Skeleton Hand

by Paul Lederer

In a desolate mountain shack, three ranchers find a hidden treasure On a freezing mountainside, three out-of-work cowboys are near death when one of them spies a long-abandoned trapper’s shack. It is little more than a pile of old logs, but it has a hearth and a chimney where they can build the fire that will save their lives. Before he lights the wood, Cody Hawk checks the chimney to make sure it’s clear. Inside he finds a pair of saddlebags, filled to the brim with gold. In the corner of the shack, underneath a pile of old furs, he discovers the gold’s former owner, whom time has reduced to a pile of bones.   The coins are fifteen years old, stolen in some forgotten robbery, and the desperate men believe they can claim them as their own. But dead man’s gold is always cursed, and these coins will buy nothing but heartache, danger, and death.

138 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2014

About the author

Paul Joseph Lederer wrote more than 250 novels, many of them Westerns. He was born in Ocean Beach, CA, attended San Diego State University, served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War, and lived in La Mesa, CA, until he passed away in 2016.

His work can also be found under the names Paul Joseph Lederer, Logan Winters, Owen G. Irons, C. J. Sommers, and Elizabeth Wolfe. In recent years, many of these books have been reprinted as by Paul Lederer.

Lederer wrote most of the adult western series Shelter as Paul Ledd and Ruff Justice as Warren T. Longtree. He also wrote for the Easy Company and Lone Star series.

Reviews

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is a western that features 3 itinerant cowpunchers moving on to the next ranching area looking for work. During their travel, a snowstorm forces them to seek the nearest shelter, which turns out to be an abandoned trapper’s cabin. As they look around the cabin for any food or fuel to build a fire, they discover a long dead body. They also by chance discovered old saddlebags with $3,800 in gold coins. Using the old theory that finders are keepers and losers are weepers; they conclude gold coins now belong to them. Plus, with the probable owner of the gold coins being dead for many months at least, who else would know about the gold and that now this gold will be missing. Well, that is where the story takes several twists and turns concerning who is the rightful owner and how many people have a claim on ownership. So, it is an intriguing story with danger and complicating weather conditions following the cowpokes as they attempt to get away with the gold. There is not a lot of character development as the reader knows little or nothing about the cowboys. In fact, even the cowboys know little about one another. You’ll see their characters develop as the story develops. And a small fortune in gold has a way of either bringing out the real character of a person or changing their character. Dialogue is genuine to the people and the times. This story will keep you guessing as to how the story will turn out in the end and thus keep you reading until the conclusion.