A lone gunman. A fatal mistake. A hunt across the unforgiving desert. In the sun-scorched badlands, a man known only as Rip is left afoot when his horse takes a bad step. A chance ride on a freight wagon seems like a lifeline, but it plunges him into the heart of a bloody ambush. In the chaos, he escapes with his life, a stolen horse, and a saddlebag-but it's the wrong one. Now, he's carrying a fortune in bank bonds he never wanted, and the desert is crawling with men who will kill to get it back. A relentless manhunt begins across the blistering alkali flats and through shadowed canyons. Rip is pursued by three deadly forces: a ruthless gang of outlaws led by the brutal Slade, a dogged sheriff and his Comanche tracker seeking frontier justice, and a cunning bounty hunter, Flint McCrae, who is always one step behind. But the stolen bonds are a lie, a decoy in a deeper conspiracy of greed and murder orchestrated by a corrupt banker. Rip, the only loose end, becomes the target of every gun in the territory. Battling a venomous snakebite, debilitating thirst, and the ghosts of a war he can't forget, Rip must outwit his hunters and unravel the truth before the desert, or a bullet, claims him for good. ROUGH SHOD is a gritty, high-octane wild western adventure in the vein of Elmore Leonard and Louis L'Amour, a taut story of survival, betrayal, and the deadly cost of a single mistake.