Brian Hutchison

2 CHILDREN FOR SALE The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams. It could have been written by any mother facing impossible choices. For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family's dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when it leads to his big break, the consequences...

Idaho, 1879. When the McCandles gang shoots up a small town, seventeen-year-old Joseph Roper decides to bring them to justice, alone. Decades later in 1938, he tells his story to an interviewer with the Federal Writers Project.

"In his mountain-man days, Elwood 'Firestick' McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name 'Firestick.' His two best buddies are Malachi 'Beartooth' Skinner--whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly's chompers--and Jim 'Moosejaw' Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat...