The Crucible Of The Llano Estacado
(2026)(The fourth book in the Coldiron Western Adventure series)
A novel by Rex Canyon and Robert Hanlon
United States Marshal Timber has already caught Charles Reed once.
After the Beehive Saloon erupts in gunfire in January 1877, three men lie dead in Fort Griffin. Reed is captured and jailed, but a court clerk’s paperwork error in Seguin orders his release—and he vanishes once more into the Texas plains. Timber spends months riding his trail from river bottoms to rail towns, watching the outlaw turn into a ghost.
Then, in his boldest move yet, Reed rides onto the Llano Estacado—thirty-seven thousand square miles of wind-burned emptiness where lakes run dry, distances deceive, and men who misjudge the land do not return. A place that does not chase a man or threaten him—it simply lets him fail.
Timber follows, trusting patience over speed and water over pride. But he is not alone in the hunt.
Texas Ranger Jesse Coldiron Newton rides north from Fort Griffin, reading sign across the Staked Plains with a quiet resolve of his own. Between the two lawmen stretches a country flat as judgment and merciless as drought, where pursuit becomes a duel not just with an outlaw, but with thirst, distance, and the slow erosion of a man’s will.
Out on the Llano there are no towns, no courts, no witnesses—only thirst, distance without mercy, and a quiet contest with death that the land almost always wins.
As the wind rises and the maps begin to fail, Timber will learn that catching Charles Reed is only part of the fight. Surviving the Llano is another.
Robert Hanlon and Rex Canyon deliver a stark and powerful frontier novel about law, endurance, and the cost of unfinished business on the high plains of Texas.
Genre: Western
After the Beehive Saloon erupts in gunfire in January 1877, three men lie dead in Fort Griffin. Reed is captured and jailed, but a court clerk’s paperwork error in Seguin orders his release—and he vanishes once more into the Texas plains. Timber spends months riding his trail from river bottoms to rail towns, watching the outlaw turn into a ghost.
Then, in his boldest move yet, Reed rides onto the Llano Estacado—thirty-seven thousand square miles of wind-burned emptiness where lakes run dry, distances deceive, and men who misjudge the land do not return. A place that does not chase a man or threaten him—it simply lets him fail.
Timber follows, trusting patience over speed and water over pride. But he is not alone in the hunt.
Texas Ranger Jesse Coldiron Newton rides north from Fort Griffin, reading sign across the Staked Plains with a quiet resolve of his own. Between the two lawmen stretches a country flat as judgment and merciless as drought, where pursuit becomes a duel not just with an outlaw, but with thirst, distance, and the slow erosion of a man’s will.
Out on the Llano there are no towns, no courts, no witnesses—only thirst, distance without mercy, and a quiet contest with death that the land almost always wins.
As the wind rises and the maps begin to fail, Timber will learn that catching Charles Reed is only part of the fight. Surviving the Llano is another.
Robert Hanlon and Rex Canyon deliver a stark and powerful frontier novel about law, endurance, and the cost of unfinished business on the high plains of Texas.
Genre: Western
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