Desert Of Blood synopsis by William C. Martell

DESERT OF BLOOD

The American West, 1886: For ex-Civil War hero turned gunslinger Tom Ford and his sexy partner Mary Hathaway, robbing the Bank Of Corkscrew was a breeze. Especially `when the Head Teller Owen Hawks is your inside man.

The haul is close to a hundred grand in cash and gold, but when the job goes wrong the three are forced to shoot their way out of town... leaving behind a wounded sheriff, Martin Siegel, vowing vengeance.

To cover their tracks the three don disguises and split up. Owen riding to the north, Mary to the south, and Tom (disguised as a preacher with the loot hidden in a trunk full of bibles) taking his wagon to the west through the Paint Desert. The three will meet in Tombstone to split up the loot.

In the desert: Tom stops for the night at a Wells Fargo relay station run by old cowboy Hank Sturges. Whenever there's two day's ride or more between towns, the stage coach company has built a relay station where fresh horses and a water supply. Sturges has been living alone at the desert outpost over a dozen years - tending the horses... he's happy to have company, even if it's a preacher like Tom.

In the middle of the night, when the wind whistles through the sand and the coyotes howl like a hundred screaming babies, Tom hears the sound of hoofbeats and the insane cry of renegade Indians lead by Chief Raincloud... Except Raincloud and his tribe were killed a dozen years ago to make the stage route safe for passengers. Are these the ghosts of Indians? Tom is attacked.

The next morning Sturges finds Tom brutally dead, scalped by Raincloud. Sturges buries Tom and his wagon in the middle of the desert... this isn't the first time Raincloud's ghost has attacked people staying at the station. Is Raincloud really alive? Is Sturges his protector? Or is Sturges just worried that people will think he's crazy if he accuses a ghost of murder?

A week later Mary and Owen meet in Tombstone and wonder what happened to Tom. Did he double cross them and steal the loot? With Martin Siegel hot on her trail, Mary backtracks into the desert to the old Wells Fargo relay station... where she encounters old Hank Sturges... and the ghost of Raincloud.

Now it's up to Owen - a shy bank teller in the savage desert, trying to hunt down his two partners and the missing money and gold. Riding into a world of Indian folklore, evil spirits, and hungry coyotes... a cowboy Icabod Crane in a barren Sleepy Hollow. Will Owen find a ghost on horseback? A legend with a hatchet? Or an Indian thought to be dead getting revenge against the whites who double crossed him? Or will he find an elaborate double cross by Tom and Mary designed to cheat him out of his share?

When the darkness settles on the desert, Owen is forced to confront his fears, his friends, and an evil that will not die. Cowboys and the ghosts of slaughtered Indians.

For a copy of this script... E-mail me! Wcmartell@compuserve.com

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