Where the long grass blows - Louis L'Amour

Bill Canavan figured he’d herded other men’s cattle for long enough: it was time to settle down and build up a ranch of his own, and he knew just the place he wanted...

When he came to the Valley, he walked into a war between the Pogues and the Reynolds, two big ranchers who both wanted to control the whole valley – and the land Canavan wanted cut right across both their spreads. Pogue tried to hire him as a gunman, but Canavan didn’t aim to work for anybody—he had his own, old score to settle with Pogue. He could let the two sides wipe each other out—and when the smoke cleared, he’d be sitting pretty on some of the finest land in the Valley.