Description

Gerrit Nagel arrives in Billings, Montana, with nothing but the clothes on his back—and an older brother who expects him to become a cowboy, whether he's ready or not.

Thrown into the unforgiving world of cattle drives, Gerrit learns to ride, rope, and survive behind two thousand head of restless longhorns pushing north across the open range. But while others see dust, danger, and hard work, Gerrit sees something more. In his mind, he's a Pinkerton detective, tracking outlaws who hide in plain sight among the cowboys.

And the longer he rides the appaloosa horse, Eb, that he's begun to love, the more real those outlaws begin to feel.

Wanted posters appear in every town. Faces blur into one another—until one stands out. Dutch Henry. A name whispered in fear. A face Gerrit can't forget. It's as if the outlaw is always just ahead of him… or watching from the shadows. Worse yet, Gerrit has an uneasy feeling that the cousin he's hoping to find in Montana looks an awful lot like the man on those posters.

But no one else seems to see what Gerrit sees. Not the trail hands. Not his brother. To them, he's stuck between being a greenhorn cowboy and a boy with too much imagination.

So Gerrit must ask himself if the outlaws are real—or is he chasing ghosts across the badlands? And what if Dutch Henry really is his cousin?

In a land where danger is never far and truth is harder to pin down than a runaway steer, Gerrit's greatest challenge may be proving that what he sees isn't just in his head.