Nightland — Louis Owens

A man falls from the sky over the New Mexico wilds. Will Striker and Billy Keene, two lifelong friends who share half-Cherokee blood, see him come down. Near the corpse they find another object from the sky as well: a suitcase containing nearly a million dollars. If they keep the money, it can turn their dead-end lives around.

Thus begins a thriller set in a dry-as-dust New Mexico landscape where human grit is more plentiful than water. But for Will and Billy, their odds of success are altered by offers of help from one ancient grandfather, one ex-wife, one beautiful lover -- and a trail of blood left by the men who lost the money and want it back...