TERRITORY

You think you know the story. You don't. Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 isthe site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, whereveins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of powerthat belongs to anyone who knows how to claim and defend it. Abovethe ground, power is also about allegiances. A magician can drain hisfriends' strength to strengthen himself, and can place them between himand danger. The one with the most friends stands to win the territory. Jesse Fox left his Eastern college education to travel West, where he'smade some decidedly odd friends, like the physician Chow Lung, who insiststhat Jesse has a talent for magic. In Tombstone, Jesse meets the tubercularDoc Holliday, whose inner magic is as suppressed as his own, but whosepower is enough to attract the sorcerous attention of Wyatt Earp.Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making her living as a newspapertypesetter, and—unbeknownst to the other ladies ofTombstone—selling tales of Western derring-do to the magazines backEast. Like Jesse, Mildred has episodes of seeing things that can'tpossibly be there. When a failed stage holdup results in two dead,Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery. Thetruth could destroy Earp's plans for wealth and glory, and he'll doanything to bury it. Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the sameturf as Earp. Each courts Jesse as an ally, and tries to isolate him byendangering his friends, as they struggle for magical dominance of theterritory. Events are building toward the shootout of which you mayhave heard. But you haven't heard the whole, secret story until you'veread Emma Bull's unique take on an American legend, in which absolutelynothing is as it seems...