The Strip Marshal

About the Book

Chance Baldwin is a confused young man with amnesia. He enters the wild and wooly, but not very populous Strip, a genuine part of the western frontier, where he´s not sure whether he´s a peace officer, outlaw, or ordinary cowhand. A young lady, named Juanita, enters his life confusing the picture even more. Facing outlaws in a small town on the Arizona Strip, that part of the Arizona territory in the late 1800´s lying between the Grand Canyon and the Utah line, lands him in the sights of a mysterious killer, and brings up a former fiancee to complicate the situation. The chemistry between Juanita, his new flame, and Helen his fiancee, sparks instantaneous trouble and a cat fight ensues. Juanita shows her metal but is confused by Chance´s inability to explain his past. More bad news arrives when she finds out he´s wanted for murder and robbery with a ten thousand dollar reward on his head. Mame, a sister to Helen, tries to eliminate Chance by having him gunned down. Chance is befuddled by all these actions and decides it´s time to find out who he really is. Traveling to a small town in Utah, he sends multiple telegrams and eventually finds some answers, but not all. He gets more bad news when he returns to the Strip. An old cowpoke named Crip tries to side him against the outlaw bunch from the Hole-in-the-Rock. Chance may be the town marshal but the outlaws think he´s one of them and is only playing at being the marshal, because he was once a member of the gang.

About the Author

The author grew up as a cowboy on the Arizona Strip, one of the last places in the west to be tamed by the law. His father, besides being a rancher, was Justice of the Peace, the only law on the Strip, for many years. As late as the nineteen-fifties wanted men slipped across the southern border of Utah into the Strip, where the Grand Canyon formed a natural barrier from the rest of Arizona. This was a no-man’s land. The author’s books are set in this historic local. He writes of the courageous men and women whose indomitable spirit helped tame this part of the west.