A vow he couldn’t break—and a girl he couldn’t forget… Seventeen-year-old Jem Hardy pleaded with the wagon master. He had to join the wagon train had to cross the Oregon Trail had to keep a sacred promise—but he couldn’t reveal the truth. Grudgingly the man took him on as a scout. Jem had never scouted a mile in his life. But he had another set of skills. Skills no one could imagine. As the courageous men and women of the wagon train face bandits bloodshed and betrayal Jem’s secret could save their lives—or doom them all. “John Deacon writes the kind of Westerns I like to read—gritty and fun with lots of heart.” — Don Bentley New York Times Bestselling author of the Matt Drake thrillers; the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Jr. novels; and the Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp series