The curse of the painted cliffs

Description

"The curse of the painted cliffs" by W. C. Tuttle is a Western adventure novel written in the early 20th century. Set in the Mojave’s boomtown of Calico in the 1880s, it centers on Luck Sleed, heir to saloons and silver mines, and Duke Steele, a cool-nerved drifter, caught in a ruthless power struggle led by desert kingpin Cartier Le Moyne and his henchmen. Expect gunplay, crooked gambling, mine intrigue, and a lone woman’s defiance against a town ruled by heat, whiskey, and quick triggers. The opening of the novel paints Calico’s blistering landscape and its cliff-dwelling miners, then thrusts into conflict: Luck inherits Silver Sleed’s empire, hires Fire French to run the Silver Bar, and fires him after he kills a miner over “honor,” choosing to run the place herself. Duke Steele returns under Le Moyne’s scheme to control mines, liquor, and gambling, but he humiliates French, flattens mine boss Pete Black, and quietly signals he’ll protect Luck. Amid a staged brawl, Luck disappears; Louie Yen, her devoted ally, suspects kidnappers and briefly targets Duke, who then teams with Louie and Mica Cates to shadow French, Black, and Slim Curlew. Meanwhile Le Moyne, fearing betrayal and suspecting ore theft tied to Telluride Taylor, secretly arrives, shutters the rival Mojave saloon, and forges an uneasy pact with Duke to break his own rogue operators and find Luck. The section ends with the Silver Bar packed, the Mojave dark, and a showdown gathering in Calico’s moonlit street. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Western stories
• Young women -- Fiction
• Mining camps -- Fiction
• PS