Dead Weight

Dead Weight (An Eldridge Sample Western)

He promised a dying lawman he'd deliver the prisoner. He didn't promise to keep him happy.

Riding through the blistering silence of the Arizona badlands, drifter Eldridge Sample spots a circle of vultures and rides into a trap. At the bottom of a dry wash lies an overturned prison wagon, a dead driver, and a U.S. Marshal bleeding out in the dust.

The Marshal's last request? Take the badge, take the key, and deliver the passenger to Yuma Prison.

The passenger is Virgil Sweet-a dapper, fast-talking con man who embezzled fifty thousand dollars in bearer bonds from the most ruthless gang leader in the territory. Virgil is smart, slippery, and convinced he can buy his way out of anything. But he's about to find out that Eldridge Sample doesn't trade in bribes; he trades in keeping his word.

Now, with the murderous Bishop gang hot on their heels and the desert heat closing in, Sample must drag his "dead weight" across a landscape that wants them both dead. From a siege in a crumbling ghost town to a high-stakes bluff in a slot canyon, the two men are forced into an uneasy alliance where the only thing cheaper than the talk is the lead.

"You're a dinosaur, Sample," the con man said. "Honor gets you killed."

"Maybe," Sample replied. "But greed gets you buried."

Witty, violent, and relentlessly paced, Dead Weight combines the gritty realism of 3:10 to Yuma with the sharp-tongued dialogue of an Elmore Leonard classic. It is a story about the heavy burden of a promise and the dangerous allure of a fortune that might just be smoke.