High in the Rockies lay the Bayou Salade, a lush beaver–rich valley so untouched that the few white men who had seen it called it paradise. But for Scratch Bass, his young partner Josiah Paddock, and the two Indian women they loved, this paradise would open up a hell of violence. Pursued by a vengeful Arapaho raiding party, Scratch will lead his small band through a flurry of arrows all the way to Taos itself. Yet the trail of blood will not end there. For in St. Louis an old enemy waits, and the time is ripe for Scratch to settle a ten-year score. Through the desert known as the Journey of Death to the rough-and-tumble town of St. Louis, Scratch and Josiah will defy the wilderness to bury the past—and a blackhearted killer—once and for all.