Bitter Creek : a western story
(Book)

Cal Watson is having a terrible streak of bad luck. First he's lured into the desert with promises of a rich mine, only to find out the mine is a bust. Then he's beaten and denied water at the first ranch he stumbles onto. But even those are mere inconveniences when he learns that a mine he just sold for $500 was resold for $20,000. That's one insult Cal won't take lying down. Determined to reverse his fortune, he concocts a tricky scheme to win back his money and humiliate the man who conned him. But he'll need a lot more than luck in this contest of wills, for he's going up against the shrewdest, most dangerous man in town—a man who would take Cal's life just as easily as he took his mine.