Fiction. Western. HTML:<CENTER>Careful What You Bet</CENTER>

In Salt Springs, on the Fourth of July, a young man took a bet--and ended up broken, battered and fighting for his life. . .But Billy Piper didn't die. He just came back to haunt Salt Springs--with all the book learning he did during his convalescence, with all the love he had for a whore, with all the friendship he shared with an old cowboy who couldn't help see the difference between right and wrong. . .

In this extraordinary classic Western by award-winning Hollywood screenwriter William Blinn (Gunsmoke, Bonanza), the story of Billy Piper becomes a powerful tale of two men's undying friendship, of a murder and a fight for justice. . .With the town of Salt Springs buckling and booming under the flow of oil and the coming of a railroad, where one man's power and dark secret would tear Billy Piper apart--until he picked up a gun and changed everything forever. . .and Salt Springs would explode in violence and blood.

William Blinn is a screenwriter who helped bring the Western to American television audiences, with credits on Gunsmoke, The High Chaparrall, The Big Valley,Rawhide, and Bonanza. A two-time Emmy award winner, he has also been acclaimed for his writing for such TV movies as "Brian's Song" and "Roots." He also created the classic TV series The Rookies and Starsky and Hutch..