Double Cross

Along the Missouri River, a stranger confronts the boy, knocks him unconscious, and takes him away. Soon afterward, ranch hands discover a torn piece of Randel’s clothing and a threatening note. The message demands fifty thousand dollars and warns that any attempt to involve the law will cost the boy his life.

The disappearance brings Nick Cross into the story.

Nick is a rancher who has deliberately left behind a very different life. In his younger years, he served as an Army scout, tracked men, worked with the Pinkertons, and became known for abilities he would rather forget. Now he wants little more than his ranch, his wife Mattie, and a quieter existence.

But when Randel’s horse mysteriously appears tied to the Cross ranch, Nick is drawn into the DeWitts’ crisis. Forrest DeWitt asks him to use his old skills to find the missing boy.

Nick initially refuses.

He no longer hunts men.

Then he sees Randel’s devastated mother, May, and is reminded of the grief he and Mattie experienced after losing their own son, Owen. The resemblance between the two mothers’ pain is enough to make walking away far more difficult.

Nick eventually enters the search, following tracks through enormous stretches of ranchland, river country, settlements, storms, and dangerous territory. Along the way, several young Diamond D cowboys become entangled in the pursuit, while Mattie refuses to remain merely a worried wife waiting at home.

But the search contains inconsistencies from the beginning.

The kidnappers appear to know too much.

Plans fail too conveniently.

Randel’s horse was not simply lost—it was deliberately tied at Nick’s ranch.

And Forrest DeWitt seems to know more about Nick’s past than a stranger should.

Long before the truth becomes clear, Nick realizes that finding Randel may require confronting events he thought were buried with the frontier wars of his youth.