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About Bullets in the Sun: A Western Story (Unabridged)

Sunrise, despite its name, is a wicked town. It is the only wide open town in the Crazy Butte country. It attracts gamblers, above all Dan Farlin, who works in the Red Arrow, the most prosperous saloon in Sunrise, owned by Big Tom Lester, who runs the town if anyone does. Sheriff Mills usually stays in Rocky Point, the county seat, and rarely comes to Sunrise, in part because of a tacit agreement he has with outlaw leader Ed Lawson, who in exchange for legal immunity for him and his gang has never committed a robbery of any kind in the Crazy Butte country. But Sheriff Mills now does show up in Sunrise, comes into the hostile atmosphere of the Red Arrow, and warns Big Tom that a man named Bovert is heading for the town. When he does arrive, Big Tom is to pass the word to everyone including Ed Lawson that Bovert is to be left alone.Dan Farlin has promised his young daughter Gladys that he intends this to be his last season in Sunrise, that he expects to make enough money from his trade to be able to retire to a large ranch he is buying in the south. Ed Lawson and his gang, loaded with money from a recent robbery, arrive in Sunrise, looking for a game with Farlin. In this tense environment Jim Bond, a stranger, meets Gladys Farlin while she is out riding and asks her directions to Sunrise. Dan Farlin and Sheriff Mills are witnesses to this encounter, but Mills does not seem to recognize Jim Bond, although Farlin suspects he really is Bovert, and this view is shared by Big Tom and gunman, Porky Snyder, who works as Big Tom's bodyguard. Could all this be Sheriff Mills's strategy, that with the arrival of the fearsome Bovert a conflict will break out among the lawless element, and that one or more of them will not live through it?