Dead Or Alive

Book 3 of 4 In Lost Dutchman Saga

De: Lon Safko

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Dead or Alive is the raw, unforgiving heart of The Lost Dutchman Saga—a Western stripped of mythology and rebuilt as a human reckoning. In this third installment, John Whitehorn, an aging bounty hunter carved from hardship and haunted by memory, rides through the dying frontier in pursuit of the one outlaw who refuses to stay buried in his past: Charles Hatton. Their struggle becomes something larger than law and larger than vengeance—it becomes a collision of fate, guilt, and redemption in a land that devours weak men and hardens the strong into legends no one asked for.

Whitehorn begins in the broken town of Dawson, where whiskey, regret, and gun smoke hang heavier than the air. He has chased Hatton across territories and years, driven by a duty he no longer believes in and a conscience he can’t quite kill. When he finally corners Hatton at a firelit camp, the confrontation erupts in violence. Hatton escapes, believing Whitehorn dead. But a miracle intervenes: the dented gold Deputy’s badge over John’s heart stops the bullet meant to end him. Bruised, bleeding, and fueled by fury, Whitehorn remounts his faithful horse Stand-Watie and continues the chase.

Hatton flees west, carrying stolen gold and the bitter taste of a man who has crossed every line left to him. He hides in ghost towns, abandoned mines, and the cracked silence of a frontier losing its last scraps of civilization. Yet no matter how far he rides, the shadow of the Ghost of Amarillo—Whitehorn’s old reputation—follows him like a curse.

Their paths collide again in Dry Creek, where Hatton slips through Whitehorn’s fingers after a brutal fight in the rain. John’s wounds deepen, but so does his resolve. The chase becomes a pilgrimage through deserts, mountains, and the memory-scored scars of both men.

It all ends in Swilling’s Mill, a lawless Arizona settlement where one act of violence changes everything. A young Black woman, Julia Heady, accidentally kills a man while fighting off Hatton’s assault. The town is ready to hang her, and the truth would surely condemn her. Whitehorn makes a choice: he bends the story to save her life and finally bring Hatton to justice. By dawn, Hatton hangs from a sixteen-knot rope, and Julia walks free.

Whitehorn collects the bounty, but victory feels hollow. The West doesn’t reward the righteous; it simply spares the survivors. As he rides away, Stand-Watie carrying both their burdens across the fading frontier, Whitehorn knows the legend of the Lost Dutchman is only half about gold. The other half is men like him—ghosts still walking, still paying, still searching for a redemption that rides just ahead of the horizon.