Across the Dusty Mesa (Hahmood The Killer Book 4)

Across the Dusty Mesa

Hahmood is hired for what seems like a quiet piece of detective work: finding out who poisoned the water source for a struggling farmer’s small herd. With her young sons working hard to keep their homestead alive, the attack threatens to break the family and everything they have built.

But the truth is buried deep in the dust. As Hahmood looks closer, he finds that nearby neighbors may have more than a passing interest in taking over the land. He knows he should leave the matter to the law, but old habits are not easily buried.

When bullets fly and the body count begins to rise, Hahmood must decide how far he is willing to go to uncover the truth—and whether the cost of justice has become too high.

A tale of land, loyalty, and violent reckonings, Across the Dusty Mesa is the fourth book in Stuart G. Yates’ Hahmood The Killer series of western novels.

Read Across the Dusty Mesa today.

Excerpt from the book

She came in from the fields, brushing off the dust from her apron front, and slumped into the nearest chair. It was cold in the cabin, the sod roof beginning to sag, wind seeping in from between the gaps in the rafters. Her eyes fell on the Henry hanging above the back door. She should take it, she thought, go out and shoot whoever it was who was doing such wicked, vindictive things to her and her family. But who to shoot? There was the dilemma. She struggled against the feelings beginning to overwhelm her, the sense of defeat, despair. She could hold out no longer and she put her face in her hands and wept, the stress of it all crushing her, breaking the last remnants of her spirit.

The door opened and she hastily gathered herself, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She stood up and turned, giving her best smile as Haydn came inside. Her eldest boy cocked his head and fixed her with a concerned look. “Ma?”

Waving away his concern, she crossed to the range. “Coffee?”

“Ma, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, keeping her back to him as she squeezed out a short, sharp laugh. She busied herself scooping two handfuls of beans into the pot. “Nothing at all.”

“Yes, there is.” He went to her, hands on her slim shoulders. “Ma, whoever it is, we’ll find ‘em. Clinton and me, we’ll camp out all night long if need be.”

Another laugh, more of a strangulated bark. “That won’t do any good. They ain’t poisoning the water on our land, Haydn. It’ll be upstream somewhere. It would take you weeks, maybe months to find the source.”

“Well, we can’t just sit back and do nothing. Taking water from the main river is proving too hard, ma. We have to find out who is doing it…and why.”

“It is obvious why,” she said and turned to him. “We have prime grazing land and whoever it is wants it. They know we ain’t gonna sell so they are gonna make life as difficult for us as they can until we roll over.”

Haydn went to the table that dominated the center of the room and slumped into a chair. “It is times like these that I wish Pa was still alive.”

“Oh? Why? You don’t think I’m capable?”

“It’s not that, Ma, you know it’s not. But Pa, he was tough and few people would think about tangling with him.”

She returned to the coffee and placed the pot on one of the hotplates. “That is probably why he ended up getting himself killed.”

“We don’t know that. Not for certain. There’s never been any proof.”

Shaking her head, Hilary Burgess poured water over the crushed beans and waited for the coffee to brew.

“Why don’t I go into town and try the sheriff again?”

“Charlie Westonbrook?” She scoffed. “He won’t do nothin’. Just like with what happened to your pa, he’ll say there ain’t no evidence.”

“But if I can persuade him to just take a look. It might put some doubt into their minds, make whoever is doing this reconsider their actions.”

“I doubt it. Charlie Westonbrook is a good man but he just ain’t got the manpower to go up against any of the landowners around here.”