Double Cross - Mike Taylor

Montana Territory, 1890. A boy has vanished, a ransom note demands $50,000, and an old tracker is about to discover that nothing about the trail ahead is what it seems.

Young Randle DeWitt rides out from the Diamond D Ranch expecting to meet the cowboys bringing in his father’s herd. Instead, he disappears.

The only clues left behind are a torn piece of his clothing and a chilling message: pay the ransom, involve no lawmen, and do exactly as instructed, or the boy dies.

Desperate to bring his son home, wealthy rancher Forrest DeWitt turns to his neighbor, Nick Cross.

Nick has left his old life behind. Once known for his ability to track dangerous men across unforgiving country, he now wants nothing more than to work his ranch and share a peaceful life with his wife, Mattie. But faced with a missing child and a devastated family, he reluctantly agrees to ride again.

What begins as a rescue soon becomes a dangerous pursuit across the rugged Montana frontier.

With a handful of Diamond D cowboys beside him, Nick follows a trail through brutal spring weather, isolated ranch country, armed men, shifting loyalties, and old tensions that still haunt the American West. But the farther they ride, the more troubling the journey becomes.

The clues don’t add up.

The trail feels almost too convenient.

And something buried in Nick’s past is beginning to catch up with him.

Someone has planned more than a kidnapping and before the trail ends, loyalty, family, revenge, and survival will all collide.

Double Cross is a gripping historical Western packed with frontier adventure, ranch life, tracking, gunfights, suspense, betrayal, rugged characters, and flashes of cowboy humor. An immersive ride for readers who enjoy Old West fiction where danger can appear over the next ridge and every man has a past.