Peace medicine

About this book

"Peace medicine" by W. C. Tuttle is a Western adventure novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Peace River Parker, a wrongly branded ex-con gunman, who returns to Chinook Valley just as a ruthless scheme by Clell Danert and Jefferson Crane aims to force sheep through Poncho Pass and spark a range war. With rancher “Cross L” Marshall and his daughter Jess at the heart of the threatened cattle paradise, loyalties, reputations, and livelihoods collide on a violent frontier.

The opening of the novel lays out Chinook Valley’s cattle Eden and its tight-knit power structure before pivoting to personal stakes: Danert presses a weary Jess for marriage while foreman Bart Farley distrusts him, and the valley’s past scandal—Peace Parker’s conviction on Crane’s testimony—hangs over all. In Tarp City, Crane secretly arranges to flood the valley with sheep, planting a small night wedge to open the way for a vast herd, and an intermediary hires a herder—unwittingly recruiting Peace, just freed from prison. Peace reaches town after tossing an abusive stage driver, survives a shootout in a restaurant using Danert’s gun, sizes up the sheep plot, and publicly humiliates Crane. Shadowed by Crane’s gunmen, he avoids contacting the Marshalls until Jess stops him; he warns her to ride home and alert her father. A street brawl erupts, Peace disarms Jud Evers, steals Danert’s horse, and races for Poncho Pass, where Perez and Wylie seize Jess; a rifle shot drops Peace’s horse and sends him tumbling into a ravine, leaving the crisis poised on a cliffhanger.