Publisher's Synopsis
Cole Lavery is on a riverboat bound for Westport Landing. When Captain Farrell offers him half his fare to help to protect the riverboat from pirates, Cole takes a chance. The odds are formidable, since a notorious bandit is aboard ship, posing as a US senator. Marta Strand also wants to seek her future. She has been engaged by the bogus senator to sing in the riverboat's barroom. This is only the first leg of a journey that will find Marta held prisoner in a town where Cole is the only man she knows. Following their marriage, the couple sets out on a wagon that comes down with a dreaded small pox epidemic. Even arriving in California is no guarantee of peace. They are driven off their land by the powerful Cy McGann who has every intention of laying claim to that is currently being surveyed by the federal government.
