The Tin-Pan Man — P.A. Bechko

Saquarra is a quiet desert town where Samantha Cameron very much does not want to be. In the dead of night she makes a desperate escape on horseback only to lose the horse through an accident, ending up on foot. The next day, nearly overcome from exposure to the heat and imperiled by a rattlesnake, she is 'rescued' by a traveling merchant, Zachariah Kane, who carries her in his wagon right back to Saquarra! Kane is a man in flight from his past--dreadful experiences in the Civil War--and has been rootless ever since. Upon his arrival in Saquarra he learns the painful injustice he has done by returning Samantha to where she is known as Mississippi Pike's 'whore, ' and learns that this town is literally under siege.