John Henry Sixkiller, half Cherokee, half white, a U.S. Marshal working out of the Indian territory, is asked by Governor Lew Wallace of New Mexico to look into something for the Federal government. A party of Englishmen and women, and their servants, had disappeared and were presumed dead. Their leader, an English Lord, had been a relative of Queen Victoria and, in order to avoid an international incident, the killers were to be found and dealt with.
Ringgold, Wyoming were where they last been seen and that area was known to be controlled by Bart Skillern, the Utah Kid. A number of investigators had been sent in and all had turned up dead. Sixkiller was free to turn it down with no hard feelings.
That wasn’t John Henry’s way though.
He goes in to find corruption everywhere and no one he could be sure to trust. So he picks a fight with the toughest man in town and both get arrested. Which gets him noticed and in position to pick up clues to find the hideout of those involved and a young woman taken by the Utah Kid.
I like this series of the tough half Cherokee U.S. Marshal. Who the J. A Johnstone is on these books I haven’t an inkling.