Texas Past (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780962853128)

Luke is one of those young men who grew up in hard times, doing a man's work years before he was grown. He also learned early in life to take care of himself, and had learned to shuck a gun quicker than most men.

But, Luke's life as a care-free cowboy came to an abrupt end one white-hot Texas summer day. Three riders came upon Luke while he and another cowboy were at a line shack gathering strays and branding calves. The riders were chasing rustlers.

One of the men was a hothead, the son of a powerful, local rancher. He insisted that Luke and his friend were the rustlers.Luke convinces the leader of three riders, an older man with moves Luke considered to be like that of a big cat, that they had the wrong men. However, he shouldn't have discounted the rancher's son. It was a mistake that would cost several men their lives before all was done.

Luke tells it this way:

That kid though, he was like a dog when you take away a piece of meat he's about to sink his teeth into. He just went mean all of a sudden.Even though I'd put away my Colt, I was still watching close. Hadn't been that I was still watching, I might have missed the kid's move because he drew his gun without me seeing it. All I caught was his wild eyes and the twitch of his right shoulder, and I dove for the dirt and yelled for my partner to do the same as me.

That kid got a shot off, but it went into the earth right beside his own horse because my shot took him right out of the saddle backwards. I heard him scream and heard him hit the ground with a heavy thud. He made no sound after that.

After the dust settles, Luke is warned by the older man that there will be some hard riders coming after him because Briner, the rancher, was a powerful man who would want revenge, and it didn't matter that his kid was in the wrong. The man would have the Texas Rangers looking for him, and he'd be sending his own crew of gunmen.

Luke immediately heads for New Mexico Territory. He is tracked, but manages to elude the men chasing him. Once there, Luke partners with three other men and they buy a small ranch. All goes well for nearly a year. Luke even manages to fall in love. And then one day, Briner found him.

The rancher and every hard-case that rode with him would one day regret they found Luke Adams. They'd regret accidently hurting the girl Luke loved, and would regret shooting one of his partners. The hard-case gunmen that rode with him into New Mexico, would learn that they had come to hang a man who wasn't quite what he appeared to be. He wasn't the usual cowboy who wore a gun for the coyotes, snakes, and other critters. A gun was as familiar to Luke as a rope. He'd spent years as a kid jerking a big, bone-handled .44 out of his waistband and firing it, until he could catch a jackrabbit on the hop and a squirrel on the run.

Those Texas riders found a man who was tougher than the land in which he lived. They also discovered that they had created an enemy who became a relentless foe. They encountered a man who reached a point where he was not content to just defend himself.

They found a man who hunted them.

Down to the last man.