Black Rock Cañon

When horse hunters Del Rockwall and youthful Tie Taylor drift through Montana’s backlands looking for wild mustangs, they encounter two sights that change their lives. A sleek-coated roan, blue as a Colt barrel, and a stunning woman (Aldis Spain, who’ll do anything to leave her uncle Black Jack Jennings’s Forked Tongue ranch) riding toward them on a beautiful appaloosa. Word’s out the two are hunting the stallion Blue Boy, and Tie’s soon winged by a bushwhacker. Then the sultry Aldis lures Tie into marriage. Though baffled, Jennings gives the couple a ranch and talks Del into running it. But Aldis never changes her runaway ways, and she meets for a secret rendezvous at hidden Black Rock Cañon. While rival Blue Boy hunters gun for each other in the night and a scorned Tie accuses Del of stealing Aldis, Del must decide to ride out or keep on Blue Boy’s dangerous trail. This story was made into one of Joel McCrea’s best Westerns as 1954’s Black Horse Canyon. He called it “My favorite Western, a book that I will never forget.” Now the reader can see what he meant.