No Time to Trust

NO TIME TO TRUST is the story of Joe, so-named by a 7 year old orphan. It is set in the year 1878 in Montana. It is a story replete with victims, vengeance, duty to family and honor. Joe is introduced to the reader having no name, no past, no knowledge of who or where he is. Unconscious-the victim of a shooting-with a head wound that deprives him of his long term memory and very nearly his life, Joe struggles to put the pieces of his life’s puzzle together. Initially through dream sequences and later, through fragments of memories, unusual events and encounters, he learns that he is a gunman, a son, and a brother. A witness to his father’s murder, Joe grows up to become a killer with a penchant for vengeance. His father’s death forced him into the role of protector and provider for his mother, younger brother and sister, and ultimately judge and jury. Two men are pivotal to Joe’s development as a gunfighter. Foster Smith is a Western man-the real deal. His co-hort, Brigham Larson, is the storekeeper from whom Joe learns the skills of gunmanship in his early teens. It is their wisdom and Old West rules that reside in his head and guide his decision making. Seeking answers to the attack on his life, Joe stops at what appears to be an abandoned farm. The sole resident is a seven year old child, Millie. Her father’s dead body lies in the yard. It is around Millie’s fate that the story swirls. It is in her defense that Joe is thrust into a hunt and a showdown with the murderer.