A Two Horse Town — Kathleen Kaska

Kate Caraway hates giving lectures at the University of Illinois so much that she fears she'll lose her mind. So, when a student, Nate Springfield, walks into her office with a story of wild horses in danger, Kate takes an immediate leave of absence. Forty-eight hours later, she arrives in Two Horse, Montana, one of the most rugged and isolated areas in the state. In a race against time, she uses her expertise and influence as a well-respected animal-rights activist to assist Nate's eighty-two-year-old great-grandmother, Ida, in saving her herd of wild mustangs. If the county's proposal to dam the Crow River passes, Ida's water source will disappear. Her horses will be sold to the highest bidder and, most likely, turned into dog food. Before Kate can meet with a small coalition of citizens, who also stand to lose if the dam proposal passes, she stumbles upon a corpse with a knife wedged in his back. The dead man is Frank Springfield, Ida's estranged son and her number-one enemy, a highly vocal member of the ranching community, who favors the dam. Since Nate is the last person to have seen his grandfather alive, the sheriff issues a warrant for his arrest, and the young man goes on the lam. Kate is convinced of his innocence and determined to prove it, but as she gets closer to truth, she discovers that some men will do anything, including murder, to keep their nefarious scheme from being exposed.