Trail Drive — Brian Garfield

Dan Sweet was a tall man, a strong man, and most important, a man who had taken his own measure and lived by it. Now he had promised Ben Gaultt to drive four thousand head of beef across the blazing Arizona desert -- Indian country. Sweet was not the man to make an idle promise.
But trouble was brewing; there were too many people who didn't want that beef to market. Nate Ringabaugh gave Sweet his first warning, and Ringabaugh was a man who commanded respect. Miles Littlejack had grimly fought Sweet for authority, and Owen Mingo was doing his best to whip the crew into a mutiny.
There was one man left. He was waiting. In his mind, Ben Gaultt had to be ruined, and there was only one way to do it. Dan Sweet had to die.

The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA's most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen â€" which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print.
A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time.
Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay.
To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Brian Garfield died on December 29 2018. He and his wife lived in California.