From acclaimed storyteller Tim Washburn, the second adventure in his thrilling new saga of the Old West, the sprawling story of one frontier family-and the Texas home they fought for, lived for, and died for...

The Ridgeway family faces their greatest challenge when a devastating drought threatens to spark an open range war, forcing them to fight for their ranch, their dream-and their lives...

DEATH BY THE DEVIL'S ROPE

It's the summer of 1883. A severe drought threatens to bankrupt the Ridgeway's Rocking R Ranch and every rancher in northwest Texas. The cattle are thirsty and hungry. The ranchers are getting desperate. And a simple new invention called barbed wire-the devil's rope-is their only defense against illegal herders grazing on their land. Percy Ridgeway and his brother Eli are working overtime to stake a fence around their sixty thousand acres. But someone keeps cutting the wires. The Ridgeways keep fixing them. And soon Perry is tangled in a high-stakes showdown with a thieving cattleman named Northcutt and his cutthroat henchmen. Let the battle begin...

History would call it the Fence Wars of 1883. The Ridgeways would call it the summer they fought back-come hell or dry water...