed of empire. Larry Connell, taciturn drifter with card-sharp fingers and the wary eyes of a man who has outrun more sunsets than he cares to count, lays down a royal flush and walks away owner of a sprawling cattle empire. The previous proprietor, a gout-ridden baron nursing both sore losers’ rage and political IOUs, strong-arms a pliant judge into voiding the win. Paperwork flies like arrows; fences are sundered; cattle bawl under new brands. Evicted and humiliated, Connell does not ride into the sagebrush to sulk—he doubles down, rustles the very coin his cows were auctioned for, and buys the sharpest legal mind this side of the Mississippi. What follows is a chess match of subpoenas, midnight depositions, and courtroom theater played out against cycloramic mesas, where justice wears a six-gun under its robe and every verdict can still be appealed at the business end of a Winchester.